Penguin
Blue Machine
Blue Machine
Blending marine biology, history and climate change concerns with novelistic skill, Blue Machine is a spellbinding exploration of the ocean – its complex, interlinked system and the multitude of ways life on the rest of the planet depends on it.
Winner of the Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation 2024
All of the Earth's ocean, from the equator to the poles, is a single engine powered by sunlight - a blue machine.
Earth is home to a huge story that is rarely told - that of our ocean. Not the fish or the dolphins, but the massive ocean engine itself: what it does, why it works, and the many ways it has influenced animals, weather and human history & culture.
In a book that will recalibrate our view of this defining feature of our planet, physicist Helen Czerski dives deep to illuminate the murky depths of the ocean engine, examining the messengers, passengers and voyagers that live in it, travel over it, and survive because of it. From the ancient Polynesians who navigated the Pacific by reading the waves to permanent residents of the deep such as the Greenland shark that can live for hundreds of years, she explains the vast currents, invisible ocean walls and underwater waterfalls that all have their place in the ocean's complex, interlinked system.
Timely, elegant and passionately argued, Blue Machine presents a fresh perspective on what it means to be a citizen of an ocean planet. The understanding it offers is crucial to our future. Drawing on years of experience at the forefront of marine science, Helen Czerski captures the magnitude and subtlety of Earth's defining feature, showing us the thrilling extent to which we are at the mercy of this great engine.
Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd
ISBN: 9781804991961
Number of pages: 464
Weight: 320 g
Dimensions: 197 x 127 x 28 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
A spectacular read. - Martin Chilton, Independent
Splendid - Philip Ball, Guardian
[Czerski's] profound, sparkling global ocean voyage mingles history and culture, natural history, geography, animals and people. - Andrew Robinson, Nature
'Czerski aims to greatly expand and even revolutionise the reader's understanding of what is going on in seven tenths of the planet that is not covered in land - Financial Times
Lively and engrossing ... Alongside her vivid portrayal of waters sliding over one another, colliding, mixing andturning into ice or water vapour, she explains how the living beings within the sea alsoform part of the 'blue machine' ... [Cerzski's personal experience of both Polynesian canoes off Hawaii and ice floes near the North Pole is not icing on the cake but part of the argument of this excellent and important book. - David Abulafia, The Spectator
Helen Czerski's fascinating new book casts the ocean as an extraordinary giant engine, and helps us grasp its complex physicsand its key role in climate change - Graham Lawton, New Scientist
The Blue Machine is a point of departure, a map for further exploration. Not since reading The Diversity of Life by E.O. Wilson have I read a book as timely, salient, and informative. - Todd L. Capson, Science magazine
In this captivating and urgently-needed book, Czerski weaves a wonderful, watery spell, entwining spectacular science with poetic awe as she expertly guides readers through the workings of a vast, unfamiliar world. Moving and thrilling, The Blue Machine tells us about the seas but also makes us care: an epic love story that captures the ocean's beating heart. - Jo Marchant, author of Cure and The Human Cosmos
I love Helen Czerski's writing, and this is her richest work yet - as clear as springwater, yet as filled with fascinating things as the ocean itself. - Sarah Bakewell, author of How to Live and Humanly Possible
JUNE BOOK OF THE MONTH: 'Physicist Helen Czerski offers a very different perspective on the ocean in her revelatory book... Published ahead of World Ocean Day on 8th June, it unlocks a treasure chest of enthralling stories; from the navigators of ancient Polynesia, and the marvels of plankton, to John Steinbeck's Cannery Row and the copious tears cried by turtles. - Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller
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