Tracks on the Ocean

Maps do not show the world as it really is - they instead show us how we see it, and they are the product of centuries of trading, exploring and conquering. The lines on a map are even more revealing: as records of individual journeys, they cast a light on the minds of travellers through history, and they can help us understand how the modern world was made. In Tracks on the Ocean, Sara Caputo tells how our journeys around the globe became fixed lines on our maps - from Captain Cook's route across the South Seas to the disorientating power of digital technology to reshape how we see our cities. The tracks on the ocean, Caputo shows, mark humanity's impact on the planet, whether in the legacy of violence plotted by Christopher Columbus across the New World or in the clouds of exhaust fumes left by ocean liners. Weaving human history, cartography, literature and climate science, Tracks on the Ocean reveals how, on the path to discovery, we have changed the world.