12 : The Atlantic 



of an entirely different kind. I was surprised because while hundreds 

 of millions of people have crossed the Atlantic and taken up resi- 

 dence about its shores and while it remains a central important factor 

 in the life of scores of nations, no one seems to have collected the 

 information and assembled it into a unified history of the Atlantic or 

 to have shown how the ocean has operated and continues to operate 

 in human affairs. 



One might well hesitate to undertake a subject that dealt with so 

 great an area; that involved a knowledge of so many kinds of infor- 

 mation; that developed through such millennia of time. Cautiously I 

 went on collecting information, thinking about the problems and 

 writing enormous masses of material. This book has been through 

 many changes. There have indeed been several books that finally 

 came together. At one time there was a book about the physical ge- 

 ography or oceanography of the Atlantic. There were also volumes 

 on voyages and discoveries, on ships and seamen and their adven- 

 tures. There came into being also materials and observations on the 

 Atlantic wars and the place of the Atlantic in world strategy. 



All of the materials were in themselves interesting and some excit- 

 ing; all were useful but the whole structure was unsatisfactory be- 

 cause there was no relation between the parts and no serious at- 

 tempt to tell a connected story. There are a number of good books 

 on oceanography but the oceanographers have seldom taken time to 

 tell us how winds and currents have affected the voyages of ships, the 

 progress of discovery, the outcome of naval engagements, the flow of 

 commerce. Similarly there are excellent books on particular technical 

 subjects such as the building and rigging of ships; there are books on 

 voyages of discovery and adventure; on naval battles; on shipwrecks 

 and disasters; and so on — in each of these classes we need the basic 

 interpretation that links the detailed events to the character of the 

 ocean on one hand and the development of social history on the 

 other. Most books of history are written by landsmen who neglect the 

 ocean because they know so little about it. Nor have the seamen 

 themselves done very much to supply us with a general ocean history. 

 Most of the seamen when they commence writing find it difficult to 

 break away from technicalities. They tend to overburden us with the 

 details of some special subject. Admirals Mahan and Morrison would 

 serve as notable exceptions to prove the rule. 



So it seems there was a place for an ocean history and the book has 

 finally been written as such. I have great sympathy with the modern 

 Samuel Butler who said that he never decided what subject to write 



