
The Gulf
The Making of an American Sea
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Narrated by:
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Tom Perkins
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By:
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Jack E. Davis
About this listen
Pulitzer Prize winner, History, 2018.
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 21st 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.
©2017 Jack E. Davis (P)2018 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Marc J. Seifer
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on 40 years of research and a treasure trove of new information, Tesla: Wizard at War provides a comprehensive view of Tesla's discoveries, which continue to influence today's military technology and diplomatic strategies. One of the world's leading Tesla experts, Marc J. Seifer, offers new insight into the brilliant scientist's particle beam weapon (aka the "Death Ray") and explores his military negotiations with pivotal historical figures - including his links to Joseph Stalin, Vannevar Bush, General Andrew McNaughton, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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review from an electrician
- By Ashton Zee on 12-13-21
By: Marc J. Seifer
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The Bald Eagle
- The Improbable Journey of America's Bird
- By: Jack E. Davis
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The bald eagle is regal but fearless, a bird you’re not inclined to argue with. For centuries, Americans have celebrated it as “majestic” and “noble,” yet savaged the living bird behind their national symbol as a malicious predator of livestock and, falsely, a snatcher of babies.
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I thought the book would be about the bald eagle
- By An Amazon Buyer on 10-25-22
By: Jack E. Davis
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The Sea and Civilization
- A Maritime History of the World
- By: Lincoln Paine
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 29 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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A monumental retelling of world history through the lens of maritime enterprise, revealing in breathtaking depth how people first came into contact with one another by ocean and river, lake and stream, and how goods, languages, religions, and entire cultures spread across and along the world's waterways, bringing together civilizations and defining what makes us most human.
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Comprehensive
- By Than on 12-29-19
By: Lincoln Paine
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The Rise and Decline of the Redneck Riviera
- An Insider's History of the Florida-Alabama Coast
- By: Harvey H. Jackson III
- Narrated by: Perry Daniels
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The Rise and Decline of the Redneck Riviera focuses on the stretch of coast from Mobile Bay and Gulf Shores, Alabama, east to Panama City, Florida—an area known as the "Redneck Riviera." Jackson explores the rise of this area as a vacation destination for the lower South's middle- and working-class families following World War II, the building boom of the 1950s and 1960s, and the emergence of the Spring Break "season." While his major focus is on the social, cultural, and economic development, he also documents the impacts of natural disasters and politics of beach access.
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Redneck Riviera
- By Ruby on 08-23-24
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The Great Deluge
- Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast
- By: Douglas Brinkley
- Narrated by: Kyf Brewer
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
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In the span of five violent hours on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed major Gulf Coast cities and flattened 150 miles of coastline. Yet those wind-torn hours represented only the first stage of the relentless triple tragedy that Katrina brought to the entire Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama.
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Unabridged version
- By Leonora on 11-19-06
By: Douglas Brinkley
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The Impending Crisis
- America Before the Civil War: 1848-1861
- By: David M. Potter, Don E. Fehrenbacher
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 22 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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David M. Potter's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Impending Crisis is the definitive history of antebellum America. Potter's sweeping epic masterfully charts the chaotic forces that climaxed with the outbreak of the Civil War: westward expansion, the divisive issue of slavery, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's uprising, the ascension of Abraham Lincoln, and the drama of Southern secession.
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A Slog for Sure
- By Brux on 04-13-17
By: David M. Potter, and others
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Sanibel Flats
- Doc Ford #1
- By: Randy White
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Its cool gulf breezes lured him from a life of danger. Its dark undercurrents threatened to destroy him. After 10 years of living life on the edge, it was hard for Doc Ford to get that addiction to danger out of his system. But spending each day watching the sun melt into Dinkins Bay and the moon rise over the mangrove trees, cooking dinner for his beautiful neighbor, and dispensing advice to the locals over a cold beer lulled him into letting his guard down.
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Author seems to have a sexual double standard.
