The Naked Shore : Of the North Sea

Saturnine And Quick-tempered, The Formidable North Sea Is Often Overlooked - Even By Those Living Within A Stone's Throw Of Its Steel-grey Waters. But As Playground, Theatre Of War And Cultural Crossing-point, It Has Shaped The World In Myriad Ways, Forged Villains And Heroes, And Determined The Fates Of Nations. It's Not All Grim, Though: The Seaside Holiday Was Born On North Sea Beaches, And Artists, Poets And Writers Have Been As Equally Inspired By Glinting Sun On The Wave-tops As They Have The Drama Of A Winter Storm. With A Wry Eye And A Warm Coat, Tom Blass Travels The Edges Of The North Sea Meeting Fishermen, Artists, Bomb Disposal Experts, Burgermeisters - And Those Who Have Found Themselves Flung To The Sea's Perimeters Quite By Chance. In Doing So He Attempts To Piece Together Its Manifold Histories And To Reveal Truths, Half-truths And Fictions Otherwise Submerged... A North Sea Crossing -- In Defence Of The Estuary -- The Question Of The Scheldt -- With Ensor And Octopussies In Ostend -- Shapes And Shingle On The Naked Shore -- Last Resorts: Being Beside The Seaside -- Mare Frisium, Fris Non Canta -- Myths Of Origin: A Land Beneath The Sea -- A Postcard From Atlantis -- A North Sea Outrage -- In The Halligen Or An Axolotl In The Almost-islands -- Where Two Seas Meet -- The Fishing Game -- Radiant Star Of Shetland -- New Sea, New Chapters. Tom Blass. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 291-296) And Index. Like the Celtic and Nordic gods of the countries surrounding it, the North Sea has battered and bewildered, produced and provided, damaged and destroyed in equal measure. Its inclement weather and perilous tides have made it a playground and a proving ground, a nursery and a grave, an object of veneration and a mighty adversary. A sea like no other, it has shaped our modern world and yet remained the same ancient beast known to the earliest inhabitants of its shores. In North Sea , journalist Tom Blass trawls the bottom and skims the waves of the North Sea, searching for all that glistens, enraptures, enrages, and appalls. He sets out to meet the men and women who have devoted their lives to uncovering its secrets, from marine biologists studying the North Sea's submerged landscapes to the world's leading expert on Doggerland. Traveling by tram, ferry, and twelve-seater aircraft around the eclectic borderlands, Blass interviews local fishermen, ornithologists, and bomb-disposal experts, capturing the wild, war-torn history of the North Sea, as well as the ways in which humanity has ecologically transformed it through overfishing and the race for energy. North Sea scatters light into the sea's cold and murky depths, exploring its wonders and its relationship with humanity--from drug gangs to the Schleswig Holstein question to the sea's new role as a headline-grabbing environmental battleground.