The Fish Banquet: A History of Human Evolution and Survival

A complete history of fishing across the world’s civilizations. Every piece of seafood on your table bears witness to humanity’s struggle to survive.

People eat fish every day, but do you know where those fish come from, or when humans first began eating them?

Fish, shellfish, crustaceans, and other seafood have distinctive textures and flavors, and are an important part of food cultures in countries and regions around the world. In everyday life, seafood is more than just food: it has many cultural and social meanings. In Chinese culture, fish symbolize abundance and prosperity, and are often served at festivals and celebrations to represent “surplus year after year.” Ornamental fish like goldfish beautify their surroundings and enrich people’s spiritual lives. Fishing is not only a leisure activity, but also an important social and cultural practice. The seafood industry plays a major role in the global economy and is an important export sector for many countries and regions.

This book tells the long history of the interactions between humans, the oceans, and seafood. Archaeologist Brian Fagan begins two million years ago, when early humans caught their first catfish with their bare hands. Drawing on major archaeological discoveries, he reveals how civilizations in China, Egypt, Rome, and Japan, as well as those around the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas, the Indochinese Peninsula, and the Andes, survived in different geographical and climatic conditions by learning to understand the ocean and the nature of different fish. He also brings the story up to the present, tracing the rise, crisis, and decline of the fisheries around Iceland, the North Sea, Newfoundland, and New England, and confronting the unprecedented climate and ocean crises facing humanity.