"Not since Rachel Carson's brilliant classic The Sea Around Us fifty years ago has a writer been able to give voice so compellingly to thc ocean - its mythic history and its precarious future. In the course of an ocean voyage, Deborah Cramer weaves details of the history and science of the Atlantic into a brilliant tapestry that documents our many-faceted reliance on the sea, our betrayal of that bond, the changing landscape of the ocean floor, and the threatened life of its inhabitants.".

"Bringing together the scientific research of physical oceanographers, geologists, biologists, and chemists from both sides of the Atlantic, Cramer presents a devastating report of the environmental damage that has affected these waters.

She also explores the ocean herself and describes with vivid passion the intricate and fragile web of marine life, the visible disappearance of schools of fish plundered by the competitive fishing industry, and the changing rhythms of the Atlantic from the rough, chilly Gulf of Maine to the calm, weedy currents of the Sargasso Sea."--BOOK JACKET.