Abstract
On the surface, it has never been easier to know where we are in the world. The advent of GPS and the wider boom in technology that facilitates near-instantaneous reference to a vast array of mapping and tracking systems seems the logical endpoint – the destination – at which humanity was meant to arrive in the course of our cartographic and hydrographic navigations.
Sara Caputo's masterful Tracks on the Ocean not only shatters this sense of tech-bro teleology, but offers a sharp and beautifully written reminder that such tracking was never neutral, never fixed and never without significant cultural baggage in tow. The book is vast in both chronological and geographical scope, ranging from the earliest iterations of human map-making through to the impact of transoceanic travel on the environment. Even Tom Cruise gets a nod. Where some historians might find such vast waters a challenge to navigate, Caputo is remarkably, skilfully able to maintain her own track through the course of the book, maintaining an impressive clarity of argument. The book is pitched at a popular audience but Caputo never condescends in the course of it, drawing on granular details in her case studies and seamlessly incorporating advanced theoretical questions at the centre of her field – questions of decolonisation, gender theory, material culture and many others – while not deviating from her prose style in the process.
Caputo makes clear from the outset that her aims are multifaceted, looking at ‘the track in two closely interconnected senses’ (p. 12). The first of these is looking at the track as a ‘navigational instrument, a technology for devising, completing, and documenting oceanic journeys’. This sets out the material concern for her study and the essential arc of development through the course of the book. The second aim, however, complicates and enriches the first: the ‘cultural meanings’ of these practices and the shifting contexts in which tracks (or their absence) operated. The unifying theme, Caputo argues, is that tracks fundamentally ‘represent control’ (p. 13).
The chapters that follow are broadly chronological in scope, although the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (which provided the foundations for Caputo's wonderful debut book, Foreign Jack Tars) receive somewhat more attention through Caputo's careful analysis of the ‘age of sail’, European colonialism, and their interactions. 1 In many respects this is a relatively familiar tale of shifting from the seemingly amorphous to the increasingly precise: chapter one, for instance, entitled ‘The Trackless World’, in some ways juxtaposes the more familiar cartographic conventions that the reader knows will follow with more striking and disorientating examples from ancient and medieval history. But here, as in the rest of the book, Caputo is always careful not to impose a certain modernising model: there are always multiple tracks emergent. Striking examples – the recognisable, like the Hereford Mappa Mundi, but also less-known pieces like the ‘Artemidorus Papyrus’ – are discussed sensitively and with notable breadth of reading to support Caputo's discussion. Caputo's clear linguistic abilities do a great deal of heavy lifting throughout the book, affording her the means by which to incorporate the latest scholarship in whatever harbour she seeks.
Chapters two to four span the breadth of European global expansion and colonialism alongside the navigational methods that developed alongside (and in response to) these movements. While maritime historians will find many familiar figures here—Drake, Cook, La Pérouse, Flinders and many others—Caputo's great skill lies in drawing together vivid example and descriptive detail into a humane (and often touching) story. Instead of simply recounting Cook's navigational feats, for instance, she centres her story on the competitive nature of these ‘voyages of discovery’, wherein tracks became ‘not simply tools, but stories that individuals at sea told themselves and about themselves’ (p. 84). The intertwining of these voyages with changing ideas of heroism, expanding notions of the public and even notions of masculinity are all part of Caputo's perceptive analysis.
In chapters five and six we are drawn away from the notion of tracks being created or imposed and towards practices of self- or guided navigation: new ways to engage with the apparently familiar and the popularisation of tracks as part of global connectedness. Technology of course drives the narrative in parts, with the advent of steam power and communications systems seemingly lifting the veil of what was previously ‘unknown’. However, as elsewhere, Caputo is careful not to become ensnared by these easy narratives, attuned to ‘the dark underbelly of modernity’ (p. 167). Great frequency, intensity and speed of travel may have left tracks appearing more fixed and dependable, but the creation of new tracks – for instance, the Suez Canal (pp. 178–9) – brought with it a will to control, dominate and destroy in the making of them.
Two final chapters – ‘Countertracks’ and ‘Coda’ – serve both as conclusions and as challenges for the reader. Caputo's awareness of the Eurocentrism that has dominated much historical discussion of map-making and hydrography, and the ensuing erasure of other voices from the historical record, is directly and poignantly addressed here. Tracks as an exercise in power are acknowledged here for what they were: a practice which necessarily marginalised dissenting, alternative models. While Caputo notes that countertracks have ‘started to be reclaimed by previously silenced agents’ (p. 212), she rightly notes that there remains far more to be done. ‘Coda’ addresses this instability directly, calling on Caputo's readers to pay attention to the importance of the stories that are told and the processes that have brought about their changes, rather than any comforting notion of progress.
Tracks on the Ocean is a remarkable book by an historian with a clear, compelling voice and striking depth of knowledge. She wields it lightly, but behind every endnote Caputo writes is a combination of terminological understanding, subject-specific expertise, and a detailed reading of individual biographies. In the course of it, Caputo has produced a book which is culturally aware and resonates with the multiplicity of ways humanity has lived with (and continues to live with) the sea. It is a testament to her achievement that, upon finishing the book, one cannot help but see that world in a new light, with new tracks and new destinations on the horizon.