The English Channel's powerful winds, tides and currents have complicated navigation, dictated naval strategy and frustrated invaders, fishermen and cross-Channel swimmers alike. Greater than the greatest of rivers, as influential as the widest ocean, the Channel's place in history has been set.

In THE NARROW SEA, Peter Unwin tells the story of the English Channel from the land-bridge that linked Britain to the continent nine thousand years ago to the Channel tunnel of the twenty-first century. Charting the landscape and seascape of northern Europe's gateway to the oceans, this well-researched narrative is both authoritative and highly accessible.

Peter Unwin is a former Ambassador to Hungary and Denmark, and has worked mostly in Central and Eastern Europe during his years in the Diplomatic Service. He has written for The Times, the Independent and London's Evening Standard, and has published four books about European history and politics.