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#nowreading Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World's Oceans, by Admiral James Stavridis https://t.co/D1ucLxup2l
The world's major shipping routes, ports and chokepoints - the arteries of our global economy https://t.co/ADixfeio5V
The author was a US Navy sailor for 40 years, and spent ~11 years out on the deep ocean (out of sight of land). The book opens with a quote from The Tempest, which opens with a big storm at sea. He reminisces on the eternal nature of the oceans, and how past sailors must have too
He still dreams about being on a ship, the rumble of the engines and the rolling of the waves rocking the hull. The dreams often end with the ship running aground, & him wishing he stayed out at sea. Quite an intimate thing for an Admiral to share with some random reader. ❤❤❤
"When we go to sea - whether in a warship for 9 month combat cruise, a week on a Carnival cruise liner or a day sail out of sight of land - we are launching ourselves into another dimension altogether. The world shudders and shakes beneath us." Wind cuts more sharply. Dolphins!
When you are out in the ocean, away from sight of land, you see the same view Alexander the Great saw as he sailed the eastern Mediterranean, that Napoleon saw en route to exile, etc. You're an ocean away from land, but also connected to vast, unbroken chain of oceanseekers
It's interesting to witness how casually sailors talk about precise details: the USS Jouett was 8,000 tonnes, 550 feet long, 29 feet deep, beam of 55 feet - 500 officers and men. The temperature, the wind speed, the speed of the ship, the various roles each sailor plays
The Pacific Ocean is massive. Alone, it's greater in area than all the landmasses on Earth. "All the nations that border the Pacific - Canada, Chile, Russia, Australia - think of the ocean as a kind of endless back porch."
It's remarkable that human beings *ten thousand years ago* used canoes, oars and celestial navigation to travel 5,000 miles from East Asia to the Pacific islands (Fiji, Tahiti, etc). It would be remarkable even a couple of hundred years ago
In the Admiral's younger days, crossing the equator was an event - "entering the Kingdom of Davy Jones". It was, um... https://t.co/O7rTHIIsXk
The author makes the interesting point that Zheng He's 15th Century explorations, while impressive, had only a minor impression on locals, perhaps because his voyages went West to known entities. (Zheng He died 20 years before Da Vinci was born)
America arrives in Japan https://t.co/okaNdIo9gn
