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Fishing: How the Sea Fed Civilization
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.
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.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published September 26, 2017
About the author
Brian M. Fagan
154 books256 followersBrian Murray Fagan is a prolific author of popular archaeology books and a professor emeritus of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA. Fagan was born in England where he received his childhood education at Rugby School. He attended Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he studied archaeology and anthropology (BA 1959, MA 1962, PhD 1965).
He spent six years as Keeper of Prehistory at the Livingstone Museum in Zambia, Central Africa, and moved to the U.S.A. in 1966. He was Visiting Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, in 1966/67, and was appointed Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1967.
Fagan is an archaeological generalist, with expertise in the broad issues of human prehistory. He is the author or editor of 46 books, including seven widely used undergraduate college texts. Fagan has contributed over 100 specialist papers to many national and international journals. He is a Contributing Editor to American Archaeology and Discover Archaeology magazines, and formerly wrote a regular column for Archaeology Magazine. He serves on the Editorial Boards of six academic and general periodicals and has many popular magazine credits, including Scientific American and Gentleman's Quarterly.
Fagan has been an archaeological consultant for many organizations, including National Geographic Society, Time-Life, Encyclopædia Britannica, and Microsoft Encarta. He has lectured extensively about archaeology and other subjects throughout the world at many venues, including the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the National Geographic Society, the San Francisco City Lecture Program, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Getty Conservation Institute.
In addition to extensive experience with the development of Public Television programs, Fagan was the developer/writer of Where in time is Carmen San Diego, an NPR series in 1984-86. He has worked as a consultant for the BBC, RKO, and many Hollywood production companies on documentaries. In 1995 he was Senior Series Consultant for Time-Life Television's "Lost Civilizations" series.
Fagan was awarded the 1996 Society of Professional Archaeologists' Distinguished Service Award for his "untiring efforts to bring archaeology in front of the public." He also received a Presidential Citation Award from the Society for American Archaeology in 1996 for his work in textbook, general writing and media activities. He received the Society's first Public Education Award in 1997.
He has written many critiques of contemporary archaeology and has advocated non-traditional approaches, as well as writing extensively on the role of archaeology in contemporary society. His approach is a melding of different theoretical approaches, which focuses on the broad issues of human prehistory and the past. He is a strong advocate of multidisciplinary approaches to such issues as climate change in the past. Over the years, he has written a series of well-known textbooks that provide accurate summaries of the latest advances in archaeological method and theory and world prehistory. These are designed for beginners and avoid both confusing jargon and major theoretical discussion, which is inappropriate at this basic level. His approach melds traditional cultural history with more recent approaches, with a major emphasis on writing historical narrative using archaeological data and sources from other disciplines. Fagan is also well known for his public lectures on a wide variety of archaeological and historical topics, delivered to a broad range of archaeological and non-archaeological audiences.
Additional information at Wikipedia.
He spent six years as Keeper of Prehistory at the Livingstone Museum in Zambia, Central Africa, and moved to the U.S.A. in 1966. He was Visiting Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, in 1966/67, and was appointed Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1967.
Fagan is an archaeological generalist, with expertise in the broad issues of human prehistory. He is the author or editor of 46 books, including seven widely used undergraduate college texts. Fagan has contributed over 100 specialist papers to many national and international journals. He is a Contributing Editor to American Archaeology and Discover Archaeology magazines, and formerly wrote a regular column for Archaeology Magazine. He serves on the Editorial Boards of six academic and general periodicals and has many popular magazine credits, including Scientific American and Gentleman's Quarterly.
Fagan has been an archaeological consultant for many organizations, including National Geographic Society, Time-Life, Encyclopædia Britannica, and Microsoft Encarta. He has lectured extensively about archaeology and other subjects throughout the world at many venues, including the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the National Geographic Society, the San Francisco City Lecture Program, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Getty Conservation Institute.
In addition to extensive experience with the development of Public Television programs, Fagan was the developer/writer of Where in time is Carmen San Diego, an NPR series in 1984-86. He has worked as a consultant for the BBC, RKO, and many Hollywood production companies on documentaries. In 1995 he was Senior Series Consultant for Time-Life Television's "Lost Civilizations" series.
Fagan was awarded the 1996 Society of Professional Archaeologists' Distinguished Service Award for his "untiring efforts to bring archaeology in front of the public." He also received a Presidential Citation Award from the Society for American Archaeology in 1996 for his work in textbook, general writing and media activities. He received the Society's first Public Education Award in 1997.
