Rachel Carson, author of “Silent Spring,” was no mean observer of the natural world. But on one huge front, she was wrong. Mankind, she wrote in 1951, could never subdue and plunder the wide ocean as it had the lands of Earth.
Well, look around, says my guest today. And look way back. Even in the long age of sail, of little wooden boats and tall-masted ships, humans were leaving a deep imprint on the vast seas. Hauling in catches so great they ate away at the sea’s capacity to renew and replenish. It’s all utterly relevant now.
This hour, On Point: the age of sail and the “mortal sea.”
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests
W. Jeffrey Bolster, author of “The Mortal Sea: Fishing The Atlantic In The Age Of Sail,” associate professor of history at the University of New Hampshire in Durham and a licensed shipmaster."
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