Why read All the Boats on the Ocean?

Book cover of All the Boats on the Ocean: How Government Subsidies Led to Global Overfishing

Book description

Most current fishing practices are neither economically nor biologically sustainable. Every year, the world spends $80 billion buying fish that cost $105 billion to catch, even as heavy fishing places growing pressure on stocks that are already struggling with warmer, more acidic oceans. How have we developed an industry that…

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Why read it?

1 author picked All the Boats on the Ocean as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Thomas Blake Earle

Author

Why do we overfish? A question simply stated but complex to answer is the central focus of much of Carmel Finley’s writing.

Finley, a journalist turned historian, points to the geopolitical imperatives of the Cold War to understand why, during the middle decades of the twentieth century, fishing emerged as a global industry with technologically sophisticated fishing vessels ranging across the world’s oceans.

While they ostensibly sought fish, these vessels expanded state power. They were built and operated by lavish subsidies from governments seeking to exert greater and greater control over the seas.

From the United States, to Japan, Iceland,…

From Thomas' list on why the history of the ocean matters.