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

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Preamble

Sea Change

By Lewis H. Lapham

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

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Around Alone

By Maggie Shipstead

The challenge of the world’s first solo, nonstop, around-the-world yacht race: to endure the danger of the sea, and the strain of solitude.

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Map

Water World

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

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Miscellany

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

c. 1477 | London

A Thousand Fearful Wrecks

A Shakespearean nightmare.More

c. 1926 | Cape Cod

Subtle Sea Musics

Harry Beston listens to the sound of waves.More

c. 1185 BC | Strait of Messina

Between the Devil and the Deep-Blue Sea

Odysseus faces Scylla and Charybdis.More

Charts & Graphs

If by Sea

Approximate distances and travel times.

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Photograph of American writer Lawrence Wright.

Photograph of American journalist Sebastian Junger.

Engraving of Roman poet Horace.

Image of American lawyer and autobiographer Richard Henry Dana Jr.

Photograph of American food writer M.F.K. Fisher with cat.

Engraving of the medieval Arab traveler Ibn Battuta.

Photograph of British writer and journalist Simon Winchester.

The power which the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him very fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much nonsense of his wigwam.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1870

Portrait bust of Roman poet Virgil.

Photograph of French writer Guy de Maupassant.

Virgil & Guy de Maupassant

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