Research Catalog

Title

The unnatural history of the sea / Callum Roberts.

Author

Roberts, Callum.

Publication

Washington, DC : Island Press/Shearwater Books, [2007], ©2007.

Supplementary Content

• Publisher description
• Contributor biographical information

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xvii, 435 pages : illustrations, maps; 24 cm

Summary

"Drawing on firsthand accounts of early explorers, pirates, merchants, fishers, and travelers, the book recreates the oceans of the past: waters teeming with whales, sea lions, sea otters, turtles, and giant fish. The abundance of marine life described by 15th century seafarers is almost unimaginable today, but Roberts both brings it alive and artfully traces its depletion. Collapsing fisheries, he shows, are simply the latest chapter in a long history of unfettered commercialization of the seas."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• Ocean and civilization
• Ocean > History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 379-421) and index.

Contents

Pt. 1. Explorers and exploiters in the age of plenty -- Ch. 1. The end of innocence -- Ch. 2. The origins of intensive fishing -- Ch. 3. Newfound lands -- Ch. 4. More fish than water -- Ch. 5. Plunder of the Caribbean -- Ch. 6. The age of merchant adventurers -- Ch. 7. Whaling : the first global industry -- Ch. 8. To the ends of the earth for seals -- Ch. 9. The great fisheries of Europe -- Ch. 10. The first trawling revolution -- Ch. 11. The dawn of industrial fishing -- Pt. 2. The modern era of industrial fishing -- Ch. 12. The inexhaustible sea -- Ch. 13. The legacy of whaling -- Ch. 14. Emptying european seas -- Ch. 15. The downfall of king cod -- Ch. 16. Slow death of an estuary : Chesapeake Bay -- Ch. 17. The collapse of coral -- Ch. 18. Shifting baselines -- Ch. 19. Ghost habitats -- Ch. 20. Hunting on the high plains of the open sea -- Ch. 21. Violating the last great wilderness -- Pt. 3. The once and future ocean -- Ch. 22. No place left to hide -- Ch. 23. Barbequed jellyfish or swordfish steak? -- Ch. 24. Reinventing fishery management -- Ch. 25. The return of abundance -- Ch. 26. The future of fish.

ISBN

• 9781597261029 (cloth : alk. paper)
• 1597261025 (cloth : alk. paper)

LCCN

2007001841

OCLC

• ocm80019884
• 80019884
• SCSB-5359104

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries