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The Gulf of Mexico: A Maritime History
The Gulf of Mexico presents a compelling, salt-streaked narrative of the earth's tenth largest body of water. In this beautifully written and illustrated volume, John S. Sledge explores the people, ships, and cities that have made the Gulf's human history and culture so rich. Many famous figures who sailed the Gulf's viridian waters are highlighted, including Ponce de León, Robert Cavelier de La Salle, Francis Drake, Elizabeth Agassiz, Ernest Hemingway, and Charles Dwight Sigsbee at the helm of the doomed Maine . Sledge also introduces a fascinating array of people connected to maritime life in the Gulf, among them Maya priests, French pirates, African American stevedores, and Greek sponge divers.
Gulf events of global historical importance are detailed, such as the only defeat of armed and armored steamships by wooden sailing vessels, the first accurate deep-sea survey and bathymetric map of any ocean basin, the development of shipping containers by a former truck driver frustrated with antiquated loading practices, and the worst environmental disaster in American annals.
Occasionally shifting focus ashore, Sledge explains how people representing a gumbo of ethnicities built some of the world's most exotic cities―Havana, way station for conquistadores and treasure-filled galleons; New Orleans, the Big Easy, famous for its beautiful French Quarter, Mardi Gras, and relaxed morals; and oft-besieged Veracruz, Mexico's oldest city, founded in 1519 by Hernán Cortés. Throughout history the residents of these cities and their neighbors along the littoral have struggled with challenges both natural and human-induced―devastating hurricanes, frightening epidemics, catastrophic oil spills, and conflicts ranging from dockside brawls to pirate raids, foreign invasion, civil war, and revolution. In the modern era the Gulf has become critical to energy production, fisheries, tourism, and international trade, even as it is threatened by pollution and climate change. The Gulf of A Maritime History is a work of verve and sweep that illuminates both the risks of life on the water and the riches that come from its bounty.
Gulf events of global historical importance are detailed, such as the only defeat of armed and armored steamships by wooden sailing vessels, the first accurate deep-sea survey and bathymetric map of any ocean basin, the development of shipping containers by a former truck driver frustrated with antiquated loading practices, and the worst environmental disaster in American annals.
Occasionally shifting focus ashore, Sledge explains how people representing a gumbo of ethnicities built some of the world's most exotic cities―Havana, way station for conquistadores and treasure-filled galleons; New Orleans, the Big Easy, famous for its beautiful French Quarter, Mardi Gras, and relaxed morals; and oft-besieged Veracruz, Mexico's oldest city, founded in 1519 by Hernán Cortés. Throughout history the residents of these cities and their neighbors along the littoral have struggled with challenges both natural and human-induced―devastating hurricanes, frightening epidemics, catastrophic oil spills, and conflicts ranging from dockside brawls to pirate raids, foreign invasion, civil war, and revolution. In the modern era the Gulf has become critical to energy production, fisheries, tourism, and international trade, even as it is threatened by pollution and climate change. The Gulf of A Maritime History is a work of verve and sweep that illuminates both the risks of life on the water and the riches that come from its bounty.
280 pages, Hardcover
Published November 13, 2019
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July 28, 2021
Really good overview of the human history of the Gulf of Mexico from Pre-Columbian times through the second decade of the twenty-first century. It’s a good companion to _The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea_ by Jack Emerson Davis, as while _The Gulf_ focuses on environmental history, this work focuses almost exclusively on human history and there isn’t a lot of overlap at all in many of the stories covered (_The Gulf_ has extensive coverage for instance on tarpon fishing and the importance of this sport fishery in settling the Gulf coast as well as the story of the overharvesting of birds like egrets for women’s fashion; this book barely touches upon that sport fishing and I don’t recall any coverage of the overhunting of birds, but it does have coverage for instance of Mexican-American War and Civil War battles in the Gulf not discussed in _The Gulf_). Though _The Gulf_ overall goes into more depth on the U.S. Gulf coast, this work looks at the entire Gulf of Mexico, again and again including Mexico and Cuba in terms of politics, military actions, and economics (with Mexico and Cuba only getting rare mentions in _The Gulf_). So if anyone is interested in the history, geography, economics, and environment of the Gulf of Mexico, I highly recommend reading both books.
