Tag Archives: “The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail”

UNH professor’s latest book The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail,” wins praise

It is largely a sad story of a cornerstone American industry that has been in peril for more than 150 years, long before the advent of factory trawlers. It is a story about the long impact of humans on their environment and the dire consequences attributable to the idea that the sea and its abundance were immortal and everlasting. Between the 1850s and 1870s awareness of the problem built, and states started forming fish commissions. Over the first 75 years, it was fishermen saying something needed to be done and scientists saying there was no problem and the men should keep fishing. more@unionleader  12:45

UNH historian wins prestigious 2013 Bancroft Prize – “The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail”

While overfishing is often thought of as a contemporary problem, Bolster reveals in “The Mortal Sea” that humans were transforming the sea long before factory trawlers turned fishing from a hand-liner’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 500 years. continued