Book review of Pacific by Simon Winchester

A fascinating read that will inform you of many things you didn’t know on a wide variety of topics.

He tells the history of the Pacific Ocean from 1950-2015. He does this in 10 chapters that cover 10 completely different events/topics. All presented in an interesting way with lots of information.

First, he introduces you to The Pacific. Here are sentences from pages 2-17:

“The Pacific Ocean is by far the world’s biggest body of water; all the continents could be contained within its borders, and there would be ample room to spare. It is the most biologically diverse, the most seismically active; it sports the planet’s greatest mountains, and deepest trenches; it’s chemistry influences the world; and the planetary weather systems are born within its boundaries. …

The Pacific is an oceanic behemoth of eye-watering complexity. A near-limitless range of human and natural conditions exists within its borders, as one would expect of something so unimaginably enormous. … its blue expanse entirely dominates the planet. It occupies almost an entire hemisphere.”

Here’s highlights of 2 chapters to show the variety.

In Chapter 1, I learned about how the United States and other Western powers used the islands of the Pacific Islanders to practice exploding nuclear bombs (with little concern over radiation poisoning), and how it looked through the eyes of the Islanders. The details of the US’s huge miscalculation of the unexpectedly amazing force of the first hydrogen (fusion) bomb were fascinating and tragic.

In Chapter 3, I learned about the history of surfing.
Something done only by Pacific Islanders till around 1900 when:

“The swashbuckling adventure writer Jack London first encountered a swarm of these peskily cheerful Hawaiian surfer children in Waikiki on a hot summer’s day in 1907. He was swimming along in shallow water, blissfully minding his own business, when he was suddenly overtaken by an infestation of youngsters streaming past him on their boards. He was astonished..” [p 129]
London wrote in Women’s Home Companion 1907:
“He is a Mercury, a brown Mercury. His heels are winged, and in them is the swiftness of the sea.”

Winchester then takes us through the history of how surfing became a world-wide obsession. In the 1950s, its center moved to Southern California when Hobie Alter figured out how to make affordable surfboards out of a new petroleum industry product, polyurethane. Combine that with “the quintessentially American desire for steadily more superlative experiences”, the movie Gidget, and music by Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys, and a new way of life was born. “The ethos of the surfers themselves — the detached, other-worldly, laid-back, relaxed, pleasure-addicted world of sun, sea, sand, and endless pure enjoyment — has left its own legacy …” [p 147]

Enjoy!

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