Here is a short overview of much of what is covered in the book. The introduction briefly goes over some of the other books on the Gulf of Mexico (the author noting the relative lack of broad historical overviews of the Gulf of Mexico), how important the Gulf is to the United States (“this country gets a quarter of its natural gas and one sixth of its oil from the Gulf, claims fourteen of the basin’s nineteen major ports, harvests 1.4 billion pounds of seafood annually from its waters,” noting that that this is 20% of the U.S. total, along with the importance of recreational fishing and beach tourism), reviews some of the major plants and animals of the Gulf and its shores (nice to see lots of coverage of Mexico here), talks about the Gulf Stream, and introduced the reader to something mentioned again and again in the text I had never heard of before, “the continental and polar cold fronts that regularly sweep over the Gulf during the winter months – northers, or nortes in Spanish, “blue northers” in Texan.” I was surprised I had never heard of northers before and northers almost as much as hurricanes in the text that followed could play a role in history much as hurricanes did (especially in the age of sail). Adding to hurricane season and another one he talked about, fever season, there were large parts of the year where one was just about guaranteed to face a problem.
Chapter one, “Indian Shore,” talked about the Native Americans on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and early European encounters with them. Among other things discussed are Native American boats (this book truly is a maritime history), a good bit of coverage of the Maya (they even had lighthouses apparently), the Bottle Creek chiefdom of the Mobile River delta (whose trade network reached as far as the Cahokia mound complex near modern St. Louis, Missouri), and the Calusa of southwest Florida.
Chapter two, “Spanish Sea,” was all on the Spanish explorations and early colonization efforts in the Gulf. Coverage included Columbus (who made his men swear Cuba was a peninsula and not an island or otherwise face a huge fine and have their tongue removed), Sebastian de Ocampo (“who first discovered the Gulf”), the ships the Spanish used to explore the Gulf (caravels), Juan Ponce de Leon (noting “the romantic notion” that he “sought a legendary Fountain of Youth is, alas, false”), Hernan Cortes, and “the Gulf’s most extraordinary wanderer, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca,” whose “incredible coastal odyssey is one of the great narratives of American history, the equal of Lewis and Clark, and deserves to be better known.”
Chapter three, “Colonial Crossroads,” discussed the other European powers in the Gulf, primarily the French. Topics covered included the journeys of Rene Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle (often just La Salle to most Americans, who at one point wanted to call the Mississippi River the Colbert River, named for the French finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert), the first circumnavigation of the Gulf (by Spanish captain Martin de Rivas), the colonization efforts that would lead to Mobile and New Orleans (the reader treated to a way too brief mention of the Pelican girls and the casket girls, the former named after one of the arriving ships, the latter for the small chests that held their clothing, women vital to founding colonies in Mobile and New Orleans), the different types of boats of French colonies on the Gulf (such as flat-bottomed bateau and the lateen-rigged boats with oars called felouques), the origins of the Cajuns and of the Louisiana Creole, the English siege of Havana in 1762, and the cartographic efforts of George Gauld.
Chapter four, “Pirates’ Haunt,” was a fun chapter, all about pirates (or close to it anyway)! The stars of the chapter are definitely the Laffite brothers, two brothers from different mothers, Pierre and Jean, two fascinating men to read about, two pirates who had a role in the War of 1812. Also in the chapter are some brief coverage of the “cobbled-together, ragtag force” Jackson organized to defend New Orleans, which ultimately included pirates, “eight hundred army regulars, eighteen hundred buckskin-clad Tennesseans and Kentuckians, some militia, free blacks, and a few dandified Creoles,” as well stories about other pirates in the Gulf, the American navy West India Squadron organized to fight pirates (aided by the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service), the Mosquito Fleet (“admirably effective at penetrating shallow coves where pirates liked to hide”), the wreckers active in the Florida Keys, closing with very brief coverage of the Seminole Wars (I would have liked more on that topic), the chapter as a whole about how by “degrees the North American southeast had been almost completely pacified and folded into the United States” before the American Civil War.
