Yale University Press
Fishing: How the Sea Fed Civilization
Key Metrics
- Brian Fagan
- Yale University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780300215342
- 9.4 X 6.4 X 1 inches
- 1.4 pounds
- History > World - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
In this history of fishing--not as sport but as sustenance--archaeologist and best-selling author Brian Fagan argues that fishing was an indispensable and often overlooked element in the growth of civilization. It sustainably provided enough food to allow cities, nations, and empires to grow, but it did so with a different emphasis. Where agriculture encouraged stability, fishing demanded movement. It frequently required a search for new and better fishing grounds; its technologies, centered on boats, facilitated movement and discovery; and fish themselves, when dried and salted, were the ideal food--lightweight, nutritious, and long-lasting--for traders, travelers, and conquering armies. This history of the long interaction of humans and seafood tours archaeological sites worldwide to show readers how fishing fed human settlement, rising social complexity, the development of cities, and ultimately the modern world.
Author Bio
Dr. Brian M. Fagan is Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Born in England, Dr. Fagan earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in Archaeology and Anthropology from Pembroke College, Cambridge University.
Professor Fagan's excavations in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) from 1959 to 1965 earned him recognition as a pioneer of multidisciplinary African history. He has served as Director of the Bantu Studies Project of the British Institute for Eastern Africa, Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana, and Visiting Professor at Whittier College and the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Professor Fagan is the recipient of a Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His other awards include the Public Service Award of the Society of Professional Archaeologists and the Public Education Award of the Society for American Archaeology.
He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1973. Dr. Fagan's many books include People of the Earth and In the Beginning, two widely used university and college textbooks in archaeology and prehistory. His other works include The Rape of the Nile, The Adventure of Archaeology, and The Little Ice Age. He also edited The Oxford Companion to Archaeology.
Source: University of California, Santa Barbara and BrianFagn.com
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