Ocean

‘Eminently readable’ – The TLS Books of the Year, 2024

Ocean: A History of the Atlantic Before Columbus is an ambitious and absorbing history of the pre-Columbian Atlantic Ocean – a story that begins with the formation of the mid-Atlantic ridge 200 million years ago and concludes with the Castilian conquest of the Canary Islands in the fifteenth century.

John Haywood challenges the common belief that Atlantic history began with Columbus’s first voyage. Instead, he argues that the skills of navigation, shipbuilding, and exploration were developed gradually over millennia, across the Atlantic and its marginal seas. This is the story of how Europeans learned to master the ocean, explaining why it was they – and not other seafaring peoples – who went on to 'discover' the world.

Drawing on extensive travels and deep scholarship, Haywood follows the Atlantic’s forgotten navigators through myth and history, from Vinland and Greenland to the Faroes and Cape Verde Islands. Blending geology, geography, mythology, technology, and exploration, he presents an epic narrative of adventure and discovery that reshaped Europe’s relationship with the wider world.

Ocean will appeal to readers of David Abulafia, Simon Winchester, and Michael Pye – a feast of storytelling that reveals the deep roots of European seafaring long before Columbus set sail.

About the Author

John Haywood was educated at the universities of Lancaster, Cambridge, and Copenhagen. An expert on the history of Dark Age Europe, he is the author of The New Atlas of World History and The Penguin Atlas of the Vikings.