Chapter five, “King Cotton’s Pond,” was on commerce and travel in the Gulf of Mexico up to the American Civil War. Lots of coverage of the cotton trade, life in port cities like New Orleans and Galveston in the U.S., Havana in Cuba, and in Mexico the town of Matamoros and the city of Veracruz (“by far Mexico’s most important Gulf city”), and the life of free black sailors operating on ships trading with slave states.
Chapter six, “Violent Sea,” was all about war at sea and not just the American Civil War. Lots of things in this chapter, including the 1838-1839 Pastry War between France and Mexico, the Texas Navy’s intervention in Mexican affairs in the Yucatan Peninsula (invited by the Yucatecans), the actions of filibusters (Southern agitators who wanted to overthrow say the Spanish government in say Cuba to annex the island as a new slave state), the naval blockade of Round Island by the U.S. to avoid an international incident with filibusters, and the American Civil War. Sadly the majority of Civil War actions are only briefly touched upon (“These have been well covered in numerous books and need no repetition in a broad survey such as this”), though there is a great coverage of the fight between the Confederate ship _Alabama_ and the United States ship _Hatteras_, (a Confederate victory that resulted in “the first steam warship to be sunk by another steam warship in military history” and the “only federal ship sunk by hostile fire in the Gulf during the Civil War”). Also coverage of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine on February 15, 1898 in Cuba.
Chapter seven, “American Sea,” is a great chapter, mainly on the history of oceanography, ichthyology, and fisheries in the Gulf though there are other topics. Good coverage of the oceanography work of Charles Sigsbee and Alexander Agassiz, of ichthyologist Silas Stearns, the history of sponge diving (I had no idea it smelled so bad), the story of Biloxi and its role in fishing, the evolution of various fishing boats such as Biloxi luggers and well-smacks (the latter are twenty to forty-five ton schooners with large live wells amidships), a little on sport fishing (such as brief recount of Floridian fishing guide Barney Farley, who took out President Franklin D. Roosevelt fishing), some really great reading on alcohol smugglers during Prohibition, World War II in the Gulf (for a time U-boats did quite well in the Gulf), and the advent of container shipping, pioneered by Malcolm McLean and the Waterman Steamship Company (which he bought).
Chapter eight, “Blowout!” is primarily but not only on the history of the petroleum industry in the Gulf, especially off shore oil exploration and drilling and on the various spills. Good coverage of how even tiny spills can cause damage, the oil spill caused by the _Mega Borg_ in 1990, another oil spill in 1979, quite a bit on the _Deepwater Horizon_ disaster of April 20, 2010, the destruction caused to the Louisiana coastline by so many canals and boat traffic on these canals (primarily by the petroleum industry, with canals allowing saltwater intrusion to freshwater marshes, killing the plants which held the soil in place for instance), and how this erosion of the “wetland apron” made the impacts of Hurricane Katrina much worse (along with the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet or MRGO, which was a “seventy-six mile wide watery arrow piercing the heart of the city” and acted as a “superhighway for tidal surge”).
Lots of illustrations in the book, both black and white throughout the text and two sections of color plates. Many of the color plates are gorgeous historical maps that are really nice to look at. There is an extensive section of notes, a lengthy bibliography, and an index. I was surprised how little coverage hurricanes got in the book, but there are other books one can read on that topic of course (I highly recommend _A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricanes_ by Eric Jay Dolin). I loved the discussion of the various boats and ships in each chapter though I would have loved some more illustrations of them. I would again like to praise the author for not just focusing on the United States but including a lot on Mexico and Cuba as well. I would have also liked some expansion of discussion of the Seminole Wars, battles and naval actions in the American Civil War, and there wasn’t any coverage really of the land rushes and tourism booms of Florida (though the aforementioned _The Gulf_ has really great coverage of these topics) but there were a number of topics I really enjoyed reading about, especially relating to Mexico, Cuba, pirates, and various battles, that I hadn’t read about anywhere else.
