A history of humanity’s relationship with oceans across cultures and centuries.   Much of human experience can be distilled to saltwater: tears, sweat, and an enduring connection to the sea. In Vast Expanses , Helen M. Rozwadowski weaves a cultural, environmental, and geopolitical history of that relationship, a journey of tides and titanic forces reaching around the globe and across geological and evolutionary time. Our ancient connections with the sea have developed and multiplied through industrialization and globalization, a trajectory that runs counter to Western depictions of the ocean as a place remote from and immune to human influence. Rozwadowski argues that knowledge about the oceans―created through work and play, scientific investigation, and also through human ambitions for profiting from the sea―has played a central role in defining our relationship with this vast, trackless, and opaque place. It has helped us to exploit marine resources, control ocean space, extend imperial or national power, and attempt to refashion the sea into a more tractable arena for human activity. But while deepening knowledge of the ocean has animated and strengthened connections between people and the world’s seas, to understand this history, we must address questions of how, by whom, and why knowledge of the ocean was created and used―and how we create and use this knowledge today. Only then can we forge a healthier relationship with our future sea. "Rozwadowski presents a timely and useful oceancentric natural history of the ocean-human relationship. Human understanding of the oceans, which cover much of the surface of the earth, is historically weak. Rarely curious about the waters from which life on earth rose, humans have long exploited the seas for food, transport, mining, recreation, and war. Until recently, it was assumed that ocean resources were inexhaustible, especially the bounty of fish and marine mammals, and that garbage and chemical waste dumped into oceans would just disappear. The idea that burning fossil fuels could raise ocean temperatures was unthinkable. Some forward-thinking individuals recognized warning signs centuries ago, but marine business and industry continued and grew with the exploding world population. Much bad science continued to support uncontrolled exploitation of the seas, even after the rise of the ecological movement of the latter half of the twentieth century. Rozwadowski thoroughly brings readers up-to-date on these essential issues of marine exploration and research and the environment." ― Booklist "Absorbing and delightfully readable, Vast Expanses explores an immense topic—the history of the world’s oceans—with the skill and intelligence we have come to expect from Rozwadowski’s writings. . . . She crafts a flowing narrative by braiding together three strands of analysis: she demonstrates the interconnectedness of the oceans and human history by examining the enduring human relationship to the sea, spanning back through evolutionary time; she shows that human exchanges with the sea have become increasingly profound over time, especially in the ages of industrialization and globalization; and she reveals that human understandings of the ocean—shaped by science, work, and play—have substantially shaped our interactions with it. . . . Remarkable . . . Through its many interesting facts and details, presented with discernible enthusiasm, Vast Expanses reveals not only Rozwadowski’s considerable ability as a historian but also her love for the ocean. This work will appeal to environmental historians, maritime historians, and any reader who wants to know more about our relationship with the sea." ― H-Environment "Rozwadowski offers a sweeping account of the ocean's past and a model for an engaged 'ocean history' that places the sea in the heart of our human past. . . . Vast Expanses not only challenges the notion of the ocean as a timeless place immune to human action, but it also situates that conception in the evolution of people’s dynamic relationship with the sea. . . . More significantly, Vast Expanses makes an impassioned, compelling case that a humanistic understanding of the ocean 'can form the foundation for positive change.' . . . This book deserves wide readership." ― Mariner's Mirror "This engagingly written, meticulously researched, and carefully reasoned examination of the significance of Earth's oceans provides a valuable introduction not only to their geologic past but also to the role humans have played in discovering them, understanding them, and politicizing them. Intimately familiar with every dimension of this topic and the current literature, Rozwadowski places the subject in its appropriate geological, biological, historical, and environmental context. The diverse paths by which the human community began to find its way upon the seas and explore their depths is succinctly delineated. The discovery and exploitation of new lands, in