Plagued by twin disasters—the collision of the Collins paddle steamer SS Arctic and the disappearance of SS Pacific less than two years later—and bearing the ire of southern Democratic politicians and President Franklin Pierce, his once great line failed. He lost his ships and eventually all his wealth and is buried in an unmarked grave. Fowler’s Steam Titans does what many previous books fail to do, and that is to capture all aspects of the story into one comprehensive, authoritative, and readable tale that is great for maritime enthusiasts, professionals, and the public. Salvatore Mercogliano Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina
by Kurt D. Voss All proceeds from this pictorial history benefit the ELISSA preservation fund.
Published by Arcadia Publishing and Galveston Historical Foundation $21.99. 128 pages, 200 photographs Autographed copies available at (409) 763-1877, or online at:
w w w . t 1/8 s mpage - e AD lissa.org
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The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan (W. W. Norton & Co., 2017, 368pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, isbn 9780-393-24643-8; $27.95hc) Award-winning journalist Dan Egan’s The Death and Life of the Great Lakes presents a compelling and dark story of how a series of human actions (and inactions) have repeatedly devastated the ecology of the world’s largest freshwater system. Based on several years of journalistic research, including interviews with current and former government officials, politicians, biologists, and amateur and professional sports fishermen, the book offers a timely and important updating of William Ashworth’s 1986 pathbreaking The Late Great Lakes: An Environmental History. Egan’s primary focus is on the effects of the unintentional (invasive) and intentional (introduced) non-native marine species in the Great Lakes. Egan lays the principal blame for these biological invasions on the dramatic re-engineering of the lakes through canals during the 19th and 20th centuries. In transforming the Great Lakes into a North American “Mediterranean Sea” and promoting international maritime commerce, engineers systematically stripped away the natural defenses that had limited the migration of species in the past. Particularly damaging was the circumventing of Niagara Falls through the construction of the various Welland Canals, the bridging of the natural divide between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River system with the opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal in 1848, and the completion of the St. Lawrence
Seaway in the 1959. The Welland Canal and St. Lawrence Seaway provided the “front door” to biological invasions from the Atlantic Ocean, while the canals connecting the Mississippi River with Lake Michigan created a back door. The result has been more than a century of ecological and economic chaos. Egan’s training as a journalist is evident in a crusading style that lends the book more an air of exposé than detached analysis. This is the book’s greatest strength, as the reporter’s search for truth and villains brings to light decades of economic shortsightedness and the hubris of engineers and scientists whose efforts to promote economic development and fight biological invasions generally served to worsen the impacts. Egan describes the poisoning of sea lamprey, the introduction of chinook salmon as a method for controlling alewife (river herring) populations, and the result economic boom and subsequent crash of the salmon sport fishing sector, the destructive effects of zebra and quagga mussels introduced through the ballast water of ocean-going vessels, the recent effects of phosphorous loading from fertilizer, and the emerging threat of Asian Carp. Egan does not paint a hopeful picture. If the past is any predictor of future behavior, regional leaders, policy makers, regulators, and government bureaucrats will avoid taking the drastic steps needed to close the lakes to biological invasions until it is too late. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes provides a gripping introduction to the global problem of the transportation of invasive species through maritime commerce and does an excellent job of explaining the extraordinary ecological and cultural value and uniqueness of the Great Lakes. Written with journalistic clarity and energy, the book is a quick and enjoyable read that still packs a strong punch. John O. Jensen Pensacola, Florida American Sanctuary: Mutiny, Martyrdom, and National Identity in the Age of Revolution by A. Roger Ekirch (Pantheon Books, New York, 2017, illus, notes, index, isbn 978-0-307-37990-0; $30hc) America wracked by dissension. Political parties vying for supremacy as outSEA HISTORY 163, SUMMER 2018