" A fishy little book that I read on a four day trek from Oakland to Washington DC by way of Greyhound (note: never do this - there's better and cheaper ways of seeing this country without having to subject yourself to such atrocities...). In all it's proposes an interesting historical lens with which to view the past 1000 or so years of the North Atlantic and much of the maritime policy therein. However, being somewhat of a history buff myself I found that the fish-colored glasses that this book views the world in were perhaps too fish-colored. For instance: while several of America's founding fathers were centered around Boston and Cape Cod, few were actually involved in the cod trade, as the book purports - while the landed aristocracy may have owned a fishery or what have you, I sincerely doubt that any wealthy Bostonian would have set foot on a cod boat... Likewise, while cod was part of the diet of the original Jamestown settlers, the book adheres to the traditional mythos that the settlers traded peacefully with the natives and learned about corn and planted fish with their crops, etc... Anyone whose ever read Howard Zinn's "A People's History" knows that the story was far more gruesome than what thy teach 4th grades come November...
Much of the history of Iceland was interesting - though at the same time I think I would like to check my facts before I embrace their particular fishtory whole-heartedy.
Granted this was a biography, so much of the story was a linear collection of facts but even so, the structure of the book was slightly predictable - introduction in modern times (ecological/scientific fisheries), foggy pre-history, vivid recent history (particularly the cod wars between England and Iceland) and veiled, yet disturbingly ominous warning about the future of the oceans... a subject that could be a book in its entirety...
However, for a book read on a rancid, tepid bus hurtling across country, packed to the hilt with some amazing awkward people, I'd have to say that it wasn't all that bad. "
— Travis, 1/9/2014