- By ShySusan on 02-01-11
By: Randy White
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Custer's Trials
- A Life on the Frontier of a New America
- By: T.J. Stiles
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 23 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for History. In this magisterial biography, T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer’s legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer’s historical caricature, revealing a volatile, contradictory, intense person - capable yet insecure, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic individualist at odds with the institution of the military (he was court-martialed twice in six years).
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Custer and his times
- By Mike From Mesa on 11-17-15
By: T.J. Stiles
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California
- A History
- By: Kevin Starr
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed author, historian, and Guggenheim Fellow Kevin Starr is a professor at the University of Southern California. His extensive knowledge shines through this concise, yet comprehensive, depiction of the most fascinating aspects in California's history. From its colonial beginnings through Governor Schwarzenegger's administration, the Golden State has become a uniquely American phenomenon that has enchanted people with the possibility of a better life.
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Interesting read, until it's not
- By MiamiMe on 03-27-18
By: Kevin Starr
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Indigenous Continent
- The Epic Contest for North America
- By: Pekka Hamalainen
- Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab
- Length: 18 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In Indigenous Continent, acclaimed historian Pekka Hämäläinen presents a sweeping counternarrative that shatters the most basic assumptions about American history. Shifting our perspective away from Jamestown, Plymouth Rock, the Revolution, and other well-trodden episodes on the conventional timeline, he depicts a sovereign world of Native nations whose members, far from helpless victims of colonial violence, dominated the continent for centuries after the first European arrivals.
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indigenous Continent
- By katherine on 07-09-23
By: Pekka Hamalainen
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The Rules of the Game
- Jutland and British Naval Command
- By: Andrew Gordon, Sir John Woodward - foreword
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 27 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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When published in hardcover in 1997, this book was praised for providing an engrossing education not only in naval strategy and tactics, but in Victorian social attitudes and the influence of character on history. In juxtaposing an operational with a cultural theme, the author comes closer than any historian yet to explaining what was behind the often-described operations of this famous 1916 battle at Jutland.
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Absolutely fascinating dissection of naval strategy
- By A personal on 09-25-21
By: Andrew Gordon, and others
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Microbiology for Dummies
- By: Jennifer C. Stearns PhD, Michael G. Surette PhD, Julienne C. Kaiser PhD
- Narrated by: Suzie Althens
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Microbiology for Dummies is your guide to understanding the fundamentals of this enormously-encompassing field. Whether your career plans include microbiology or another science or health specialty, you need to understand life at the cellular level before you can understand anything on the macro scale. Microbes are literally the foundation of all life, and they are everywhere. Microbiology for Dummies will help you understand them, appreciate them, and use them.
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Not for dummies - but useful guide
- By Karina on 05-12-24
By: Jennifer C. Stearns PhD, and others
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The Earth Is Weeping
- The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West
- By: Peter Cozzens
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 18 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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With the end of the Civil War, the nation recommenced its expansion onto traditional Indian tribal lands, setting off a wide-ranging conflict that would last more than three decades. In an exploration of the wars and negotiations that destroyed tribal ways of life even as they made possible the emergence of the modern United States, Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail.
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Excellent detailed history of US conflict with Native Americans
- By White Thai on 06-24-17
By: Peter Cozzens
And much that I didn’t know, too. When we think of American history, we think of the Atlantic coast and the western movement that eventually led to the plains and finally to the Pacific. But, the gulf was one of the most powerful influences on the development of America. The gulf is the 10th largest body of water in the world and for the most part is relatively shallow compared to the Caribbean or any of the oceans. It is fed by one of the world’s mightiest rivers bringing nutrients down from most of the continent along with a multitude of other rivers feeding it making it one of the most fertile and productive salt water regions in the world. It is the source of the great Gulf Stream which wanders down around the tip of Florida and up the Atlantic coast bringing warm water and warmer weather to the northeast and even over to England and provided a push for the heavily laden Spanish galleons laden with gold. The gulf is lined with long barrier islands and many bays providing lots of protection to pirates, wildlife, and fishing fleets, while also being filled with moving sand shoals that made navigation sometimes treacherous. Most of the gulf is surrounded by the United States, leading to the book’s subtitle, “The Making of an American Sea.”
