Overview

"Here is the strange story of the seas - how they were born, how life emerged from them, and the marine world within them. Rachel Carson's writing teems with images - the newly-formed Earth cooling beneath an endlessly overcast sky; volcanic action throwing up huge masses on the ocean floor to create immense mountains and desolate canyons; giant squid battling sperm-whales hundreds of fathoms below the surface. A new chapter by Jeffrey Levinton, brings the science of ""The Sea Around Us"" up to date. Levinton incorporates the most recent thinking on continental drift, coral reefs, the spread of the ocean floor, the deterioration of the oceans, mass extinction of sea life, and many other topics. First published in 1951, this work won the National Book Award."

Full Product Details

9780195069976

Table of Contents

Reviews

A wonderfully effective little volume about the world's last frontier of mystery and darkness,- the great oceans, in which the author proves herself both scientist and stylist. While neither sensational nor sloppy with her facts, Miss Carson writes with clarity and controlled simplicity that makes her story available even to the uninitiated layman. She begins with the encompassing mother sea that once covered the whole earth, and from which the first forms of life evolved; she goes on to record briefly the changes of the great geological periods, the present characteristics of the seas, the tides, winds, currents. There are, too, chapters on isolated wonders such as the birth of volcanic islands. Chapters from this book were condensed into a profile of the sea for the New Yorker Miss Carson, who is also the author of ?? has given us an exquisitely imaginative book, rooted in first rate scholarship, in a field that has not been over-explored. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

The late Rachel Carson was for many years a marine biologist and then editor-in-chief of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. She was also the author of Silent Spring, Under the Sea Wind, and At the Edge of the Sea. Jeffrey Levinton teaches at the State University f New York at Stony Brook and is the author of Marine Ecology. Ann Zwinger is the author of A Desert Country Near the Sea, Beyond the Aspen Grove, and Run, River, Run.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available