Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Fishing: How the Sea Fed Civilization

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Humanity’s last major source of food from the wild, and how it enabled and shaped the growth of civilization

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.

Pages: 368

Format: Kindle Edition

Publisher: Yale University Press

Release: September 26, 2017

Fishing: How the Sea Fed Civilization

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Humanity’s last major source of food from the wild, and how it enabled and shaped the growth of civilization

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.

Pages: 368

Format: Kindle Edition

Publisher: Yale University Press

Release: September 26, 2017

More books from Brian M. Fagan

The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans

3.6/5 ( ratings)

The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization

3.9/5 ( ratings)

The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations

3.7/5 ( ratings)

A Little History of Archaeology

3.7/5 ( ratings)

The Rape of the Nile: Tomb Robbers, Tourists, and Archaeologists in Egypt

The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics

3.9/5 ( ratings)

Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Beyond the Blue Horizon: How the Earliest Mariners Unlocked the Secrets of the Oceans

3.3/5 ( ratings)

People of the Earth: An Introduction to World Prehistory

3.8/5 ( ratings)

The Seventy Great Mysteries of the Ancient World

3.6/5 ( ratings)

Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting, and the Discovery of the New World

3.4/5 ( ratings)

Secrets of the Universe in 100 Symbols

3.7/5 ( ratings)

What We Did in Bed: A Horizontal History

3.6/5 ( ratings)

The Complete Ice Age: How Climate Change Shaped the World

World Prehistory: A Brief Introduction

3.4/5 ( ratings)

Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors

3.4/5 ( ratings)

In the Beginning: An Introduction to Archaeology

3.6/5 ( ratings)

Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting, and the Discovery of the New World

3.4/5 ( ratings)

Ancient Lives: An Introduction to Archaeology and Prehistory

Rate this book!

Write a review?