Like the Celtic and Nordic gods of the countries surrounding it, the North Sea has battered and bewildered, produced and provided, damaged and destroyed in equal measure. Its inclement weather and perilous tides have made it a playground and a proving ground, a nursery and a grave, an object of veneration and a mighty adversary. A sea like no other, it has shaped our modern world and yet remained the same ancient beast known to the earliest inhabitants of its shores.

In North Sea, journalist Tom Blass trawls the bottom and skims the waves of the North Sea, searching for all...