Ellen Krefting and Gard Paulsen - Selected Title Authors
We are happy to present our selected title authors Ellen Krefting and Gard Paulsen. They have written The Ocean – A History of Ideas (original title: Havet. En idéhistorie : på tokt blant kolonister, lystseilere, sjømonstre og oljetankere). The book is one of NORLA’s Selected Titles of the autumn 2025.
What is your book about?
The sea contains vast resources, but it is also threatened by ecological crises. The sea is something we both desire and fear. Our book explores how we can harbor such complex – and at times, contradictory – feelings about the sea. It tells the story of how the sea, in the definite singular and practically with a capital S, has always been ascribed various meanings, values, expectations, and dreams. It describes how it’s been seen both as fundamentally threatening and dangerous, and as free, abundant, and knowable. Tidal waves and terrifying shipwrecks, pirates, fish dinners, the charting of the furthest skerries, and visions of extracting minerals from the ocean floor – all of these things belong to the history of the sea. The book illustrates how these various ideas and beliefs about the sea have had consequences not only for humans and their history, but also for the sea itself.
Who is this book for?
In this book, we write about how sailors and jurists, statisticians and artists, authors and admirals, diplomats and theologians, economists and dreamers, merchants and scientists, collectors, journalists, whalers, and a whole host of others have thought and written about the sea. We imagine the book is for all of these people – but for many others, too. It is a book for those who need something to read in a ship’s library, but it’s also for those who would never dare step aboard a ship (with or without a library!) and prefer to live their lives with dry feet. It is for everyone who hopes the sea will save us, but also for those who worry about its state and future. Perhaps most of all, it is written for those who have both of these thoughts simultaneously; for those who find both hope and fear in the waves and the deep ocean, and who wonder why the sea is so spacious and patient.
Read more
See full presentation of the book here
Read more about the authors here
See all NORLA’s Selected Titles for the autumn 2025 here
