The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (2012)

Author talk and book signing with W. Jeffrey Bolster

Since the Middle Ages, the Atlantic Ocean has shaped the lives of people who depend upon it for survival, and just as surely, people have shaped the Atlantic. W. Jeffrey Bolster, history of science professor at the University of New Hampshire and a professional seafarer,  took us through a millennium-long environmental history of human impact upon one of the world's largest ecosystems. In his new book, The Mortal Sea (Harvard University Press), Bolster traces the effects of fishing, from its medieval origins to the advent of industrialized fishing in American waters in the twentieth century, and where that trajectory has brought us today.