Simon Winchester - Pacific - The Ocean of the Future

Praise for Pacific: CONTENTS Cover Title Page Praise for Pacific Copyright Dedication Epigraph List of Maps and Illustrations PROLOGUE: THE LONELY SEA AND THE SKY AUTHOR’S NOTE: ON CARBON Chapter 1 THE GREAT THERMONUCLEAR SEA Chapter 2 MR. IBUKA’S RADIO REVOLUTION Chapter 3 THE ECSTASIES OF WAVE RIDING Chapter 4 A DIRE AND DANGEROUS IRRITATION Chapter 5 FAREWELL, ALL MY FRIENDS AND FOES Chapter 6 ECHOES OF DISTANT THUNDER Chapter 7 HOW GOES THE LUCKY COUNTRY? Chapter 8 THE FIRES IN THE DEEP Chapter 9 A FRAGILE AND UNCERTAIN SEA Chapter 10 OF MASTERS AND COMMANDERS EPILOGUE: THE CALL OF THE RUNNING TIDE Note on Sources Bibliography Index Acknowledgments About the Author Also by Simon Winchester About the Publisher

‘Winchester does a virtuoso job. … A giant Aladdin’s rug, which he then gamely invites his readers to climb aboard’ New York Times

‘Revealing … delightful … fascinating … highly recommended’ San Francisco Chronicle

‘Fascinating, provocative, and at times, mildly terrifying. … The hallmarks of Winchester’s best work—a fertile, curious mind, impeccable research and command of complex material—are on full display here’ Miami Herald

‘Winchester writes books like someone telling a good yarn around the fireplace … by interweaving history, fascinating trivia, and acute observation’ New York Times Book Review

‘Winchester has a smooth and easy prose style, one that is trustable and clear … He excels at guiding the reader with a contagious sense of wonder’ Boston Globe

‘[Winchester is] a terrific raconteur with a knack for making connections that might have eluded you between events behind the headlines. … Where Pacific opts to go, it goes with savvy and verve’ Seattle Times

‘Winchester has prodigious gifts as a popular historian and an explainer of faraway events’ Los Angeles Times

‘Provocative … and lively’ Wall Street Journal

Copyright CONTENTS Cover Title Page Praise for Pacific Copyright Dedication Epigraph List of Maps and Illustrations PROLOGUE: THE LONELY SEA AND THE SKY AUTHOR’S NOTE: ON CARBON Chapter 1 THE GREAT THERMONUCLEAR SEA Chapter 2 MR. IBUKA’S RADIO REVOLUTION Chapter 3 THE ECSTASIES OF WAVE RIDING Chapter 4 A DIRE AND DANGEROUS IRRITATION Chapter 5 FAREWELL, ALL MY FRIENDS AND FOES Chapter 6 ECHOES OF DISTANT THUNDER Chapter 7 HOW GOES THE LUCKY COUNTRY? Chapter 8 THE FIRES IN THE DEEP Chapter 9 A FRAGILE AND UNCERTAIN SEA Chapter 10 OF MASTERS AND COMMANDERS EPILOGUE: THE CALL OF THE RUNNING TIDE Note on Sources Bibliography Index Acknowledgments About the Author Also by Simon Winchester About the Publisher

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com

First published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2015

First published in the United States by Harper in 2015

Copyright © Simon Winchester 2015

Jacket design by Gregg Kulick.

Photographs and illustrations © Getty Images

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Simon Winchester asserts the right to be identified as the author of this work

Engraving of the Pacific on title page by Marzolino/Shutterstock, Inc.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Source ISBN: 9780007550777

Ebook Edition © September 2015 ISBN: 9780007550784

Version: 2016-09-20

For Setsuko

Look East, where whole new thousands are!

—­ROBERT BROWNING, WARING

Nick Springer/Springer Cartographics LLC.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Praise for Pacific

Copyright

Dedication For Setsuko

Epigraph Look East, where whole new thousands are! —­ROBERT BROWNING, WARING

List of Maps and Illustrations

PROLOGUE: THE LONELY SEA AND THE SKY

AUTHOR’S NOTE: ON CARBON

Chapter 1 THE GREAT THERMONUCLEAR SEA

Chapter 2 MR. IBUKA’S RADIO REVOLUTION

Chapter 3 THE ECSTASIES OF WAVE RIDING

Chapter 4 A DIRE AND DANGEROUS IRRITATION

Chapter 5 FAREWELL, ALL MY FRIENDS AND FOES

Chapter 6 ECHOES OF DISTANT THUNDER

Chapter 7 HOW GOES THE LUCKY COUNTRY?

Chapter 8 THE FIRES IN THE DEEP

Chapter 9 A FRAGILE AND UNCERTAIN SEA

Chapter 10 OF MASTERS AND COMMANDERS

EPILOGUE: THE CALL OF THE RUNNING TIDE

Note on Sources

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Simon Winchester

About the Publisher

MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS CONTENTS Cover Title Page Praise for Pacific Copyright Dedication For Setsuko Epigraph Look East, where whole new thousands are! —­ROBERT BROWNING, WARING List of Maps and Illustrations PROLOGUE: THE LONELY SEA AND THE SKY AUTHOR’S NOTE: ON CARBON Chapter 1 THE GREAT THERMONUCLEAR SEA Chapter 2 MR. IBUKA’S RADIO REVOLUTION Chapter 3 THE ECSTASIES OF WAVE RIDING Chapter 4 A DIRE AND DANGEROUS IRRITATION Chapter 5 FAREWELL, ALL MY FRIENDS AND FOES Chapter 6 ECHOES OF DISTANT THUNDER Chapter 7 HOW GOES THE LUCKY COUNTRY? Chapter 8 THE FIRES IN THE DEEP Chapter 9 A FRAGILE AND UNCERTAIN SEA Chapter 10 OF MASTERS AND COMMANDERS EPILOGUE: THE CALL OF THE RUNNING TIDE Note on Sources Bibliography Index Acknowledgments About the Author Also by Simon Winchester About the Publisher

Map of the Pacific—Political

The plutonium bomb Helen of Bikini

Alvin Graves

Masaru Ibuka

Movie poster for Gidget

Duke Kahanamoku

Hobart Alter

Colonel Charles Bonesteel III

The USS Pueblo

The Pueblo ’s surviving crewmen, led by Captain Lloyd Bucher

Youngsters’ performance in North Korea

The RMS Queen Elizabeth , in her heyday

The RMS Queen Elizabeth , sabotaged in Hong Kong