Informed by the author’s extensive travels in and around the Atlantic Ocean, crossing Newfoundland’s Grand Banks, the Sea of Darkness and the weed-covered Sargasso Sea to make landfall at locations as diverse as Vinland, Greenland, the Faroes and the Cape Verde Islands, and populated by a heterogeneous and multi-ethnic cast of seafarers, fishermen, monks, merchants and dreamers, ‘Ocean’ is an in-depth history of a neglected subject, fusing geology, geography, mythology, cosmology, developing maritime technologies and the early history of exploration to narrate an enthralling and intriguing story – one which lies at the very heart of Europe’s modern history and its relationship with the rest of the world. A history on a grand scale, ‘Ocean’ offers the reader a feast of historical storytelling.