During the first half of the twentieth century, Canadian fisheries regularly produced more fish than markets could absorb. In Eating the Ocean, Brian Payne explores how government-funded marketing encouraged consumers to increase their seafood consumption, and how this advertising endeavour contributed to the collapse of the nation’s fisheries.“ Eating the Ocean offers insights into an important – but entirely neglected – aspect of the many wrongheaded fisheries policies of the twentieth century that have culminated in the dreadful situation of so many of the world’s current fisheries. Brian Payne makes a clear and very well-documented case that it was the focus on consumption that led to overproduction, overfishing, and a tremendous waste of resources.” Jennifer Hubbard, Toronto Metropolitan University and author of A Science on the Scales: The Rise of Canadian Atlantic Fisheries Biology, 1898–1939“The chapters in this book seamlessly blend into each other, making for a coherent whole, and Payne makes good use of his extensive array of sources. The narrative is laid out in an absorbing way as Payne takes great care to assign agency and voice to a vast set of actors, involved more or less directly in the fisheries business. appreciated. This study will surely find an audience outside the fisheries history specialization. It makes for an engaging reading for students and scholars of environmental, economic, and food and nutrition history, and gender and media studies, as well as those generally interested in the history of consumerism.” H-EnvironmentBrian Payne is professor of history and Canadian studies at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts.