“The book is superb, by turns informative, inspirational and poetical....a tour de force of marine meditation.”
During the 1560s and 1570s, a maritime revolution took place in England that would contribute more than anything to the transformation of a small rebel state on the fringes of Europe into an imperial power. Until then, it was said that only one man in the country was capable of sailing a ship across the Equator. Within ten years an English ship with an English crew was circumnavigating the globe.
At the same time in Cornwall, in the Fal estuary, just a single building – a lime kiln – existed where the port of Falmouth would emerge. Yet by the end of the eighteenth century, Falmouth would be one of the busiest harbours in the world.
The Levelling Sea uses the story of Falmouth’s spectacular rise to explore wider questions about the sea, its place in history and the imagination, and its effect on the lives of individuals.
Drawing on his own deep connection with Cornwall, Marsden writes unforgettably about the power of the sea and its ability to push enterprise to extremes – with piratical greed, brilliant innovation, or courage and endeavour on a grand and tragic scale.
“An invaluable and immensely readable book. Phlip Marsden’s gifts as a travel-writer and novelist, a scene-setter and storyteller combine remarkably in his adventurous and adventuring new book.... a maritime history of Britain as observeable between two celebrated headlands.. ”
“Landlubbers will find much to be enthralled by in this biography of a port: a triumph of the author’s deep learning combined with his passion for the sea.”
“I feel as though I’ve been sitting at the feet of a master storyteller... Philip Marsden knows and loves Falmouth, sailing and the sea, putting that love into this most satisfying of books.”
“The best non-fiction expands the particular to the general, and perpetually discovers the marvellous in the ordinary. Marsden pulls this off every time. Read this book for a closer acquaintance with Falmouth. Read it for an account of British sea power, or British shipbuilding. Read it for a good story and beautiful, unpretentious writing. Read it for its introduction, a brilliant essay on seagoing, or for no particular reason. But read it.”
“Had Philip Marsden simply used his travel-writing skills to create a hymn to our surrounding seas, and had he decorated it with this magical vocabulary alone, the book would have surely been a flawless triumph. But Marsden has done a great deal more than that...”
“Captivating...scenes of well-crafted history intercut with subjective seaborne reminiscences.....Marsden has always had a knack of linking the local and the global
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“Beautifully crafted, an enticing and gripping read from a proper wordsmith.”
“This delightful book.... Marsden has unearthed some fascinating characters.”
