Against the Tide: The Fate of the New England Fisherman

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 384 pages
• Published by: Mariner Books
• Edition: 1st Edition June 15, 2000
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 061805698X
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0618056989
• Book Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Weighs: 13.6 ounces

Product Review
Like many kids fortunate enough to spend summers by the shore, writer/journalist Richard Adams Carey grew up with a healthy respect for fishermen and the sea, "a world of amazing color and shape and texture, of surprise and a perceptible knife-edge of menace." During the '90s, when headlines described the demise of New England's small-boat family fishermen, he decided to head back to Cape Cod to learn what he could about a threatened way of life and the forces--political, commercial, ecological--which imperil the survival of the fish the industry depends on. To this end, he spent a year working alongside four veterans of the Cape's inshore waters: a crewmate on a dragger (a boat that catches groundfish with a dragnet towed along the ocean bottom); a lobsterman; a long-liner (who sets quarter-mile or longer fishing lines sporting baited hooks every three feet); and a quahog dredger (essentially a clammer who harvests in bulk). Carey deftly weaves the details of their hard-won, unpredictable lives with passages on local and global fishing history, the minutiae of national and regional legislation severely regulating the fishing industry, the vicissitudes of the weather, and a smattering of stories and anecdotes. Throughout colonial times, for instance, fishermen regularly caught lobsters 4 feet long and weighing 45 pounds! Such an ancient, sizable creature is nearly inconceivable today.

Despite the tenacity of the men he fished with, Carey acknowledges that the owner-operators of small family boats off New England are likely going the way of the family farmer. Yet he reminds us that the issues deciding their fate concern us all: "how to tap this continent's wealth without plundering and despoiling it; how to reconcile our hard-wired demand for growth and consumption with a husbandman's concern for sustainability; how to mark our limits and resolutely stay within them." --Svenja Soldovieri --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The Washington Post
"This book should be read for its balanced portrayal of a New England fishery, but more than that it exemplifies the classic conflict between natural and human resources. Yes, it is true that certain kinds of fishing are very destructive. But Carey is also a humanist and a journalist of considerable depth, who weaves the fate of men and fish together into a whole story."

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Against the Tide: The Fate of the New England Fisherman (Hardcover) Being a New England fisherman (hehe-rather, woman) I found the day-to-day lives of the fisherman very interesting-who knew scallops had blue eyes? However, I had a difficult time following the time frame of events because of the way Mr. Carey jumped around. I couldn't even tell exactly what year this book was taking place without some re-reading. The politics involved are sickening in the amount of time wasted and the fact that the committees could get nothing accomplished, evidenced with the ongoing cod crisis in New England today. Too bad none of the politicians involved happened to read this book.