Fishing: How the Sea Fed Civilization by Brian Fagan (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2017, 346pp, illus, notes, glossary, index, isbn 978-0-300-21534-2; $29.95hc) In opening pages of Fishing, anthropology professor Brian Fagan inserts a quote from Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler that states: “The water is more productive than the Earth.” Fagan sets out to test this postulate as oceans and lakes rose and fell over millennia and on a global scale. His focus: the close examination of bone and shell middens accumulated by ancient societies that inhabited the sites by a potpourri of research scientists—“architectologists,” anthropologists, botanists, ecologists, geneticists, geologists, paleoclimatologists, and even entomologists. With this data in hand, Fagan created theoretical models to determine where the people of diverse lands and cultures fished, what imaginative devices they devised, what they fished for and when, by what means they preserved perishable catches, and, finally, how fishing for sustenance evolved into a sophisticated industry. Thus, fishers became the bedrock of communities and, in time, entire civilizations. Many primitive societies valued fish as a protein source; they were abundant and easier to come by than hunting wild game over large stretches of land. Fish are divided into two general classifications: pelagic and demersal. The former inhabits oceans and lakes, usually away from the shore and often in deep water. This marine pelagic environment is the earth’s largest aquatic habitat, accounting for slightly over 10% of known fish species. The demersal varieties live close to shore and in shallow water and were therefore the easiest to catch, but tools still had to be invented to harvest them. It was relatively easy to collect shellfish by hand, but bivalves on their own cannot sustain a population. Fishers made nets and lines out of kelp, bark, vines, animal fur, and fibers such as cotton and human hair. Hooks could be fashioned from steamed yew, spruce or hemlock, cedar-root, carved shells and especially bone. A fishhook made from the bone of a vanquished enemy was considered an act of humiliation to the victim. Net floats were constructed from animal bladders. Long spears and sophisticated net con60
figurations, such as gill nets and seines, enabled fishers to increase their yield. Stream fishers developed curious but effective methods to catch their prey at their feet: Fagan describes one strange method used to catch trout called “tickling.” One
would sneak up behind a feeding quiescent trout, place a finger under its belly and then gently tickle it. The fish would become docile and then could be caught by hand. If the stream was turbulent or cloudy so that they could not see their prey, fishers chewed coconuts and would spit coconut oil on the water to calm and clarify it. They also built dams, weirs, and mattanzas (anchored and chambered trapping nets). Many societies engaged in aquaculture, ensuring their quarry was close at hand and readily available. In time, fishers invented all manner of watercraft to enable them to seek more species, particularly pelagic fish. They built rafts with wooden branches, canoes from dugout logs, hulls with frames covered with sown animal skin or tree bark, and tomols (planked canoes). Reed boats in Egypt and Peru were lashed and floated in sheltered waterways for fishing and transportation. Fagan narrates how and why these craft likely came about. The author also details the varieties of preservation methods of the notoriously perishable catches. One important byproduct from fish blood and intestines was turned into a sauce, known as “garum” in the Roman world. This was the ketchup of its day that made fish more desirable to eat. Success in fisheries, preservation, and pre-
sentation resulted in critical sustenance for travelers and traders, as well as ancient armies who were then able to conquer distant lands, and mariners to explore the seas. Fagan casts a broad anthropologic and ichthyologic net in his book, but in the last chapters he connects this history to the present-day crises regarding both climate change and overfishing. He shares evidence that both scenarios have occurred multiple times in history, and explains that the difference we face today is that we now have a much larger population to sustain, and fishing technology has become so efficient that the repopulation of fish stocks is in peril—sobering thoughts as reflected the author’s closing words: “Unless we want to turn the formerly vast richness of the oceans into a permanent desert, we would do well to remember that sustainable fishing is just as much an art as Walton’s quiet angling. Otherwise, we will find that there are no more fish in the sea.” Fagan’s tome does have some minor flaws in that it is repetitious in places, and might prove a challenge for those with a sparse background in anthropology. Still, this scholarly informative work is one that most maritime historians are likely savor. There is much to learn from Brian Fagan’s interpretation concerning How the Sea Fed Civilization. Louis Arthur Norton West Simsbury, Connecticut In the Hurricane’s Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown Nathaniel Philbrick. (Viking, New York, 2018, 384pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, isbn 978-0-52542-676-9; $30hc) While we all know the outcome of the events leading up to the Siege of Yorktown in 1781, Nathaniel Philbrick’s latest book weaves the essential elements together in such a way that the reader feels as if it were a real page-turner of a mystery, replete with injections of what seems like privileged information, and how much of a different ending it could have been. Philbrick shares important insights into the emergence of George Washington as a leader, as he faces challenge after challenge, and even changes his mind and abandons his long-desired attack on New York, instead continuing such preparations as a feint in order to steal a march on the road to Yorktown. SEA HISTORY 166, SPRING 2019