‘There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea’ wrote Joseph Conrad. In The Sea: A Cultural History, John Mack considers the ways in which human beings interact because of the sea, navigate their course across it, live on and around it: the variety of ways in which people ‘inhabit’ the sea, whether they sail on it or live beside it, on promontories, estuaries and ports which abut the sea. The Sea moves beyond conventional boundaries, using histories, maritime archaeology, biography, art history and literary sources to provide an innovative and experiential account of ‘the great blue yonder’.