Here is a short overview of much of what is covered in the book. The introduction briefly goes over some of the other books on the Gulf of Mexico (the author noting the relative lack of broad historical overviews of the Gulf of Mexico), how important the Gulf is to the United States (“this country gets a quarter of its natural gas and one sixth of its oil from the Gulf, claims fourteen of the basin’s nineteen major ports, harvests 1.4 billion pounds of seafood annually from its waters,” noting that that this is 20% of the U.S. total, along with the importance of recreational fishing and beach tourism), reviews some of the major plants and animals of the Gulf and its shores (nice to see lots of coverage of Mexico here), talks about the Gulf Stream, and introduced the reader to something mentioned again and again in the text I had never heard of before, “the continental and polar cold fronts that regularly sweep over the Gulf during the winter months – northers, or nortes in Spanish, “blue northers” in Texan.” I was surprised I had never heard of northers before and northers almost as much as hurricanes in the text that followed could play a role in history much as hurricanes did (especially in the age of sail). Adding to hurricane season and another one he talked about, fever season, there were large parts of the year where one was just about guaranteed to face a problem.
Chapter one, “Indian Shore,” talked about the Native Americans on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and early European encounters with them. Among other things discussed are Native American boats (this book truly is a maritime history), a good bit of coverage of the Maya (they even had lighthouses apparently), the Bottle Creek chiefdom of the Mobile River delta (whose trade network reached as far as the Cahokia mound complex near modern St. Louis, Missouri), and the Calusa of southwest Florida.
Chapter two, “Spanish Sea,” was all on the Spanish explorations and early colonization efforts in the Gulf. Coverage included Columbus (who made his men swear Cuba was a peninsula and not an island or otherwise face a huge fine and have their tongue removed), Sebastian de Ocampo (“who first discovered the Gulf”), the ships the Spanish used to explore the Gulf (caravels), Juan Ponce de Leon (noting “the romantic notion” that he “sought a legendary Fountain of Youth is, alas, false”), Hernan Cortes, and “the Gulf’s most extraordinary wanderer, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca,” whose “incredible coastal odyssey is one of the great narratives of American history, the equal of Lewis and Clark, and deserves to be better known.”
Chapter three, “Colonial Crossroads,” discussed the other European powers in the Gulf, primarily the French. Topics covered included the journeys of Rene Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle (often just La Salle to most Americans, who at one point wanted to call the Mississippi River the Colbert River, named for the French finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert), the first circumnavigation of the Gulf (by Spanish captain Martin de Rivas), the colonization efforts that would lead to Mobile and New Orleans (the reader treated to a way too brief mention of the Pelican girls and the casket girls, the former named after one of the arriving ships, the latter for the small chests that held their clothing, women vital to founding colonies in Mobile and New Orleans), the different types of boats of French colonies on the Gulf (such as flat-bottomed bateau and the lateen-rigged boats with oars called felouques), the origins of the Cajuns and of the Louisiana Creole, the English siege of Havana in 1762, and the cartographic efforts of George Gauld.
Chapter four, “Pirates’ Haunt,” was a fun chapter, all about pirates (or close to it anyway)! The stars of the chapter are definitely the Laffite brothers, two brothers from different mothers, Pierre and Jean, two fascinating men to read about, two pirates who had a role in the War of 1812. Also in the chapter are some brief coverage of the “cobbled-together, ragtag force” Jackson organized to defend New Orleans, which ultimately included pirates, “eight hundred army regulars, eighteen hundred buckskin-clad Tennesseans and Kentuckians, some militia, free blacks, and a few dandified Creoles,” as well stories about other pirates in the Gulf, the American navy West India Squadron organized to fight pirates (aided by the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service), the Mosquito Fleet (“admirably effective at penetrating shallow coves where pirates liked to hide”), the wreckers active in the Florida Keys, closing with very brief coverage of the Seminole Wars (I would have liked more on that topic), the chapter as a whole about how by “degrees the North American southeast had been almost completely pacified and folded into the United States” before the American Civil War.
