Dolphins have long been attributed with intelligence, but do they have souls? Self-awareness? Compassion? Scott Taylor, Director of the Cetacean Studies Institute, investigates the history, mythology, and science surrounding these creatures and emerges with a resounding yes. And not only do whales and dolphins merit our attention and respect in their own right: they are an index to what our future as a species can be. In this multi-faceted cetology compendium, Taylor surveys the portrayal of dolphins and whales in works of literature as disparate as Moby Dick and Sumerian legend, examines biologist John Lilly's research on interspecies communication, and explores the benefits of dolphin-assisted swimming therapy for disabled children and adults. Looking at the world from the perspective of one of these "souls in the sea," Taylor suggests that cetaceans are an ideal bridge between humanity and nature. Poetically written and thoughtfully illustrated with photos and drawings, Souls in the Sea is a comprehensive celebration of the biology, history, and mystique of dolphins and whales.

Before commercial whaling was outlawed in the 1980s, diplomats, scientists, bureaucrats, environmentalists, and sometimes even whalers themselves had attempted to create an international regulatory framework that would allow for a sustainable whaling industry. In Whales and Nations, Kurkpatrick Dorsey tells the story of the international negotiation, scientific research, and industrial development behind these efforts —and their ultimate failure. Whales and Nations begins in the early twentieth century, when new technology revived the fading whaling industry and made whale hunting possible on an unprecedented scale. By the 1920s, declining whale populations prompted efforts to develop “rational”—what today would be called sustainable—whaling practices. But even though almost everyone involved with commercial whaling knew that the industry was on an unsustainable path, Dorsey argues, powerful economic, political, and scientific forces made failure nearly inevitable. Based on a deep engagement with diplomatic history, Whales and Nations provides a unique perspective on the challenges facing international conservation projects. This history has profound implications for today’s pressing questions of global environmental cooperation and sustainability. Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QsLlM5KTx0

A Boston Globe Best Non-Fiction Book of 2007 Amazon.com Editors pick as one of the 10 best history books of 2007 Winner of the 2007 John Lyman Award for U. S. Maritime History, given by the North American Society for Oceanic History "The best history of American whaling to come along in a generation." --Nathaniel Philbrick

Whale oil lit the cities and greased the machines of the Industrial Revolution. In light of its importance, competition between whalers was high. Far from courts and law enforcement, competing crews of American whalers not known for their gentility and armed with harpoons tended to resolve disputes at sea over ownership of whales. Left to settle arguments on their own, whalemen created norms and customs to decide ownership of whales pursued by multiple crews. The Law of the Whale Hunt provides an innovative examination of how property law was created in the absence of formal legal institutions regulating the American whaling industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Using depositions, court testimony, logbooks, and other previously unused primary sources, Robert Deal tells an exciting story of American whalers hunting in waters from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific and the Sea of Okhotsk.

By extending their voyages to all oceans from the 1760s onward, whaling vessels from North America and Europe spanned a novel net of hunting grounds, maritime routes, supply posts, and transport chains across the globe. For obtaining provisions, cutting firewood, recruiting additional men, and transshipping whale products, these highly mobile hunters regularly frequented coastal places and islands along their routes, which were largely determined by the migratory movements of their prey. American-style pelagic whaling thus constituted a significant, though often overlooked factor in connecting people and places between distant world regions during the long nineteenth century. Focusing on Africa, this book investigates side-effects resulting from stopovers by whalers for littoral societies on the economic, social, political, and cultural level. For this purpose it draws on eight local case studies, four from Africa’s west coast and four from its east coast. In the overall picture, the book shows a broad range of effects and side-effects of different forms and strengths, which it figures as a "grey undercurrent" of global history.

Does an authentic Andy Warhol painting need to be painted by Andy Warhol? Why do audiences feel outraged when they find out that scenes from their beloved blockbuster documentaries are staged? Can people move past assuming that a diamond grown in a lab is a fake? What happens when a forged painting or manuscript becomes more valuable than its original? This is a book about genuine fakes – the curious and complex objects that provoke these very sorts of questions. Genuine fakes fall into the space between things that are real and things that are not; whether or not we think that those things are authentic is a matter of perspective. Unsurprisingly, the world is full of genuine fakes – full of things that defy simple categorisation. From stories of audacious forgeries to feats of technological innovation, historian Lydia Pyne explores how the authenticity of eight genuine fakes depends on their unique combinations of history, science and culture. The stories of art forgeries, fake fossils, nature documentaries, synthetic flavours, museum exhibits, Maya codices and Palaeolithic replicas show that genuine fakes are both complicated and change over time. Drawing from historical archives, interviews, museum exhibits and science fiction as well as her own research, Pyne brings each genuine fake to life through unexpected and often outrageous stories. Genuine Fakes will make readers think about all the unreal things they encounter in their daily lives, and why they invoke the reactions – surprise, wonder, understanding or annoyance – that they do.