"The Boundless Sea" by David Abulafia is a sweeping, all-encompassing account of the history of the world, considered from the perspective of the oceans rather than from the perspective of the land masses. It's a socio-economic analysis of all the complex, interconnecting ties among maritime nations across the centuries: the explorers, the fishermen, the transoceanic traders...
The writing style is so perfectly polished that the book reads like a novel, and don't let the size of the volume turn you off: it's a real pageturner!
The only thing that disappointed me was how quickly the book dealt with the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Caribbean history: I'd been hoping that the Golden Age of Piracy would get far more attention!
Anyway, this was overall a very fascinating read. I'm looking forward to reading the author's other works!