Pacific: The Ocean of the Future. Simon Winchester

      

       Praise for Pacific:

      ‘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

      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.

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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

       Title Page

       Praise for Pacific

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Epigraph

       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

       About the Author

       Also by Simon Winchester

       About the Publisher

       MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

      Map of the Pacific—Political

       The plutonium bomb Helen of Bikini