Chapter five, “King Cotton’s Pond,” was on commerce and travel in the Gulf of Mexico up to the American Civil War. Lots of coverage of the cotton trade, life in port cities like New Orleans and Galveston in the U.S., Havana in Cuba, and in Mexico the town of Matamoros and the city of Veracruz (“by far Mexico’s most important Gulf city”), and the life of free black sailors operating on ships trading with slave states.
Chapter six, “Violent Sea,” was all about war at sea and not just the American Civil War. Lots of things in this chapter, including the 1838-1839 Pastry War between France and Mexico, the Texas Navy’s intervention in Mexican affairs in the Yucatan Peninsula (invited by the Yucatecans), the actions of filibusters (Southern agitators who wanted to overthrow say the Spanish government in say Cuba to annex the island as a new slave state), the naval blockade of Round Island by the U.S. to avoid an international incident with filibusters, and the American Civil War. Sadly the majority of Civil War actions are only briefly touched upon (“These have been well covered in numerous books and need no repetition in a broad survey such as this”), though there is a great coverage of the fight between the Confederate ship _Alabama_ and the United States ship _Hatteras_, (a Confederate victory that resulted in “the first steam warship to be sunk by another steam warship in military history” and the “only federal ship sunk by hostile fire in the Gulf during the Civil War”). Also coverage of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine on February 15, 1898 in Cuba.
Chapter seven, “American Sea,” is a great chapter, mainly on the history of oceanography, ichthyology, and fisheries in the Gulf though there are other topics. Good coverage of the oceanography work of Charles Sigsbee and Alexander Agassiz, of ichthyologist Silas Stearns, the history of sponge diving (I had no idea it smelled so bad), the story of Biloxi and its role in fishing, the evolution of various fishing boats such as Biloxi luggers and well-smacks (the latter are twenty to forty-five ton schooners with large live wells amidships), a little on sport fishing (such as brief recount of Floridian fishing guide Barney Farley, who took out President Franklin D. Roosevelt fishing), some really great reading on alcohol smugglers during Prohibition, World War II in the Gulf (for a time U-boats did quite well in the Gulf), and the advent of container shipping, pioneered by Malcolm McLean and the Waterman Steamship Company (which he bought).
Chapter eight, “Blowout!” is primarily but not only on the history of the petroleum industry in the Gulf, especially off shore oil exploration and drilling and on the various spills. Good coverage of how even tiny spills can cause damage, the oil spill caused by the _Mega Borg_ in 1990, another oil spill in 1979, quite a bit on the _Deepwater Horizon_ disaster of April 20, 2010, the destruction caused to the Louisiana coastline by so many canals and boat traffic on these canals (primarily by the petroleum industry, with canals allowing saltwater intrusion to freshwater marshes, killing the plants which held the soil in place for instance), and how this erosion of the “wetland apron” made the impacts of Hurricane Katrina much worse (along with the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet or MRGO, which was a “seventy-six mile wide watery arrow piercing the heart of the city” and acted as a “superhighway for tidal surge”).
Lots of illustrations in the book, both black and white throughout the text and two sections of color plates. Many of the color plates are gorgeous historical maps that are really nice to look at. There is an extensive section of notes, a lengthy bibliography, and an index. I was surprised how little coverage hurricanes got in the book, but there are other books one can read on that topic of course (I highly recommend _A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricanes_ by Eric Jay Dolin). I loved the discussion of the various boats and ships in each chapter though I would have loved some more illustrations of them. I would again like to praise the author for not just focusing on the United States but including a lot on Mexico and Cuba as well. I would have also liked some expansion of discussion of the Seminole Wars, battles and naval actions in the American Civil War, and there wasn’t any coverage really of the land rushes and tourism booms of Florida (though the aforementioned _The Gulf_ has really great coverage of these topics) but there were a number of topics I really enjoyed reading about, especially relating to Mexico, Cuba, pirates, and various battles, that I hadn’t read about anywhere else.
