The Narrow Sea: The History Of The Channel

Barrier, Bridge and Gateway to the World.

The Channel's powerful winds, tides and currents have complicated navigation, dictated naval strategy and frustrated invaders, fisherman and cross-Channel swimmers alike.

For thousands of years ships have travelled back and forth, bearing people as diverse as William the Conqueror, Francis Drake and George Snelling, "the great smuggler of Broadstairs". Leaders such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon and Hitler have battled for sovereignty over the narrow seas, while galleons, ships, submarines and Spitfires have tried to stop them.

In 'The narrow Sea', Peter Unwin tells the story of the English Channel from the land bridge that linked Britain to the continent nine thousands years ago to the Channel Tunnel of the twenty-first century. Greater than the greatest of rivers, as influential as the widest ocean, the Channel's place in history has been set.