Watson and the Shark, by John Singleton Copley, 1778.

Watson and the Shark, by John Singleton Copley, 1778. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

The Sea

Volume VI, Number 3 | summer 2013

Purchase

Preamble

Sea Change

By Lewis H. Lapham

The sea offers a particular kind of freedom, though it’s one that comes at a price.

More

A Winelike Sea

By Caroline Alexander

Homer’s famous “wine-dark sea” has left scholars wondering: how did the Greeks truly see the sea?

More

Map

Water World

From radioactive waste to underwater cables, the world under the sea.

View

Miscellany

Waves generated by the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 reached the shores of Peru and Nova Scotia.

1776 | London

Trade Routes

Adam Smith extols the benefits of maritime trade.More

1914 | Antarctica

Dead Reckoning

G. Murray Levick documents penguins at play.More

690 | Naka

Washed Ashore

On finding a man lost at sea.More

Charts & Graphs

Talking Like a Sailor

Definitions from Admiral William Henry Smyth’s “The Sailor’s Word Book” (1867).

View

Portrait of West African writer and former slave Olaudah Equiano.

Black and white image of Greek biographer and writer Plutarch.

Color image of English novelist Charlotte Brontë with book in hand.

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Image of American lawyer and autobiographer Richard Henry Dana Jr.

Photograph of Rachel Carson

Painted portrait of British explorer James Cook.

Photograph of American journalist Sebastian Junger.

Alone, alone, all, all alone, / Alone on a wide, wide sea!

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Photograph of French writer Guy de Maupassant.

Virgil & Guy de Maupassant

Purchase