The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea

Winner Pulitzer Prize for History Winner Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction Finalist National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction) A New York Times Notable Book of the Year Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, NPR, Library Journal, and gCaptain Booklist Editors Choice (History) Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence In this cri de coeur about the Gulfs environmental ruin (New York Times), Davis has written a beautiful homage to a neglected sea (front page, New York Times Book Review). Hailed as a nonfiction epic . . . in the tradition of Jared Diamonds best-seller Collapse, and Simon Winchesters Atlantic (Dallas Morning News), Jack E. Daviss The Gulf is by turns informative, lyrical, inspiring and chilling for anyone who cares about the future of Americas Sea (Wall Street Journal). Illuminating Americas political and economic relationship with the environment from the age of the conquistadors to the present, Davis demonstrates how the Gulfs fruitful ecosystems and exceptional beauty empowered a growing nation. Filled with vivid, untold stories from the sportfish that launched Gulfside vacationing to Hollywoods role in the countrys first offshore oil wells, this vast and welltold story shows how we made the Gulf . . . [into] a national sacrifice zone (Bill McKibben). The first and only study of its kind, The Gulf offers a unique and illuminating history of the American Southern coast and sea as it should be written (Edward O. Wilson). 26 illustrations