He has written many critiques of contemporary archaeology and has advocated non-traditional approaches, as well as writing extensively on the role of archaeology in contemporary society. His approach is a melding of different theoretical approaches, which focuses on the broad issues of human prehistory and the past. He is a strong advocate of multidisciplinary approaches to such issues as climate change in the past. Over the years, he has written a series of well-known textbooks that provide accurate summaries of the latest advances in archaeological method and theory and world prehistory. These are designed for beginners and avoid both confusing jargon and major theoretical discussion, which is inappropriate at this basic level. His approach melds traditional cultural history with more recent approaches, with a major emphasis on writing historical narrative using archaeological data and sources from other disciplines. Fagan is also well known for his public lectures on a wide variety of archaeological and historical topics, delivered to a broad range of archaeological and non-archaeological audiences.
Additional information at Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
June 30, 2019
I’m not a fisher. In fact, I’m a vegan. Stat doesn’t mean, however, that the history of civilization isn’t important to me. Something that I’d never considered, and indeed, which is often overlooked, is just how important fishing has been for civilized society. Brian Fagan argues that it could not have developed without fishing.
Following roughly a chronological/geographical scheme, Fagan takes us from prehistoric times up to the modern era where technology has led to over-fishing and depletion. There’s quite a bit of nitty-gritty on fishing here, and for those who feel for animals, it’s not the easiest read. It is nevertheless interesting. I know that when I think of the broad sweep of civilization, I always think about agriculture. Learning to plant and grow allowed for stable settlements. Fish played a part too.
I guess since I don’t eat fish, I haven’t paid much attention to the plight caused by over-fishing. We tend to think the oceans too vast to be depleted. As I mention on my blog (Sects and Violence in the Ancient World), technology makes such things possible. One of the things that bothered me about this book was the sense that there was little concern for the fish themselves. Making them into an industry masks the fact that, despite their numbers, fish are creatures just trying to survive.
That’s why I don’t often read about food. The notion bothers me. Even eating plants feels, at times, like exploitation. Like many kids, I used to fish. I gave up because I never caught anything. The truth is, I wouldn’t have known what to do with a fish if I caught it. My guess is that I wouldn’t have ground it up to feed herbivores, however, which is what happens to large parts of today’s catches. A vegan just wouldn’t do that.
Following roughly a chronological/geographical scheme, Fagan takes us from prehistoric times up to the modern era where technology has led to over-fishing and depletion. There’s quite a bit of nitty-gritty on fishing here, and for those who feel for animals, it’s not the easiest read. It is nevertheless interesting. I know that when I think of the broad sweep of civilization, I always think about agriculture. Learning to plant and grow allowed for stable settlements. Fish played a part too.
I guess since I don’t eat fish, I haven’t paid much attention to the plight caused by over-fishing. We tend to think the oceans too vast to be depleted. As I mention on my blog (Sects and Violence in the Ancient World), technology makes such things possible. One of the things that bothered me about this book was the sense that there was little concern for the fish themselves. Making them into an industry masks the fact that, despite their numbers, fish are creatures just trying to survive.
That’s why I don’t often read about food. The notion bothers me. Even eating plants feels, at times, like exploitation. Like many kids, I used to fish. I gave up because I never caught anything. The truth is, I wouldn’t have known what to do with a fish if I caught it. My guess is that I wouldn’t have ground it up to feed herbivores, however, which is what happens to large parts of today’s catches. A vegan just wouldn’t do that.
May 29, 2024
সভ্যতার সাথে সমুদ্রের সম্পর্কটা এখানে আলোচিত হয়েছে বৃহৎ পরিসরে। সমুদ্র তো অনেক কিছুর উৎস, শরীরের জ্বালানিরও বটে।
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March 20, 2024
Being an avid fisherman myself, who has done my fair share of fishing in lakes, rivers, surfs, and deep seas of North America, I was naturally drawn to this book when I saw it in hoopla. I have caught quite a few fish species using different tackle in my life and was always interested in the history of fishing itself and its techniques and equipment’s evolution. This book did help me with that to some extent. But not to the level I hoped it would. Unlike other books of Brian, this book’s content was extremely dry and textbook like. Also, the lay out of the book is not in any logical or chronological order and is all over the place which was frustrating and off-putting. So, I ended up skimming through the book quickly and finished it. In the end, I cannot really say that I learned things I already didn't know from this book.
