A magisterial history of the Atlantic Ocean before Columbus, embracing a timespan of some 168,000 years, and bringing together a wealth of critical themes and developments in world history from the early shaping of the continents and the emergence of homo sapiens, to the histories of shipbuilding, navigation, fishing, trading, slavery, maritime exploration and nascent European imperialism. A history on a grand scale, Ocean offers the reader a feast of historical storytelling.