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Includes bibliographical references (pages 533-564) and index.

Prologue: History, nature, and a forgotten sea -- Introduction: Birth -- Part one: Estuaries, and the lie of the land and sea : aborigines and colonizing Europeans. Mounds ; El golfo de M�exico ; Unnecessary death ; A most important river, and a "magnificent" bay -- Part two: Sea and sky : American debuts in the nineteenth century. Manifest destiny ; A fishy sea ; The wild fish that tamed the coast ; Birds of a feather, shot together -- Part three: Preludes to the future. From bayside to beachside ; Oil and the Texas toe dip ; Oil and the Louisiana plunge ; Islands, shifting sands of time ; Wind and water -- Part four: Saturation and loss : post-1945. The growth coast ; Florida worry, Texas slurry ; Rivers of stuff ; Runoff, and runaway ; Sand in the hourglass ; Losing the edge -- Epilogue: A success story amid so much else.

Significant beyond tragic oil spills and hurricanes, the Gulf has historically been one of the world's most bounteous marine environments, supporting human life for millennia. Based on the premise that nature lies at the center of human existence, Davis takes readers on a compelling and, at times, wrenching journey from the Florida Keys to the Texas Rio Grande, along marshy shorelines and majestic estuarine bays, both beautiful and life-giving, though fated to exploitation by esurient oil men and real-estate developers. Davis shares previously untold stories, parading a vast array of historical characters past our view: sports-fishermen, presidents, Hollywood executives, New England fishers, the Tabasco king, a Texas shrimper, and a New York architect who caught the "big one". Sensitive to the imminent effects of climate change, and to the difficult task of rectifying the assaults of recent centuries, this book suggests how a penetrating examination of a single region's history can inform the country's path ahead. --