Pacific, by Simon Winchester

[Farrier1987]

Pacific, by Simon Winchester

I do like Simon Winchester. He was a foreign correspondent for the Times of London various places around the globe. Very readable and informative, usually with a scientific and or historical bent. He is actually a geologist. I guess I would describe his books as documentaries, with him as the host, reporting on the situation, not trying to push a viewpoint or agenda.

Pacific is an overview of the ocean that takes up about a third of our planet. He goes into things like atom bomb testing, the history of surfboarding, how the pacific generates most of the weather on the globe, the ring of fire and some of the political push and pull historical and current.

A good read, although I have enjoyed a couple of his others more. River at the Centre of the World, which is about him going up the Yangtze from the ocean to its source in Tibet, which twines history of China with the course of the river. And The Map that Changed the World, how the father of modern understanding of geological time figured things out. This guy is to geology what Newton and Einstein are to Physics.

[kenya]

Sounds very interesting!

[Killerbunny]

His Krakatoa is very good too and readable.