Want to read
February 28, 2022cheap推薦
October 31, 2017
I am not a fisherman. I rarely eat seafood. And (thankfully) this is not a book about those things, it is about how civilization was supported by and relied on the food from the seas. And so I enjoyed this latest work by Brian Fagan (the third book of his that I have read). Starting from distant pre-history in Africa to modern struggles with sustainable fishing, the book explores the archaeological evidence for humans using the sea as a source for food. For some people, fish and mussels were sources for lean months supplementing other foods, while other groups could be more reliant on seafood.
The major criticism is that there is difficulty establishing causation for why having seafood encouraged and supported the development of civilization. This work does a good job of establishing how the sea fed civilization with its myriad of examples, but the extension seems weak. The examples do not explore this point, which is suggested from the abstract. There are other points of weakness, such as linking locations back to the maps several chapters earlier.
Overall, I enjoyed reading another book by Brian Fagan.
(This review was made possible by Goodreads and the book giveaways.)
The major criticism is that there is difficulty establishing causation for why having seafood encouraged and supported the development of civilization. This work does a good job of establishing how the sea fed civilization with its myriad of examples, but the extension seems weak. The examples do not explore this point, which is suggested from the abstract. There are other points of weakness, such as linking locations back to the maps several chapters earlier.
Overall, I enjoyed reading another book by Brian Fagan.
(This review was made possible by Goodreads and the book giveaways.)
October 29, 2018
A very informative book that really has me rethinking my understanding of early cultures and economies. However, it so needed a very close editing. At many times I thought the author had merely strung together separate articles into a book. Read this for the content and you will appreciate the new outlook it can give you.
January 27, 2020
In this book Brian Fagan narrates the history of subsistence and industrial fishing around the world. In so doing he also demonstrates how fish enabled long distance exploration and settlement of harsh country. From individuals picking up fish in shallow ponds to deep sea ocean nets Fagan discusses fisheries and fishers and how they learned to catch and preserve the fish. Armies were sustained by dried fish, Egyptian pyramids were constructed by workers fed fish, international trade networks evolved to move fish around the world, and fish helped to create wealth and income disparity. In short: No fish, no civilization. Fagan also offers a look into the future of civilization in the absence of adequate fish supplies and does so from considerable historic perspective--over fishing devastated some populations as early as the 14th Century leaving repercussions whose ripples are still felt.
October 23, 2021
In a way, this book is the key to understanding why the progress is so slow, compared to what the specie could advance. The issue rests on how the Government schooling is organized: the smart ones get into technical fields, and the others are receiving compensation University diplomas so they won't feel dumb. And this way Humanity gets people like Fagan who would probably be very qualified driving a cab, or cooking in some cafeteria. Fagan lives in a world populated by gods, Civilization, Society. And his ability to synthesize is closer to the hamburgers he should have assembled for a living: it is not mass production of food, it's the god of Fishing.
July 22, 2021
Worth reading but contains numerous typos and just flat out errors that should have been caught by the copy reader much less the editor. The bibliography is a absolute joke for what is supposed to be a scholarly work. Much better suited for casual reader that will take what is written at face value and not really that interested in seeing if it is collaborated by other sources. Not sorry that I took the time to read it but there are much better works on the subject out there.
August 27, 2024
I really enjoyed reading this book but I was almost halfway through and I felt I had learned what I needed. I feel like the chapters were disorganized and didn’t make much sense in terms of topics and themes, it all just ran together. But the content was super interesting.
July 16, 2018
Great read! It takes a great archaeologist and historian to synthesize archaeological data and interpretation into history. Fagan does both well and his history on fishing was an awesome book!
February 17, 2019
I had a bunch of people ask me about this book and I don't think I did a good job of explaining it once, but, trust me, this book is fascinating.
February 23, 2019
A survey of fishing globally from the distant past to the present. Some great facts, and the integration of archaeology and history is interesting.
Read
June 21, 2019Read with Steve, spring 2019
I may need to give up eating salmon.
I may need to give up eating salmon.
November 4, 2019
The last part of this book gives important message to us.
March 13, 2020
A little dry, but just the kind of niche topic I like. Early civilizations, fishing history, etc.
Shelved as 'did-not-finish'
January 11, 2021I gave this book a chance, but the truth is I can't stand fish, not even their smell, so I guess I wasn't the ideal reader for this.
August 10, 2023
Dnf @60%. Not as good as his other works. Too much in the details
March 9, 2024
Surprisingly like 50% about ice age archeology
July 29, 2020
Fishing is a tour-de-force, rich in archaeological and anthropological detail, that convincingly shows the underappreciated but important role of fish and fisheries in the rise of human civilization. See my full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2018...
April 3, 2018
Great work here
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews