An erudite and accomplished account of human wayfaring * New Statesman * Fascinating ... A fine, clear writer, Caputo tells a number of good stories which speak eloquently * Times Literary Supplement * Full of extraordinary detail ... Caputo does a fine job in conveying the pioneering, fearless spirit of those early journeys, made into the unknown * Geographical * A triumph ... an act of impressive scholarship * BBC History Magazine * Intriguing and original, Tracks on the Ocean has a scope and relevance that transcends the high seas -- Maxim Samson, author * Invisible Lines * The best kind of history ... a dazzling piece of research which draws the reader in, engages them directly and challenges them to question how and what they see -- Katherine Parker, author * Historical Sea Charts * Caputo takes a most ingenious topic, the foamy track of a ship, as a meditation on centuries of globalisation and imperialism. Her story of this constantly reinvented and reinscribed line of passage is a bracingly novel oceanic history. It also shows the origins, costs and legacies of human mobility: an urgent concern of our times -- Sujit Sivasundaram, author * Waves Across the South * 'An enthralling account of maritime wayfaring from Odysseus to Magellan to GPS. Accessible and entertaining, as well as deeply erudite and constantly mind-expanding. This is a model of how history should be written -- Philip Ball, author * Curiosity: How Science Became Interested In Everything * Sara Caputo's fascinating story of the mapping of the oceans is full of intrigue, discovery, and drama. A deeply knowledgeable yet readable history of the cartography of water -- Alastair Bonnett, author * The Geography of Nostalgia * An engrossing and beautifully chartered literary journey through history, seamanship and maritime map-making -- Vitali Vitaliev FRSG, author * Trucks in the Garden of Eden: In Search of Britain's Utopias * Sara Caputo had an enviably ingenious idea, which few could conceive and very few execute: a history of how people have kept records of routes, in defiance of trackless nature and deficient technology. With distant vision, broad scope and deep scholarship she picks out a fascinating path and leads readers along it with the fluency of a good guide and the confidence of a practised pilot -- Felipe Fernández-Armesto, author * 1492: The Year Our World Began * Striking for its originality and absorbing in its narrative verve, Tracks on the Ocean makes something we think we know-maps-strange and new: a source of knowledge but also distortion, confusion, surveillance, and violence. Spanning the globe and hundreds of years, it is a book of fresh vision and necessary insight -- Bathsheba Demuth, author * Floating Coast * From an unassuming starting point - the 'tracks' of voyages reproduced on maps - Caputo takes us on our very own journey of discovery. Through these delicate impressions we see first-hand the development of empire, explore the subjectivity of knowledge, experience the tenacity of state control and re-think humankind's relationship with the natural world. Representing deep learning, but written with passion and precision, Tracks on the Ocean is maritime history at its finest -- James Davey, author * Tempest: The Royal Navy and the Age of Revolutions *
