Against the Tide: The Fate of the New England Fisherman

by Richard Adams Carey

Book Overview

With its spectacular beaches and charming towns, Cape Cod is known around the world as a vacation spot and a summer retreat for the well-to-do. But there is another Cape Cod, a hidden, hardscrabble, year-round world whose hunter-gatherer economy dates back to the Bay Colony. The world of the independent fisherman is one of constant peril, of arcane folkways and expert knowledge, of calculated risk and self-reliance -- and of freedom won daily through...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 061805698X
• ISBN13: 9780618056989
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Fantastick!

I gave this book to my husband who enjoyed this book immensly! He the "old fisherman" who used to fish out of Cape Cod and New Bedford, Woods Hole, all the way up to Maine, back in the old days before these new fishing regulations, said this book brought back fond memories of fishing and those long gone days.. Some of the people mentioned in this book were friends of his. The book is very well written and is a picture of the fishing industry, what it was and what it is today. Highly recommended to anyone interested in this subject.

An excellent inside look at the Commercial Fishing Industry.

If you read The Perfect Storm and came away wanting to know more about the commercial fishing industry, this is the book. Carey explains the views of the men and women who risk life, limb, and fortune in the waters off Cape Cod. He also explains the tedium of public hearings and governmental rule making which impact the lives of the fishermen. I spent the summer in a rented house overlooking the commercial fishing fleet in Bodega Bay, California. I often wondered what happened on those boats once they left the harbor, and what regulations governed them. Against the Tide explains it all.By way of criticism, I found the characters a bit hard to follow and the discussions of the regulations a bit tedious, but overall I learned a lot.

An enlightening look at a fading industry.

Richard Adams Carey has crafted a detailed look at a failing industry and a very well written narrative. One can only hope that present and future fishermen and politicians, American and Internationally, read Mr. Carey's book and learn from the mistakes of the past. The book brings you into the daily lives of New England fishermen in an honest, pragmatic way that doesn't decry the sins of history but certainly lays them bare for all of us to learn from. The author has carefully crafted and documented his first hand accounts, and recreates other aspects in a highly readable and informative style. If you're sick of Wall Street success stories, here's an in depth look at the lives of many equally important but far less appreciated Americans.

Excellent + Accurate account of todays small boat fishermen.

I've been involved with the local fisheries all my life, and this author has been the closest (so far), to the reality on the "on goings" of the lives effected by the sea. Ranging from the challanges at sea, to the dealings with "managment". I suggest this book to anyone who wants an close insight of this type of livelyhood. Especially any student entering the fisheries profession!! ENJOY!!