“Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and its People” by Barry Cunliffe (Oxford University Press, 2001)

Facing the Oceanstarstarstar

“Stretching from Iceland and North Africa, the peoples who live long the thousands of miles of the Atlantic seaboard have one vista – the seeming infinity of the ocean.”

In this wonderful tome, spanning from 8000 BC to AD 1500, Barry Cunliffe has brought a masterpiece to light.  Having spent years in research and study, the world now has a definitive edition on the ancient Atlantic peoples.  Iceland, Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar; all are linked together by one fact: each day they look out at the great Atlantic Ocean.  It is a detail that brings these people, the Celts, Bretons, Galicians, closer together – kith and kin.

The reader is taken on a most unique journey through many words and details, with beautiful photos and drawings from an ancient past that we never knew existed, along with a hefty index, should one get lost along the way.

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Originally published on November 12th 2001.

Originally published in the Long Beach Union.