Synopses & Reviews
While other books play the blame game of what went wrong on the Deepwater Horizon and who is responsible, Shadows on the Gulf offers a surprising, harder truth: As bad as the oil spill was, it doesn't touch the damage done to the Gulf every year by what one expert in the book calls "a 100-year catastrophe."
Readers who believe they know the story will find their thinking changed by Rowan Jacobsen's surprising perspective: At the height of BP's dispersant madness, the amount sprayed each day merely equaled the amount of dispersant that washes down the Mississippi from the Heartland's dishwashers and washing machines. The Gulf's shrimpers have damaged the region's ecology as much as BP has. The acres of marsh destroyed by oil slicks can't compare to the amount that disappears in every hurricane, thanks to the work of the Army Corp of Engineers. And even if we save every mile of beach and wetland from the oil spill, the entire Mississippi Delta will still be lost in the next forty years, and New Orleans will sink beneath the waves, an American Atlantis.
Shadows on the Gulf reveals the key players in this catastrophe and explains why it will affect quality of life for us all. In doing so, it celebrates the little-recognized global wonder in our backyard. Not only are the Gulf's wetlands the best oyster reefs and fish nurseries in the world, they also provide critical habitat to most of America's migratory songbirds and waterfowl, as well as a home base for the energy and shipping industries. If the Gulf is allowed to fail, the effects will ripple across America. And fail it will, unless a national effort is made to save it.
Review
"Jacobsen sees the BP catastrophe as a last chance to set things straight. Author of the enticingly written
American Terroir, an
LJ Best Book of 2010, Jacobsen is hyperactive in the areas of ecology, food, and travel and should deliver good reading."—
Library Journal
Review
“Brilliant… The wonderfully vivid descriptions of the landscape will place readers right by Jacobsen’s side as he describes the changes to the biodiversity, environment, and culture of the Gulf region.” -
Library Journal
Review
"
Shadows is not specifically about the Deepwater Horizon blowout and its aftermath—although it plays a central role in the narrative. It's brimming with engaging information about a little-known region and leavened with moments of grace." -
Wall Street Journal “Brilliant… The wonderfully vivid descriptions of the landscape will place readers right by Jacobsens side as he describes the changes to the biodiversity, environment, and culture of the Gulf region.” -
Library Journal
About the Author
Rowan Jacobsen is the James Beard Award- winning author of
A Geography of Oysters, Fruitless
Fall, The Living Shore, and
American Terroir. He has written about food,
place, and the natural world for Harper's,
Newsweek, Eating Well, and
others, and his commentaries on the Gulf crisis have appeared in
Outside magazine and the New York
Times and on MSNBC. He was raised in Florida and attended
school on the Gulf Coast.