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Pacific: The Ocean of the Future
Simon Winchester
Travelling the circumference of the truly gigantic Pacific, Simon Winchester tells the story of the world’s largest body of water, and – in matters economic, political and military – the ocean of the future.The Pacific is a world of tsunamis and Magellan, of the Bounty mutiny and the Boeing Company. It is the stuff of the towering Captain Cook and his wide-ranging network of exploring voyages, Robert Louis Stevenson and Admiral Halsey. It is the place of Paul Gauguin and the explosion of the largest-ever American atomic bomb, on Bikini atoll, in 1951. It has an astonishing recent past, an uncertain present and a hugely important future.The ocean and its peoples are the new lifeblood, fizz and thrill of America – which draws so many of its minds and so much of its manners from the sea – while the inexorable rise of the ancient center of the world, China, is a fixating fascination. The presence of rogue states – North Korea most notoriously today – suggest that the focus of the responsible world is shifting away from the conventional post-war obsessions with Europe and the Middle East, and towards a new set of urgencies. Navigating the newly evolving patterns of commerce and trade, the world’s most violent weather and the fascinating histories, problems and potentials of the many Pacific states, Simon Winchester’s thrilling journey is a grand depiction of the future ocean.
Praise for Pacific: (#u2a1edb76-2ec7-5f37-be8f-22032d2c77bc)
‘Winchester does a virtuoso job. … A giant Aladdin’s rug, which he then gamely invites his readers to climb aboard’ New York Times
‘Revealing … delightful … fascinating … highly recommended’ San Francisco Chronicle
‘Fascinating, provocative, and at times, mildly terrifying. … The hallmarks of Winchester’s best work—a fertile, curious mind, impeccable research and command of complex material—are on full display here’ Miami Herald
‘Winchester writes books like someone telling a good yarn around the fireplace … by interweaving history, fascinating trivia, and acute observation’ New York Times Book Review
‘Winchester has a smooth and easy prose style, one that is trustable and clear … He excels at guiding the reader with a contagious sense of wonder’ Boston Globe
‘[Winchester is] a terrific raconteur with a knack for making connections that might have eluded you between events behind the headlines. … Where Pacific opts to go, it goes with savvy and verve’ Seattle Times
‘Winchester has prodigious gifts as a popular historian and an explainer of faraway events’ Los Angeles Times
‘Provocative … and lively’ Wall Street Journal
Copyright (#u2a1edb76-2ec7-5f37-be8f-22032d2c77bc)
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com)
First published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2015
First published in the United States by Harper in 2015
Copyright © Simon Winchester 2015
Jacket design by Gregg Kulick.
Photographs and illustrations © Getty Images
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Simon Winchester asserts the right to be identified as the author of this work
Engraving of the Pacific on title page by Marzolino/Shutterstock, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Source ISBN: 9780007550777
Ebook Edition © September 2015 ISBN: 9780007550784
Version: 2016-09-20
For Setsuko
Look East, where whole new thousands are!
—ROBERT BROWNING, WARING
Nick Springer/Springer Cartographics LLC.
CONTENTS
Cover (#u64ebefa8-5fa8-5ea5-995f-481b3c1f701e)
Title Page (#u902b1af0-312e-5503-aca6-f79410f35130)
Praise for Pacific
Copyright
Dedication (#u7c3fee10-2def-580e-91d4-96a3bf0d9f83)
Epigraph (#u3dd4a52e-2405-536a-a0f6-64805849ffc6)
List of Maps and Illustrations
PROLOGUE: THE LONELY SEA AND THE SKY
AUTHOR’S NOTE: ON CARBON
Chapter 1THE GREAT THERMONUCLEAR SEA (#ulink_67c83046-68bb-5766-a4ca-db12cb69d47c)
Chapter 2MR. IBUKA’S RADIO REVOLUTION
Chapter 3THE ECSTASIES OF WAVE RIDING
Chapter 4A DIRE AND DANGEROUS IRRITATION
Chapter 5FAREWELL, ALL MY FRIENDS AND FOES
Chapter 6ECHOES OF DISTANT THUNDER
Chapter 7HOW GOES THE LUCKY COUNTRY?
Chapter 8THE FIRES IN THE DEEP
Chapter 9A FRAGILE AND UNCERTAIN SEA
Chapter 10OF MASTERS AND COMMANDERS
EPILOGUE: THE CALL OF THE RUNNING TIDE
Note on Sources
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
About the Author (#ua15f2152-aeeb-59ce-8c9c-45a3b8d23c03)
Also by Simon Winchester
About the Publisher
MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS (#u2a1edb76-2ec7-5f37-be8f-22032d2c77bc)
Map of the Pacific—Political
The plutonium bomb Helen of Bikini
Alvin Graves
Masaru Ibuka
Movie poster for Gidget
Duke Kahanamoku
Hobart Alter
Colonel Charles Bonesteel III
The USS Pueblo
The Pueblo’s surviving crewmen, led by Captain Lloyd Bucher
Youngsters’ performance in North Korea
The RMS Queen Elizabeth, in her heyday
The RMS Queen Elizabeth, sabotaged in Hong Kong
Helicopter during the evacuation of Saigon
Hong Kong’s “retrocession”
Destruction by Cyclone Tracy in the city of Darwin
Typhoon Haiyan
Sir Gilbert Walker
Map of the Pacific—Physical
The El Niño Phenomenon
Gough Whitlam
Jørn Utzon
Alvin
The tectonic architecture of the Pacific Ocean
Black smokers
Inhabitants of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef
A Hawaiian feather cloak, an ahu’ula
The short-tailed, or Steller’s, albatross
“The Pacific Garbage Patch”
The eruption of Mount Pinatubo
The carrier USS Kitty Hawk and a Chinese Song-class diesel attack submarine
Map of the Western Pacific: U.S. and Chinese Military
The Nine-Dash Line
Chinese constructions in the South China Sea
The USNS Impeccable
Admiral Liu Huaqing
Andrew Marshall
Hokule‘a
PROLOGUE: THE LONELY SEA AND THE SKY (#u2a1edb76-2ec7-5f37-be8f-22032d2c77bc)
Here from this mountain shore, headland beyond stormy headland plunging like dolphins through the blue sea-smoke
