Author: Richard Ellis
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226922901
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
Provides a comprehensive history of the swordfish, from prehistoric fossils to its present-day endangerment, and describes its adaptability and its relationship with humans.
Author: John Mack
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1861899289
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
“There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea,” wrote Joseph Conrad. And there is certainly nothing more integral to the development of the modern world. In The Sea: A Cultural History, John Mack considers those great expanses that both unite and divide us, and the ways in which human beings interact because of the sea, from navigation to colonization to trade. Much of the world’s population lives on or near the cost, and as Mack explains, in a variety of ways, people actually inhabit the sea. The Sea looks at the characteristics of different seas and oceans and investigates how the sea is conceptualized in various cultures. Mack explores the diversity of maritime technologies, especially the practice of navigation and the creation of a society of the sea, which in many cultures is all-male, often cosmopolitan, and always hierarchical. He describes the cultures and the social and technical practices characteristic of seafarers, as well as their distinctive language and customs. As he shows, the separation of sea and land is evident in the use of different vocabularies on land and on sea for the same things, the change in a mariner’s behavior when on land, and in the liminal status of points uniting the two realms, like beaches and ports. Mack also explains how ships are deployed in symbolic contexts on land in ecclesiastical and public architecture. Yet despite their differences, the two realms are always in dialogue in symbolic and economic terms. Casting a wide net, The Sea uses histories, maritime archaeology, biography, art history, and literature to provide an innovative and experiential account of the waters that define our worldly existence.
Author: Callum Roberts
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597265772
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 615
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Book Description
Humanity can make short work of the oceans’ creatures. In 1741, hungry explorers discovered herds of Steller’s sea cow in the Bering Strait, and in less than thirty years, the amiable beast had been harpooned into extinction. It’s a classic story, but a key fact is often omitted. Bering Island was the last redoubt of a species that had been decimated by hunting and habitat loss years before the explorers set sail. As Callum M. Roberts reveals in The Unnatural History of the Sea, the oceans’ bounty didn’t disappear overnight. While today’s fishing industry is ruthlessly efficient, intense exploitation began not in the modern era, or even with the dawn of industrialization, but in the eleventh century in medieval Europe. Roberts explores this long and colorful history of commercial fishing, taking readers around the world and through the centuries to witness the transformation of the seas. 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 fifteenth 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. The story does not end with an empty ocean. Instead, Roberts describes how we might restore the splendor and prosperity of the seas through smarter management of our resources and some simple restraint. From the coasts of Florida to New Zealand, marine reserves have fostered spectacular recovery of plants and animals to levels not seen in a century. They prove that history need not repeat itself: we can leave the oceans richer than we found them.
Author: John J. Collins
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691191719
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
Since they were first discovered in the caves at Qumran in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have aroused more fascination-- and controversy-- than perhaps any other archaeological find. Collins sheds light on the bitter conflicts that have swirled around the scrolls, and sheds lights on their true significance for Jewish and Christian history.
Author: John Banville
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030742930X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An “extraordinary meditation on mortality, grief, death, childhood and memory" (USA Today) about a middle-aged Irishman who has gone back to the seaside to grieve the loss of his wife. In this luminous novel, John Banville introduces us to Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child to cope with the recent loss of his wife. It is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time. What Max comes to understand about the past, and about its indelible effects on him, is at the center of this elegiac, gorgeously written novel—among the finest we have had from this masterful writer.