Davis gives us a well-researched history of the Gulf from the formation of the Gulf in prehistory and explains the geography and the changes that we know about over the centuries or more including how the water has risen at different times so that much of the Mississippi valley was once under water. He talks about the advanced civilizations that once existed along the Gulf which we are still learning about, but which died out (mostly due to disease) with the arrival of Europeans from the Spanish, to the French, the English, and Americans.
He goes on to describe significant events that affected the Gulf, or where the Gulf affected the US. Included are various environmental events. It is this section where it’s really handy to open Google Maps and view the locations that Davis is talking about. You’ll learn who Marjorie Stoneman Douglas was, long before the high school named after her became world famous. And, when you look closer at Florida from the sky, it’s easy to see the work of the developers who created canals to drain land as well as to give every home boat access. Almost a century before Disney World, Florida developers were already trying to create an artificial reality. He explains the usefulness of the great barrier islands that stretch from Florida all the way around and into Mexico and the various other islands and shoals that are constantly moving due to regular wave action and storms. He talks about many of the environmental blunders that have reduced the marine harvest and caused the loss of a lot of shoreline, especially in Louisiana which is losing the equivalent of the state of Delaware each decade, leaving New Orleans ever more vulnerable to disastrous hurricanes, even when they aren’t major storms. And yes, he also talked about fishing.
This is a superb book, but you have to open Google Maps and turn on the satellite view to really get the most out of it. It will slow your reading down a bit, it is certainly worth it. Davis has brought a wealth of information together and put together a history, an ecological treatise, a geography lesson, and so much more and yet made it easily readable and interesting.
What a book!
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Great history nearly ruined by horrible narration
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In the smart, smooth prose of a writer as fascinated with his topic as he wants his readers to be, Davis leads us through centuries from native habitation and Spanish conquest to American dominion and industrial exploitation. While his environmental and ethical sensibilities are evident, this is far from a misanthropic and anti-American screed (don't listen to reviewers who say it is). The story he tells shows how generously nature can provide for human needs, if only we respect its integrity. Davis thinks humans have a place on the Gulf, and he acknowledges that place in countless ways, from praising Native ingenuity and sustainable modern fishing practices, to celebrating the art, language and music that have grown up on these shores since conquistadors and colonists first landed.
The impression he leaves readers with is that this underappreciated Eden is not invincible. America has been given an embarrassment of riches in the Gulf, but we can destroy it. We've come close many times. There is still plenty of hope, and what we do matters--not just for our sea and its creatures, but for all of us human creatures who depend on its bounty. The environmental struggles of this region are a microcosm, and even those who've never visited can take precious lessons from the complicated, shell-strewn, bird-festooned, oil-slicked surf of our American sea.
I have only two criticisms of this book. First, Davis often assumes his moral sensibilities are self-evident. Even where he is right, he could have done a better job making the case and heading off those who want to dismiss him as a hippie, mangrove-hugging commie. Second, he neglects to mention one of the most bizarre and potentially disastrous human projects ever undertaken on the the Gulf: the Cross-Florida Canal. This modern monument to the Army Corps of Engineers' hubris would have sliced my state from the nation and connected the Atlantic to the Gulf. Thankfully, the project was scuttled in 1971, but its ghostly remnants haunt the forests of northern Florida, and no story like this is quite complete without such a wacky chapter.
A cultural ecology for all who love America's sea
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Check pronunciation!
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Interesting Read
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Must read for all with ties to the Gulf Coast
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As for the text, Gulf is an outright masterpiece. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the Cajun Ocean down in south Louisiana.
Criticisms of narrator are not fair
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Excellent book about a critical part of our environment!
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An eye opener to our gulfs history and continued struggle,
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americacentric
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