Telling Britain’s story from its “ocean-gouged fringe”

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“The Frayed Atlantic Edge” turns conventional records of the British Isles inside out

caught in heavy swells, the world is all sea. Waves tower. Land is lost. The coastline vanishes to a thin strip, glimpsed for a moment before it veers drunkenly behind the next wave.If this seems an unusual environment for a historian, David Gange’s book suggests otherwise. “The Frayed Atlantic Edge” is an account of a year-long kayak voyage that he made down the western seaboard of the British Isles, from the northernmost tip of Shetland to the most southerly point of Cornwall.

This is an apposite moment for his project. Over the past few decades, there has been a revival of Gaelic culture and language—led largely by the kind of coastal communities that were previously overlooked. Institutions such as the University of the Highlands and Islands, which has a campus in the Outer Hebrides, have overseen a surge of vigour and confidence.

The strength of Mr Gange’s account is his generosity. His own wry persona never overshadows the voices of past and present inhabitants. Artists and writers are his principal guides: Rob Donn, an 18th-century crofter-chronicler, sits companionably alongside the modern Scottish poet Robin Robertson, their writing harmonising across time.

In this way he presents the landscapes that he traverses anew—not just as beautiful wildernesses, but as the by-product of human history, an occasionally troubled braiding of people and place. The craft of the historian, he thinks, lies in “interpreting the intertwining”. It helps that Mr Gange’s prose is itself poetic and precise. The hills and lochs of Assynt, for instance, tessellate in shapes “like Euclidian art”. He conveys the experience of kayaking through mountainous “scarps of sea”; his enthusiasm for snoozing in soggy sleeping bags is infectious. By the end, his book makes a persuasive case for chronicling the history of regions through the experiences and voices of the people who call them home.

 

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as an ocean kayaker myself, i'm bursting with excitement to read this book. thanks for alerting me of its publication. i viewed vietnam, thailand and indonesia from a sea kayak and know how powerful the ragged edge coastal perspective is.

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