The Outlaw Sea

A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime

By: William Langewiesche

Narrated by: William Langewiesche

Riveting stories of our last frontier and the acts of God and man upon it

Even if we live within sight of the sea, it is easy to forget that our world is an ocean world. The open ocean spreads across three-fourths of the globe. It is a place of storms and danger, both natural and manmade. And at a time when every last patch of land is claimed by one government or another, it is a place that remains radically free.
With typically understated lyricism, William Langewiesche explores this ocean world and the enterprises--licit and illicit--that flourish in the privacy afforded by its horizons. Forty-three thousand gargantuan ships ply the open ocean, carrying nearly all the raw materials and products on which our lives are built. Many are owned or managed by one-ship companies so ghostly that they exist only on paper. They are the embodiment of modern global capital and the most independent objects on earth--many of them without allegiances of any kind, changing identity and nationality at will. Here is free enterprise at it freest, opportunity taken to extremes. But its efficiencies are accompanied by global problems--shipwrecks and pollution, the hard lives and deaths of the crews, and the growth of two perfectly adapted pathogens: a modern and sophisticated strain of piracy and its close cousin, the maritime form of the new stateless terrorism.
This is the outlaw sea--perennially defiant and untamable--that Langewiesche brings startlingly into view. The ocean is our world, he reminds us, and it is wild.

©2004 William Langewiesche; (P)2004 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC

Interesting Listen...

This was a very insightful audiobook. One might think that a story about the sea and shipping would be somewhat boring, but the author did a great job of revealing many of the mysteries of the shipping industry and the people who make up its ranks. Also kind of scary to realize how dependant we are on the ships for getting our goods to and fro, and how vulnerable and difficult to manage the whole system is.

Definitely an interesting book, but narration could be better.

The book covers in entertaining and dramatic fashion 3 or 4 major maritime incidents and the underlying, problematic conditions (brought on by the lack of law and order on the seas) which led to their occurrences.

I enjoyed it, and learned quite a lot, but the narration is tough. It is read by the author, and his delivery needs some coaching. The whole way through, every word sounds as though it is DRIPPING with caustic scorn. I get that it’s not a lighthearted topic, and there are definitely some genuine targets presented for such judgment (feckless government regulators, cowards, conspiracy theorists, negligent crew, pirates, LAWYERS EVEN), but I think it would sound the same way if this guy read Green Eggs and Ham.

wow!

this is an absolutely brilliant, non-fiction book that gives a very beautiful glimpse into the world's oceans and the shipping and sailing that appear goes upon it

Fascinating

I found this book well written and quite intriguing. It raises questions on very important issues facing the world oceans and international shipping industry. Such as safety security environmental pollution’s and regulatory enforcement on shipping maintenance and merchant worker protection

The ocean is the ultimate solution…

What an unexpected adventure! Great story and amazing narration, very interesting information that I’ve never thought about before. I’m so happy I stumbled across this book!