“A thorough and engaging history of Maine’s rocky coast and its tough-minded people.”—Boston Herald “[A] well-researched and well-written cultural and ecological history of stubborn perseverance.”—USA Today For more than four hundred years the people of coastal Maine have clung to their rocky, wind-swept lands, resisting outsiders’ attempts to control them while harvesting the astonishing bounty of the Gulf of Maine. Today’s independent, self-sufficient lobstermen belong to the communities imbued with a European sense of ties between land and people, but threatened by the forces of homogenization spreading up the eastern seaboard. In the tradition of William Warner’s Beautiful Swimmers, veteran journalist Colin Woodard (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good) traces the history of the rugged fishing communities that dot the coast of Maine and the prized crustacean that has long provided their livelihood. Through forgotten wars and rebellions, and with a deep tradition of resistance to interference by people “from away,” Maine’s lobstermen have defended an earlier vision of America while defying the “tragedy of the commons”—the notion that people always overexploit their shared property. Instead, these icons of American individualism represent a rare example of true communal values and collaboration through grit, courage, and hard-won wisdom.
An anthropologist describes the working world of Maine lobstermen, focusing on the intricate personal network that sustains them.
Men routinely complain that their wives are uba waikna laik (boy crazy). Comparatively, Kuri women say that their husbands are uba wanina (really jealous). “Uba waikna laik” and “uba wanina” are common cries in the battle of the sexes, ...
Unexpectedly, boom may turn to bust, as the captains must fight a warming ocean, volatile prices, and rough weather to keep their livelihood afloat. The three captains work longer hours, trying to make up in volume what they lack in price.
Their shells do not contain all r the pigments that lend a! normal lobsters grreen- ' ish-brown color. Genetic \t,' V detects also cause other unusual bolorings, such _ as orange, yellow, and '-* rarest at all, white. so - I ost.
But his magnificent dining room at Kragsyde, his house at Lobster Cove, rarely entertained visitors. Each winter he quietly boarded a luxury European-bound steamship with a man eighteen years his junior.
“Lobster is served three ways in this fascinating book: by fisherman, scientist and the crustaceans themselves. . . . Corson, who worked aboard commercial lobster boats for two years, weaves together these three worlds.
In American Character, Colin Woodard traces these two key strands in American politics through the four centuries of the nation’s existence, from the first colonies through the Gilded Age, Great Depression and the present day, and he ...
Food writer Elisabeth Townsend here charts the global rise of the lobster as delicacy. Part of the Edible Series, Lobster: A Global History explores the use and consumption of the lobster from poor man’s staple to cultural icon.
Unexpectedly, boom may turn to bust, as the captains must fight a warming ocean, volatile prices, and rough weather to keep their livelihood afloat. The three captains work longer hours, trying to make up in volume what they lack in price.
• A New Republic Best Book of the Year • The Globalist Top Books of the Year • Winner of the Maine Literary Award for Non-fiction • Particularly relevant in understanding who voted for who in this presidential election year, this is ...