Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-331) and index.

"Before prehistoric humans began to cultivate grain, they had three main methods of acquiring food: hunting, gathering, and fishing. Hunting and gathering are no longer economically important, having been replaced by their domesticated equivalents, ranching and farming. But fishing, humanity's last major source of food from the wild, has grown into a worldwide industry on which we have never been more dependent. In this history of fishing--not as sport hut as sustenance--archaeologist and writer Brian Fagan argues that fishing rivaled agriculture in its importance to civilization. It sustainably provided enough food to allow cities, nations, and empires to grow, but it did so with a different emphasis. Where agriculture encouraged stability, fishing demanded travel, trade, and movement. It required a constant search for new and better fishing grounds; its technologies, centered on boats, facilitated journeys of discovery; and fish themselves, when dried and salted, were the ideal food--lightweight, nutritious, and long-lasting--for traders, travelers, and conquering armies. In Fishing, Fagan tours archaeological sites worldwide to show readers how fishing fed the development of cities, empires, and ultimately the modern world."