pt. One: Explorers and exploiters in the age of plenty -- The end of innocence -- The origins of intensive fishing -- Newfound lands -- More fish than water -- Plunder of the Caribbean -- The age of merchant adventurers -- Whaling: the first global industry -- To the ends of the Earth for seals -- The great fisheries of Europe -- The first trawling revolution -- The dawn of industrial fishing -- pt. Two: The modern era of industrial fishing -- The inexhaustible sea -- The legacy of whaling -- Emptying European Seas -- The downfall of king cod -- Slow death of an estuary: Chesapeake Bay -- The collapse of coral -- Shifting baselines -- Ghost habitats -- Hunting on the high plains of the open sea -- Violating the last great wilderness -- pt. Three: The once and future ocean -- No place left to hide -- Barbequed jellyfish or swordfish steak? -- Reinventing fishery management -- The return of abundance -- The future of fish.