Brian Payne is professor of history and Canadian studies at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts.
Eating the Ocean offers insights into an important - but entirely neglected - aspect of the many wrongheaded fisheries policies of the twentieth century that have culminated in the dreadful situation of so many of the world's current fisheries. Brian Payne makes a clear and very well-documented case that it was the focus on consumption that led to overproduction, overfishing, and a tremendous waste of resources. Jennifer Hubbard, Toronto Metropolitan University and author of A Science on the Scales: The Rise of Canadian Atlantic Fisheries Biology, 1898-1939