Record Nr.

UNINA9910785922003321

Autore

Bolster W. Jeffrey

Titolo

The mortal sea [[electronic resource] ] : fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail / / W. Jeffrey Bolster

Pubbl/distr/stampa


Cambridge, Mass., : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012

ISBN

0-674-07046-1

0-674-06721-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xi, 378 p., [20] p. of plates ) : ill., maps

Disciplina

639.209163/1

Soggetti

Fisheries - North Atlantic Ocean - History

Fishers - North Atlantic Ocean - History

Fishery management - North Atlantic Ocean - History

Marine biodiversity - North Atlantic Ocean - History

Atlantic Coast (New England) History

Atlantic Coast (Canada) History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Formerly CIP.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [291]-333) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- Prologue: The Historic Ocean -- One: Depleted European Seas and the Discovery of America -- Two: Plucking the Low-Hanging Fruit -- Three: The Sea Serpent and the Mackerel Jig -- Four: Making the Case for Caution -- Five: Waves in a Troubled Sea -- Six: An Avalanche of Cheap Fish -- Epilogue: Changes in the Sea -- APPENDIX -- NOTES -- GLOSSARY -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INDEX

Sommario/riassunto

Since the Viking ascendancy in the Middle Ages, the Atlantic has shaped the lives of people who depend upon it for survival. And just as surely, people have shaped the Atlantic. In his innovative account of this interdependency, W. Jeffrey Bolster, a historian and professional seafarer, takes us through a millennium-long environmental history of our impact on one of the largest ecosystems in the world. While overfishing is often thought of as a contemporary problem, Bolster reveals that humans were transforming the sea long before factory trawlers turned fishing from a handliner's art into an industrial enterprise. The western Atlantic's legendary fishing banks, stretching

from Cape Cod to Newfoundland, have attracted fishermen for more than five hundred years. Bolster follows the effects of this siren's song from its medieval European origins to the advent of industrialized fishing in American waters at the beginning of the twentieth century. Blending marine biology, ecological insight, and a remarkable cast of characters, from notable explorers to scientists to an army of unknown fishermen, Bolster tells a story that is both ecological and human: the prelude to an environmental disaster. Over generations, harvesters created a quiet catastrophe as the sea could no longer renew itself. Bolster writes in the hope that the intimate relationship humans have long had with the ocean, and the species that live within it, can be restored for future generations.