Tracks on the Ocean

Emma — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Longlisted for the 2025 BSHS Hughes Prize ‘Enthralling’ Philip Ball’Ingenious’ Sujit SivasundaramIn Tracks on the Ocean, Sara Caputo tells how our journeys around the globe became fixed lines on maps – and how journey lines themselves reshaped maps and the way that we view the world. From Captain Cook’s route across the South Seas to the disorientating power of digital technology, the tracks we’ve left on the oceans – trading, exploring and conquering – are a hidden record of humanity’s impact on the planet. Revealing their histories, Caputo uncovers a fascinating new history of maritime travel and modernity.Weaving human history, cartography, literature and climate science, Tracks on the Ocean reveals how, on the path to discovery, we have changed the world.

Tracks on the ocean

Emma — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Why do we represent journeys as lines on maps? Maps do not show the world as it really is – they show us how the mapmakers see it, and they are the product of centuries of trading, exploring and conquering. The lines recording individual journeys are even more revealing: they first appeared in the blank seas of Renaissance maps, and signalled a momentous transformation in Europeans’ worldview.In Tracks on the Ocean, Sara Caputo tells the story of journey lines – from Ferdinand Magellan and Captain Cook’s routes across the South Seas, to the disorientating power of digital technology to reshape how we see our world. These personal trails are key to understanding the origins of surveillance, and they mark humanity’s impact on the planet, whether in the legacy of violence plotted by imperial endeavours or in the clouds of exhaust fumes left by ocean liners.

Caputo, Sara – The Bell Bookshop

Tracks on the Ocean

Tracks on the ocean