I like books about the history of ocean exploration in general, which is why I gave this a go. It was really quite god, although it went more into the types of boats used, their construction, and how they were sailed than I expected. This wasn't a bad thing, but not something I gathered from the title.

The book is broken down into group of chapters having to do with ocean-going in various geographic areas, the peoples involved, and how ideas about sailing developed in those places. He covers southeast Asia and the south Pacific, the Mediterranean, sea travel in the Indian ocean which relied so much on the seasonal monsoons, the North Sea and North Atlantic, and the Pacific coast of the Americas, from the Aleutians to Mayan-Incan trade. Some of these places have more of a written record than others, and much of what Fagan rights is based on the archeological record.

I like his writing style. He has personally sailed in some of these areas, and I wish there had been more of that in the book. Sometimes he inserts a paragraph of an imagined incident related to sailing some time in the past. These seem shoe-horned into me and don't add a whole lot to the book overall. Many authors writing about history do this, and it's really easy to get this wrong.

A knowledge of sailing is helpful in reading this book. Fagan does take time out to explain the basics, but I just don't get a lot of the techniques or understand how they work. This isn't a failing on his part, but rather mine. His passion for the sea and sailing on it is obvious, though, and it comes through in this book.

Fagan is certainly a capable writer, and does a good job at making this accessible to laypeople. I was most interested in navigation though, and he tended to lean more toward boat design, port and cultural histories...quite thoroughly done too. The latitudinal navigation practiced by Norse seamen was fascinating, as was the section on Mayan mariners.

An interesting survey of prehistoric seafaring. Fagan divides his book into sections based on geography which turns out to be especially helpful because these regions share ocean and wind characteristics, and so developed a common seafaring culture. He is able to color the discussion of those characteristics with his own extensive experience sailing different kinds of boats. I could tell that this book was a passion project of his.

It’s well-written and not very difficult to follow, through it might be a bit more academic than the casual reader would like. I would disagree with reviewers who say that the sailing terminology is difficult to understand. A quick overview of sailing terms is given early in the book and I found it sufficient as a non-sailor myself. It does get repetitive in some places, though that’s not completely the fault of the author. Most cultures seem to have started out with similar dugout canoes and put to sea for similar reasons.

Definitely recommended for anyone with interest in ancient seamanship and oceangoing cultures.