Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
The Outlaw Sea
- A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime
- Narrated by: William Langewiesche
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
99p for the first 3 months
The Outlaw Sea
Buy Now for £12.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
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.
Critic reviews
"Langewiesche, an Atlantic Monthly correspondent, might be the best investigative magazine journalist working today....His writing is impossibly thorough and powerfully understated..." ( Entertainment Weekly)
"Langewiesche's narrative achieves an almost operatic grandeur..." ( The New York Times Book Review)
More from the same
Author
What listeners say about The Outlaw Sea
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Will Patten
- 18-07-19
Fascinating
Beautifully structured and well narrated.
Really fascinating insight with great stories and examples - loved it,
thank you.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Mr.
- 18-07-12
This is a fascinating book - incredible
I am coming back to write a review of William Langewiesches The outlaw sea. Before i downloaded this book i had read the negative review about the authors voice in the narration.
I have to say i have no problems with his voice with is a strong east coast draw to it. I find his voice to be rich, oaky and strangely very well suited to the story he is telling. His deep tones vividly bring to life the picture of a ship singing off Galicia or pirates raiding a a ship of aluminum off singapore.
William Langewieche has done an amazing job here. He explains the explosion of shipping in our seas, the growth of piracy, how terrorists can run trade and smuggling through out the international shipping network because of the lax regulations and rule of law.
International shipping has, like many other industries, suffered from a ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of the wages paid to ships crews and the prices paid for transporting goods. We the consumer are responsible in some way because of the demand for the goods we want in our homes. This demand has created a sector of international slaves who work on ships unseen, unregulated working in conditions dictated by a few rich but invisible owners.
Langewieche I find is a great communicator and is able to explain the economics, history, geography and global politics of modern day shipping with great ease. He moves at a good pace and i have found it very hard to turn this audio book off. I strongly recommend this as a story of a industry we all rely on but few understand. This is an eye opening and inspiring piece of work.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 31-12-22
A lot of hard work must have been required
Mr Langewiesche has created an amazing book that presents reality at sea. Thank you for investing so much time in your research and for maintaining an objective view.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall2 out of 5 stars
- Kerstin F.
- 10-03-10
let down by the reader
I think the book itself is not uninteresting, but the choice of reader has been very unfortunate. His monotonous - slumber inducing - delivery made it very hard to follow the reading with any enthusiasm and I found myself switching it off way before the end.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!