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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Open Waters

By Simon Winchester

Simon Winchester muses on what it means to be truly at sea.

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Map

Water World

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

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Miscellany

The world’s largest shipbreaking yard is near Alang, India, where, during the 2011–2012 season, around fifty thousand employees broke down 435 ships for scrap, which had a value of about $2 billion.

c. 1926 | Cape Cod

Subtle Sea Musics

Harry Beston listens to the sound of waves.More

1914 | Antarctica

Dead Reckoning

G. Murray Levick documents penguins at play.More

1503 | Jamaica

Wonderful Complaints

Christopher Columbus recounts his trials and tribulations.More

Charts & Graphs

Seaworthy Vessels

Match the sailor to the boat.

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Photograph of British explorer and surgeon G. Murray Levick.

Painted portrait of British explorer James Cook.

Photograph of American oceanographer Charles Moore.

Sepia toned photograph of Lewis Carroll in a suit, reading a book

Engraving of Greek satirist Lucian.

Image of Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Bashō.

We are as near to heaven by sea as by land!

—Humphrey Gilbert, 1583

Virgil & Guy de Maupassant

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Lapham’sDaily

Roundtable

Walk on the Wild Side

By Virginia Woolf

On the lives passing through Kew Gardens on a summer day. More

DÉjÀ Vu

Dance Stance Revolution

2022:

Brazilian blocos ignore ban on Carnival celebrations.

1576:

Italian plague patients ignore ban on dance parties.

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The World in Time

Olivier Zunz

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville. More

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