The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea

The Gulf of Mexico holds particular magic for me because I attended a nursery school right on the sands of St. Pete Beach when I was four years old. We learned how to identify seabirds and seashells and studied the sky and the surf when not learning poetry. So many generations of fish, animals, plants, amphibians and humans have thrived in and around this gigantic body of water and University of Florida professor Jack E. Davis tells their riveting stories. America’s sea became a magnet for its own destruction by of wasteful human activity and ecological terror, from the near-extinction of bird life for the making of hats to the cataclysmic Deep Horizon oilspill disaster. Great book to have, to give and to read and re-read.