The High Seas

Reviews

"[C]ompelling....[Hefferman] argues that the world is witnessing a saline tragedy of the commons on a vast scale....[A]dmirably clear-eyed, refusing the easy consolation of toothless treaties and mollifying pabulum from politicians."
—The Economist

"[A] comprehensive and disturbing investigation of the avarice and lawlessness that now afflict our ungoverned oceans."
—The Guardian

"[The High Seas] serves as a valuable wake-up call....[A] welcome addition to the urgent debate about the ocean's future."
—Helen Czerski, Science

"[F]ast-paced, thoroughly reported and deeply disquieting....[O]ne of the book’s biggest takeaways: We’ve established a precarious new type of ocean ecosystem, and it is going to be incredibly difficult — maybe impossible — to juggle all the priorities while also protecting ocean health and biodiversity."
—Science News

“In the vein of Ian Urbina’s The Outlaw Ocean and Helen Scales’ The Brilliant Abyss comes Olive Heffernan’s The High Seas: an exploration of the breakneck industrialization occurring in the global ocean today. In clear prose, Heffernan investigates the ongoing experiments to bend the high seas to society’s will as well as the unknown benefits and risks that may result. An important, timely book.”
—Laura Trethewey, author of The Deepest Map

“This is a vital book at a deeply contested moment in history for our oceans and humanity at large. The High Seas provides a wide-ranging glimpse into the beauty and complexity of our planet’s most distant watery worlds. With beautifully rendered portraits and a thoughtful examination of the science, Olive Heffernan has accomplished something extraordinary: bringing sense and rhythm to the contested, perilous, and often chaotic realm of our most remote seas.”
—Karen Pinchin, author of Kings of Their Own Ocean

“On the surface the seas roll on as always. But below, much is changing. And much more is at stake as humans seek plunder and profit beyond the reach of nations. In The High Seas, Olive Heffernan ably takes us into the history, the present, and the future of this largest and most mysterious realm of the planet.”
—Carl Safina, author of Song for the Blue Ocean, Alfie and Me, and other books

“This book is the best introduction I have ever read to the biological, technical, and institutional issues connected with the High Seas and the exploitation of its resources, all presented in an easy-going but informative style. A gem of a book!”
—Daniel Pauly

"An urgently needed wakeup call about the threat to some of the planet’s most vital but often overlooked ecosystems: the deep oceans. Profoundly informed, passionately written and thrillingly adventurous, Heffernan’s book is both a masterful study in natural history and a forensic survey of the forces and activities that could cause irreparable harm to these precious resources."
—Philip Ball

"This book is the essential guide to the half of our blue planet we call the high seas, written by someone who has done more than almost anyone on Earth in the last few years to understand the problems we face, and the solutions that might be available.
—Will McCallum, author and director of Greenpeace UK and author of How to Give Up Plastic: A Guide to Changing the World, One Plastic Bottle at a Time

"A vital, fascinating, deeply researched exploration of Earth's last wilderness, owned by us all and by no one. This is powerful and urgent reportage that rips the veil of romanticism to reveal a vast world of criminal and dangerous enterprise accelerating beyond our shores, threatening us all. Shocking and starkly illuminating—a must-read."
—Gaia Vince, author of Transcendence and Nomad Century

"With energy equal to her profound subject, Heffernan boards many ships and journeys from the Arctic to the Antarctic to bring(s) us an illuminating portrait of a world we rarely see and barely understand—and of the hidden forces that threaten to wreck it."
—Robert Kunzig, author of Mapping the Deep: the Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science

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