The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea

by Jack E. Davis Narrated by Tom Perkins

Overview

Winner of the 2017 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction-the tragic collision between civilization and nature in the Gulf of Mexico becomes a uniquely American story in this environmental epic.



When painter Winslow Homer first sailed into the Gulf of Mexico, he was struck by its "special kind of providence." Indeed, the Gulf presented itself as America's sea-bound by geography, culture, and tradition to the national experience-and yet, there has never been a comprehensive history of the Gulf until now. And so, in this rich and original work that explores the Gulf through our human connection with the sea, environmental historian Jack E. Davis finally places this exceptional region into the American mythos in a sweeping history that extends from the Pleistocene age to the twenty-first century.



Significant beyond tragic oil spills and hurricanes, the Gulf has historically been one of the world's most bounteous marine environments, supporting human life for millennia. Davis starts from the premise that nature lies at the center of human existence, and takes listeners on a compelling and, at times, wrenching journey from the Florida Keys to the Texas Rio Grande, along marshy shorelines and majestic estuarine bays, profoundly beautiful and life-giving, though fated to exploitation by esurient oil men and real-estate developers.



Rich in vivid, previously untold stories, The Gulf tells the larger narrative of the American Sea-from the sportfish that brought the earliest tourists to Gulf shores to Hollywood's engagement with the first offshore oil wells-as it inspired and empowered, sometimes to its own detriment, the ethnically diverse groups of a growing nation. Davis's pageant of historical characters is vast, including the presidents who directed western expansion toward its shores, the New England fishers who introduced their own distinct skills to the region, and the industries and big agriculture that sent their contamination downstream into the estuarine wonderland. Nor does Davis neglect the colorfully idiosyncratic individuals: the Tabasco king who devoted his life to wildlife conservation, the Texas shrimper who gave hers to clean water and public health, as well as the New York architect who hooked the "big one" that set the sportfishing world on fire.



Ultimately, Davis reminds us that amidst the ruin, beauty awaits its return, as the Gulf is, and has always been, an ongoing story. Sensitive to the imminent effects of climate change, and to the difficult task of rectifying grievous assaults of recent centuries, The Gulf suggests how a penetrating examination of a single region's history can inform the country's path ahead.

Editorial Reviews

SEPTEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

Narrator Tom Perkins gives this rich and dense audiobook about the Gulf of Mexico a well-paced narration. He captures the tone (serious and pointed), the voice (informed), and the argument (the Gulf needs attending) with aplomb. Author Davis brings a broad brush to this panoramic work, which explores the meaning of the Gulf Coast’s history. The well-documented environmental disasters; the extraordinary fisheries; the use and misuse by industry, real estate hustlers, and ambitious politicians—all are expertly explained. What makes this text more than an indictment is the author’s careful balancing of interests and points of view. The stories come to life through vivid profiles of painter Winslow Homer and Mississippi artist/environmentalist Walter Anderson, along with a host of local activists. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

The New York Times Book Review - Philip Connors

…Jack E. Davis's sprightly and sweeping new history…reads like a watery version of the history of the American West…It is a sad story well told—although I should confess I began the book skeptical of being entertained and edified by 592 pages about a body of water that has come to be used like a sump for the wastes of industry. My doubts proved unwarranted. Davis has written a beautiful homage to a neglected sea, a lyrical paean to its remaining estuaries and marshes, and a marvelous mash-up of human and environmental history.

The New York Times - Dwight Garner

…a sensitive and sturdy work of environmental history…[Davis] has a well-stocked mind, and frequently views the history of the Gulf through the prism of artists and writers including Winslow Homer, Wallace Stevens, Ernest Hemingway and John D. MacDonald. His prose is supple and clear…Davis's book functions, as well, as a cri de coeur about the Gulf's environmental ruin.

