David Barnes reviews Wild Sea: A History Of The Southern Ocean, by Joy McCann. Published by NewSouth Books.
This engaging book by Australian historian Joy McCann takes a broad view, from the mythology of early Europeans hypothesising about Terra Australis Incognita to the confronting realities of 21st-century climate-change science.
It broadly covers everything south of Australasia, South Africa and South America as far as the fringes of the Antarctic. In thematically arranged chapters with titles such as "Ocean", "Wind" and "Current", she brings together many branches of knowledge as she looks into early exploration followed by exploitation in different forms before taking a more scientific perspective. The scientific writing, and the history and geography, is easy going for the lay reader.
Many readers will come to the book with some knowledge of the Southern Ocean. For me, much of the history was familiar (but nice to revisit), while the "Deep" chapter, about efforts to learn about what lies far below the ocean’s surface, was in many ways a revelation. More than 40 pages of endnotes mean that, while the book will appeal to the general reader, those needing to delve deeper can do so.
- David Barnes is a Lower Hutt-based reviewer