Author: Richard Carrington
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Marine biology
Languages : en
Pages : 285
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Book Description
Author: Claire A. Nivola
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
ISBN: 1466808756
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 36
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Book Description
Sylvia Earle first lost her heart to the ocean as a young girl when she discovered the wonders of the Gulf of Mexico in her backyard. As an adult, she dives even deeper. Whether she's designing submersibles, swimming with the whales, or taking deep-water walks, Sylvia Earle has dedicated her life to learning more about what she calls "the blue heart of the planet." With stunningly detailed pictures of the wonders of the sea, Life in the Ocean tells the story of Sylvia's growing passion and how her ocean exploration and advocacy have made her known around the world. This picture book biography also includes an informative author's note that will motivate young environmentalists. Life in the Ocean is one of The Washington Post's Best Kids Books of 2012
Author: Thomas B Buell
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1612512100
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 658
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Book Description
A comprehensive biography of the most powerful naval officer in the history of the United States who was the controversial architect of the American victory in the Pacific. Someone once asked Admiral Ernest J. King if it was he who said, ""When they get in trouble they send for the sonsabitches."" He replied that he was not -—but that he would have said it if he had thought of it. Although never accused of having a warm personality, Ernest J. King commanded the respect of everyone familiar with his work. His is one of the great American naval careers, his place in history forever secured by a remarkable contribution to the Allied victory in the Second World War. ""Lord how I need him,"" wrote Navy Secretary Frank Knox on December 23, 1941, the day he summoned King to take control of the Navy at its lowest point, the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Raised in a stern Calvinist home in Lorain, Ohio, Ernest King grew interested in a naval career after reading an article in a boys' magazine. After graduating from Annapolis fourth in his class (1901), King's early career was ""rather ordinary"" according to biographer Robert W. Love. But in 1909, at the end of a stint as a drillmaster at the Naval Academy, King distinguished himself by writing an influential essay entitled, ""Organization on Board Ship."" King performed well in a number of commands between 1914 and 1923, when he began a three-year stint as commander of the submarine base at New London, Connecticut. In 1926 his career took an important turn: he completed the shortened flight course at Pensacola, and from that point on, he would see aviation as the decisive element in naval warfare. This conviction deepened when he served as assistant bureau chief under Rear Admiral William Moffett, widely considered the father of American naval aviation. King's career received another boost when he ably commanded his first aircraft carrier, the Lexington, in the early 1930s. But as his prospects for advancement increased, so did his reputation as a difficult character. "He was meaner than hell," commented one junior officer, reflecting the general opinion that King was as much despised as he was respected. This didn't seem to bother him, though. Love observed that he "seemed almost to pride himself on the fact that he had earned his rank solely on his merits as a professional naval officer, rather than as a result of the friendship of others." In the spring of 1939, the sixty-year-old King coveted the job of Chief of Naval Operations. But his personality and decided lack of political skill or tact led President Roosevelt to pass him over in favor of Admiral Harold Stark. Seemingly banished to duty on the General Board in Washington, King's career was resurrected by the war that soon started in Europe. When Stark grew dissatisfied with the commander of his Atlantic Squadron, he looked to King, who took over in December, 1940. With his slogan ""do all that we can with what we have,"" King ably managed the undeclared war with Germany's U-boats. Although his command was limited to the Atlantic, it brought him to Washington frequently and he stayed abreast of developments in the Pacific. The morning after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Stark called him to Washington; soon after he was running the Navy -—first as Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet, soon adding the title Chief of Naval Operations, making him the first man to combine both jobs. In the early months of 1942, King's strategic brilliance earned him the complete confidence of President Roosevelt. When none of the British or American war planners even dared to think of going on the offensive in the Pacific in 1942-43, King successfully lobbied to do just that. "No fighter ever won his fight by covering up -—merely fending off the other fellow's blows," he wrote. "The winner hits and keeps on hitting even though he has to be able to take some stiff blows in order to keep on hitting." It's easy to see why even those who despised Ernest King were glad he was on their side.
Author: Evan Griffith
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0358531829
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 48
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Book Description
The curiosity, drive, and perseverance of the nineteenth-century woman scientist who pioneered the use of aquariums to study ocean life are celebrated in this gorgeous, empowering picture book. How did a nineteenth-century dressmaker revolutionize science? Jeanne Power was creative: she wanted to learn about the creatures that swim beneath the ocean waves, so she built glass tanks and changed the way we study underwater life forever. Jeanne Power was groundbreaking: she solved mysteries of sea animals and published her findings at a time when few of women’s contributions to science were acknowledged. Jeanne Power was persistent: when records of her research were lost, she set to work repeating her studies. And when men tried to take credit for her achievements, she stood firm and insisted on the recognition due to her. Jeanne Power was inspiring, and the legacy of this pioneering marine scientist lives on in every aquarium.
Author: Ernest Hemingway
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 65
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Book Description
DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.
