Bolster, W. Jeffrey (Author)
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.
...MoreReview MacLaughlin, Jim (2014) Review of "The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail". Mariner's Mirror (pp. 106-108).
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Neer, Wim Van;
Ervynck, Anton;
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Defining “Natural” Fish Communities for Fishery Management Purposes: Biological, Historical, and Archaeological Approaches
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Kowaleski, Maryanne;
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The Seasonality of Fishing in Medieval Britain
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Hubbard, Jennifer;
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Mediating the North Atlantic Environment: Fisheries Biologists, Technology, and Marine Spaces
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K.J. Rankin;
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Cartographical Perspectives on the Evolution of Fisheries in Newfoundland’s Grand Banks Area and Adjacent North Atlantic Waters in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
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Rose, George;
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Cod: The Ecological History of the North Atlantic Fisheries
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Arianne Sedef Urus;
(2023)
“A Spirit of Encroachment”: Trees, Cod, and the Political Ecology of Empire in the Newfoundland Fisheries, 1763–1783
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Payne, Brian J.;
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Fishing a Borderless Sea: Environmental Territorialism in the North Atlantic, 1818--1910
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Science, Salmon, and Sea Lice: Constructing Practice and Place in an Environmental Controversy
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Szabo, Vicki Ellen;
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“Bad to the bone”? The Unnatural History of Monstrous Medieval Whales
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Orton, David C.;
Morris, James;
Locker, Alison;
Barrett, James H.;
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Fish for the City: Meta-Analysis of Archaeological Cod Remains and the Growth of London's Northern Trade
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Thesis
Finley, Mary Carmel;
(2007)
The Tragedy of Enclosure: Fish, Fisheries Science, and United States ForeignPolicy, 1920--1960
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Zumbrägel, Christian;
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Woher kommen die faulen Aale auf dem Strom? Wasserkraft und Fischereikonflikte im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert
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Franklin, H. Bruce;
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The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America
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Lajus, Julia;
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Linking People through Fish: Science and Barents Sea Fish Resources in the Context of Russian-Scandinavian Relations
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Adams, Dean J.;
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P. G. Moore;
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The Contribution of Henry Charles Williamson (1871–1949) to Scottish and Canadian Fisheries Research
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Berman, Constance H.;
(2010)
Reeling in the Eels at la Trinquetaille near Arles
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Soens, Tim;
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Flood Security in the Medieval and Early Modern North Sea Area: A Question of Entitlement?
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Joaquim Alves Gaspar;
(2019)
The Liber de existencia riveriarum (c.1200) and the Birth of Nautical Cartography
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Francesco Bottaro;
(2012)
L’incolto produttivo: pesca e zone umide tra Adige e Colli Euganei nel XV secolo
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