February 17, 2020
Since 1550 this body of water, which contains over 600 quadrillion gallons and ranks tenth in size worldwide, has been known as el Golfo de Mexico or the Gulf of Mexico. It began to form when the supercontinent Pangaea broke apart approximately 200,000,000 years ago, but the oval-like shape we recognize formed far more recently (5,000 to 10,000 years). Today, it covers 600,000 square miles and its shores include numerous lesser bodies of water (such as bays and lakes, as well as rivers that feed into it) and land (such as shorelines, deltas, and barrier islands). Elizabeth Custer likened the Gulf to “almost always a tempest in a teapot” when she accompanied her husband, Captain George Armstrong Custer, to his new assignment in New Orleans. (7)
Others have written about the Gulf of Mexico, but Sledge offers a history that is geared toward the general reader and encompasses far more than the narrow focus of the water itself. He includes information on the people whose livelihoods and existence depend on it, as well as the various boats and ships that have plied the water since the days when Mayans, Seminoles, Calusa, and other Native Americans lived near and relied on the fruits of the Gulf to survive. He discusses European explorers, pirates and smugglers, fishermen, loggers, and many others. Among those of particular note are William Dampier, William Bartram, Juan Ponce de Leon, René Robert Cavalier, Laurens de Graff, the Laffite Brothers, and Commodore David Porter. Also incorporated into the narrative are details on the flora and fauna, cultures, conflicts, memories (personal and firsthand), and historical events. Examples of the last topic cover conflicts – Seven Years’ War, Pastry War, Mexican War, and American Civil War to name a few – and natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The book is divided into eight chapters that present the history of the Gulf in a chronological sequence. These are comprised of Indian Shore, Spanish Sea, Colonial Crossroads, Pirates’ Haunts, King Cotton’s Pond, Violent Sea, American Sea, and Blowout! Maps, illustrations, and two sections of color plates enhance the reading experience. Notes, a bibliography, and an index provide readers with sources consulted and where to find additional information.
Readers seeking an all-encompassing, entertaining introduction to the Gulf of Mexico will enjoy Sledge’s book. No matter how much or how little you know, you will come away from the experience having learned something new about the United States, Mexico, and Cuba, and gaining a new appreciation for a body of water that “is by turns beautiful, bountiful, frightening, and destructive.” (8)
Others have written about the Gulf of Mexico, but Sledge offers a history that is geared toward the general reader and encompasses far more than the narrow focus of the water itself. He includes information on the people whose livelihoods and existence depend on it, as well as the various boats and ships that have plied the water since the days when Mayans, Seminoles, Calusa, and other Native Americans lived near and relied on the fruits of the Gulf to survive. He discusses European explorers, pirates and smugglers, fishermen, loggers, and many others. Among those of particular note are William Dampier, William Bartram, Juan Ponce de Leon, René Robert Cavalier, Laurens de Graff, the Laffite Brothers, and Commodore David Porter. Also incorporated into the narrative are details on the flora and fauna, cultures, conflicts, memories (personal and firsthand), and historical events. Examples of the last topic cover conflicts – Seven Years’ War, Pastry War, Mexican War, and American Civil War to name a few – and natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The book is divided into eight chapters that present the history of the Gulf in a chronological sequence. These are comprised of Indian Shore, Spanish Sea, Colonial Crossroads, Pirates’ Haunts, King Cotton’s Pond, Violent Sea, American Sea, and Blowout! Maps, illustrations, and two sections of color plates enhance the reading experience. Notes, a bibliography, and an index provide readers with sources consulted and where to find additional information.