Publishers Weekly

★ 01/23/2017
In this comprehensive and thoroughly researched narrative, Davis, professor of history and sustainability at the University of Florida, positions the Gulf of Mexico as an integral part of American ecology, culture, and—with future good stewardship—economic success. He sprinkles geological and marine history throughout the chronicle of the coast’s demographic changes from indigenous inhabitants to European colonizers, Louisiana Cajuns, Texas roughnecks, and Florida’s tourists. Davis unflinchingly addresses the decades of oil spills, overfishing, and poor environmental practices that reduced resources. He also describes the decline of coastal marshes, which protect against hurricanes, and the erosion stemming from ill-conceived Army Corps of Engineer projects. Hurricanes Camille and Katrina and the catastrophic BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill poignantly receive their due. Davis also discusses inspired conservation efforts to combat the fashion industry’s feather fascination and subsequent decimation of snowy egrets. The density of the fact-packed chapters calls for a deliberate reading pace so as not to overlook any of Davis’s thought-provoking commentary and keen descriptions. Rather than advocate an impractical hands-off approach to dealing with the Gulf’s myriad issues, Davis makes the convincing argument that wiser, far-sighted practices—including those aimed at combating climate change—could help the Gulf region to remain a bastion of resources for the foreseeable future. (Mar.)

Library Journal

★ 01/01/2017
"If Jefferson's West was the land of the nation's manifest destiny, the Gulf was its sea." So argues Davis (history, Univ. of Florida; An Everglades Providence) in this magnificent chronicle of the Gulf of Mexico. Spanning a period from the gulf's geological formation to the present, this book is organized around the "natural characteristics of the Gulf" (i.e., its fauna, flora, weather, and landscape). The stories of the Europeans—the Spanish, who found the gulf; the French, who discovered its connection to the Mississippi; and the British, who began to map it—will be familiar to many readers, but Davis's retelling still sticks. The core of the title, though, concerns "America's Gulf" in the 19th century onward: when the Coastal Survey finished charting the coast; when the area's first real industry, commercial fishing, flourished; when sport fishing and beach tourism became popular; and when the petroleum industry took off. Environmental perturbations followed. And lost, like artifacts in the Florida aboriginal Calusa's shell mounds, was the lesson of holding a "prudent relationship with nature." VERDICT This is a work of astonishing breadth: richly peopled, finely structured, beautifully written. It should appeal equally well to Gulf coast residents and snowbirds, students of environmental history, and general readers.—Robert Eagan, Windsor P.L., Ont.

SEPTEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

Narrator Tom Perkins gives this rich and dense audiobook about the Gulf of Mexico a well-paced narration. He captures the tone (serious and pointed), the voice (informed), and the argument (the Gulf needs attending) with aplomb. Author Davis brings a broad brush to this panoramic work, which explores the meaning of the Gulf Coast’s history. The well-documented environmental disasters; the extraordinary fisheries; the use and misuse by industry, real estate hustlers, and ambitious politicians—all are expertly explained. What makes this text more than an indictment is the author’s careful balancing of interests and points of view. The stories come to life through vivid profiles of painter Winslow Homer and Mississippi artist/environmentalist Walter Anderson, along with a host of local activists. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2017-01-16
A sweeping environmental history of the Gulf of Mexico that duly considers the ravages of nature and man.In light of the 2010 devastation of the BP oil spill, environmental historian Davis (History and Sustainability Studies/Univ. of Florida; An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century, 2009, etc.) presents an engaging, truly relevant new study of the Gulf as a powerful agent in the American story, one that has become "lost in the pages of American history." Once the habitat of the highly developed, self-sustaining Calusa indigenous people, the rich estuary of the Gulf is the 10th largest body of water in the world, and it forms the sheltered basin that creates the warm, powerful Gulf Stream, which allowed the first explorers, such as Ponce de León, to make their ways back to the Old World. Davis meanders through the early history of this fascinating sea, which became a kind of graveyard to many early marooned explorers due to shipwrecks and run-ins with natives. Yet the conquistadors took little note of the abundant marine life inhabiting the waters and, unaccountably, starved. A more familiar economy was established at the delta of the muddy, sediment-rich Mississippi River, discovered by the French. The author focuses on the 19th century as the era when the Gulf finally asserted its place in the great move toward Manifest Destiny; it would "significantly enlarge the water communication of national commerce and shift the boundary of the country from vulnerable land to protective sea." The Gulf states would also become a mecca of tourism and fishing and, with the discovery of oil, enter a dire period of the "commercialization of national endowments." The story of this magnificent body of water and its wildlife grows tragic at this point—e.g., the "killing juggernaut" of Gulf wading birds to obtain fashionable feathers. Still, it remains an improbable, valiant survival tale in the face of the BP oil spill and ongoing climate change. An elegant narrative braced by a fierce, sobering environmental conviction.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171128395
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	04/19/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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