Jeremy Black, "A Brief History of the Atlantic" (Robinson, 2022)

The Atlantic has borne witness to major historic events that have drastically shaped humanity with each crossing of its path. In A Brief History of the Atlantic (Robinson, 2022), Jeremy Black takes the reader through its evolution to becoming one of the most important oceans in the world.

Black discusses the importance of the Atlantic in relation to world history as well as addressing topics such as those bravest to attempt to cross the ocean before Columbus, the beginnings of slavery from 1400-1600, the struggle for control between empires in the 1600s, the way technology adapted with steamships to telegraph cables, the battle of the Falkland, and the Cold War.

Black also touches on the Atlantic we know today, and the struggles it faces due to urgent global issues including climate change, pollution, and the trials of the economic rise in the Indo-Pacific world.

If you have ever yearned to know more about this famed and vital ocean, this clear and concise history will be a key read as one of the first of its kind on its evolution to becoming an established world ocean.

Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House’s International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles.

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