To the Sea, a Book Review

 Beyond the Blue Horizon: How the Earliest Mariners Unlocked the Secrets of the Oceans By Brian Fagan Bloomsbury Press, 2012, 313pp. Newfoundland and Labrador 1700: in the morning dawn, boat crews are setting off the southeastern coast for another day of cod fishing. The water is calm, the skies clear. The

Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind

 by Brian Fagan • Bloomsbury Press, 2011, 384 pp. This spring’s flooding of the Assiniboine River in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and the Richelieu River in Quebec has thrust surrounding communities into crisis. The inundation of farmlands has destroyed crops and livelihoods. Homes have been lost. Meanwhile drought along the Yangtze