This lively book reveals a little known culture that predates the Pilgrims and has remained true to the earliest version of the American Dream: an egalitarian, self-reliant republic. The self-sufficient lobstermen of the Maine coast are models of environmental prudence: at a time when the fishing industry is in crisis, they have conserved the bounty of their waters, even as the once-humble lobster has become a coveted delicacy. How denizens of the coast achieved this balance, even as they withstood assaults from everyone from French raiders to rapacious land speculators, makes for a “stellar informal history ... a primer for conservation and the effects of bad politics” (The Kingston Observer).