‘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
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF 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.
Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green
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
Praise for Pacific
Copyright
List of Maps and Illustrations
PROLOGUE: THE LONELY SEA AND THE SKY
AUTHOR’S NOTE: ON CARBON
Chapter 1 THE GREAT THERMONUCLEAR SEA
Chapter 2 MR. IBUKA’S RADIO REVOLUTION
Chapter 3 THE ECSTASIES OF WAVE RIDING
Chapter 4 A DIRE AND DANGEROUS IRRITATION
Chapter 5 FAREWELL, ALL MY FRIENDS AND FOES
Chapter 6 ECHOES OF DISTANT THUNDER
Chapter 7 HOW GOES THE LUCKY COUNTRY?
Chapter 8 THE FIRES IN THE DEEP
Chapter 9 A FRAGILE AND UNCERTAIN SEA
Chapter 10 OF MASTERS AND COMMANDERS
EPILOGUE: THE CALL OF THE RUNNING TIDE
Note on Sources
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Also by Simon Winchester
About the Publisher
Map of the Pacific—Political
The plutonium bomb Helen of Bikini