The mortal sea [electronic resource] : fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail / W. Jeffrey Bolster.
Bolster, W. Jeffrey.
2012
SH213.5 .B65 2012eb
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Title The mortal sea [electronic resource] : fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail / W. Jeffrey Bolster.
Author Bolster, W. Jeffrey.
ISBN 9780674067219 electronic book
9780674047655
0674047656
Imprint Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.
Language English
Description 1 online resource (xi, 378 p.) : ill., maps.
Call Number SH213.5 .B65 2012eb
Dewey Decimal Classification 639.209163/1
Summary 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 this account of this interdependency, the author, 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, he 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. The author 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, he 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. The author 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.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references (p. [291]-333) and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description Description based on print version record.
Available in Other Form Mortal sea.
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Prologue : The historic ocean
Depleted European seas and the discovery of America
Plucking the low-hanging fruit
The sea serpent and the mackerel jig
Making the case for caution
Waves in a troubled sea
An avalanche of cheap fish
Epilogue : Changes in the sea.

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