Readers seeking an all-encompassing, entertaining introduction to the Gulf of Mexico will enjoy Sledge’s book. No matter how much or how little you know, you will come away from the experience having learned something new about the United States, Mexico, and Cuba, and gaining a new appreciation for a body of water that “is by turns beautiful, bountiful, frightening, and destructive.” (8)
March 14, 2025
Not bad, but not good either. It gives an outline of the highlights of the Gulf's history. But it felt as if it was all pulled from the most popular headlines. So we get a long, detailed description of the Deep Horizons disaster, the Lafitte’s reign of terror and various battles, but are left with many questions. Why was there no mention of Houston’s importance as a port? Does Mexican shipping ply the gulf at all? What about the Cuban Missile Crisis? But I do know the basics of making gumbo now. Because mixed throughout the historical bits are snippets of letters, newspaper reports, journals, and biographies. Some of those were interesting, but some of them were rather distractingly off-topic.
Throughout is there a general handwringing. The typical, big oil is going to destroy the planet, global warming is going to kill us all, cargo containers have changed ports forever, wooden ships are no longer being built. At times, it gave the feeling that the author sees no good in any development since people first came to the gulf.
Oh, and now the title is out of date. Who would have seen that coming?
I wouldn’t really recommend it. It was just too scattered and patchy for a good history.
Throughout is there a general handwringing. The typical, big oil is going to destroy the planet, global warming is going to kill us all, cargo containers have changed ports forever, wooden ships are no longer being built. At times, it gave the feeling that the author sees no good in any development since people first came to the gulf.
Oh, and now the title is out of date. Who would have seen that coming?
I wouldn’t really recommend it. It was just too scattered and patchy for a good history.
September 17, 2020
(Audiobook) A solid but not spectacular work of history about the Gulf of Mexico, this work attempts to offer a combination of environmental, ecological, political and economic history of this key body of water for North and Latin America. It can be enlightening at points and is generally readable. However, I read The Gulf a while back, and while it was more focused on the environmental aspects of the Gulf of Mexico, I got way more out of that work (to Sledge's credit, he does reference that work in this one). Perhaps if I read this book first, I might rate it higher, but that is just how is pans out.
This is not a bad book by any stretch, but I can't in good faith call it great or spectacular, especially compared to other recent works. The audiobook reader is solid, but don't add or detract from the work. Perhaps for those who want a quicker overview of the region or need a quick refresher, but not much beyond that.
This is not a bad book by any stretch, but I can't in good faith call it great or spectacular, especially compared to other recent works. The audiobook reader is solid, but don't add or detract from the work. Perhaps for those who want a quicker overview of the region or need a quick refresher, but not much beyond that.
November 5, 2024
“As a slave society, Cuba was also especially attractive to Southerners wishing to add more slave states to the Union. In 1848 President James K. Polk offered Spain $100 million for the island. He was instantly refused. Unwilling to take no for an answer, violent men assembled to the north, filibusters determined to wrest Cuba, Mexico, and the small Latin American republics from their legitimate governments and make them part of a slave empire, a ‘Golden Circle’ round the basin. Truly the Gulf of Mexico would be ‘simply a Southern lake.’ It was a ghastly vision, doomed to fail. But it was hardly the first and would not be the last to roil the Gulf’s beautiful blue waters in that extraordinary century” (127).
“Like most modern ships, she was coated with red oxide below the waterline to impede marine growth” (170).
“Like most modern ships, she was coated with red oxide below the waterline to impede marine growth” (170).
January 24, 2023
I saw an endorsement of this book in a periodical I read regularly, and I thought they rated if favorable enough the I wouldn't mind owning a copy. I should have let it be - not because it was poorly done, but because I recently finished John E. Davis' book, "The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea," and 'ya know what, it covered much of the same material. No accusation of plagiarism, and they are quite different stories, but after all it is a big body of water surrounded, mostly, by Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Mexico, Cuba, etc. If you wish to familiarize your self, either title works, and the Davis book seems more obtainable from libraries.
June 24, 2022
The Gulf of Mexico is on the coast of the Mexican Republic.
I read the the maritime history and I found it very interesting to know about the Gulf of Mexico. :3
I read the the maritime history and I found it very interesting to know about the Gulf of Mexico. :3
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