When History Rides the Waves

By John Steele Gordon

We humans, as Shakespeare noted, are as ephemeral as dreams. So to us the oceans seem eternal. But they are not, a fact that geologists only learned in the mid-20th century. One hundred and ninety million years ago the Atlantic Ocean was born as the supercontinent Pangaea began to split apart. For now, it continues to widen at the rate of about an inch a year. But perhaps 180 million years hence it will have disappeared as the planet's ever-restless tectonic plates once more coalesce into a new supercontinent, Pangaea Ultima. Roughly at this midpoint in the ocean's existence, Simon Winchester, in "Atlantic," tells us the story so far.

The Atlantic, Mr. Winchester notes, has had a relatively brief life as an important geographic feature of the globe. For most of European history, the Atlantic was simply "the great outer sea," as opposed to the inner sea, the Mediterranean, and thought to encircle the world. It was, therefore, practically as alien and unknown as the back side of the moon and of little more worldly importance.

Two events at the end of the Middle Ages changed that decisively. In the 15th century, western Europeans developed the full-rigged ship, which was more capable than earlier vessels of dealing with the far greater distances and tougher conditions of the Atlantic. And in 1453, the Turks finally took Constantinople, closing off the old trade routes to the East, the source of spices, silk and other luxury goods.

With the development of new trade routes around the southern tip of Africa by the Portuguese and the discovery of the New World by Columbus, the center of the Western world moved decisively from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Venice and Genoa declined into insignificance. England, France and Spain, battening on the burgeoning trade and treasure of the New World, fought for mastery of the Atlantic. For the next 500 years, the Atlantic Ocean would be the cockpit of history.

The last naval battle in the Mediterranean of great strategic significance, the Battle of Lepanto, was fought in 1571. The first one not fought in the Atlantic thereafter was the Battle of Tsushima in 1904, between Russia and Japan, which announced Japan's arrival as a great power. Control of the Atlantic sea lanes determined the outcome of both world wars in Europe.

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