2011 James Beard Award Winner -- Writing and Literature

The history of four fish--bass, cod, salmon, and tuna--exposes a critical moment in our relationship with the truly last wild food we consume.

In the last few decades, humankind's relationship with the ocean has undergone a remarkable change. The environmental impact of commercial fishing and the advent of extensive fish farming have led to grave and widespread concerns about the uncertain future of wild fish. We are on the precipice of a cataclysm; there is a distinct possibility that our children's children will never eat a wild fish that has swum freely in the ocean. Are we on the brink of fishing every edible species of fish into extinction? And if so, how can we prevent such a disaster?

Paul Greenberg, a journalist who writes regularly for the New York Times Magazine and National Geographic, fears that we've reduced the natural variety of fish we consume to just four species: bass, cod, salmon, and tuna--and that, as a result of this lack of imagination coupled with an insatiable thirst for protein, we are dangerously overfishing every one of them. In Four Fish, he deftly uses these fish as a lens to provide a state of the ocean; traveling the world from Alaska's wild salmon runs to the massive fish farms of Vietnam, he explores the history of these four species as he examines where each stands at this critical moment in time.

In Four Fish, Greenberg seeks to determine whether we can bring these four beloved fish back from the edge of extinction. His conclusion? With government intervention, proper management, and above all, public awareness about the fish on our plate, there is hope yet that our troubled relationship with the ocean and the fish we find in it can be mended.