Convinced that the time has come for historians to take the living ocean seriously, University of New Hampshire history professor Jeffrey Bolster has written a new book—The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail. In the book, Bolster takes readers through a millennium-long environmental history of human impact on the ocean.
Recently, Mission Blue caught up with Professor Bolster. Read the Q&A below to find out about the inspiration behind the story, what interesting things didn’t make it into the volume, and how writing this book changed Professor Bolster’s own view of the ocean.
Can you briefly describe what inspired you to write The Mortal Sea?
I’ve spent a lifetime messing around in boats, and as a young man I was a commercial seaman for ten years.…