American Tuna: The Rise and Fall of an Improbable Food

In a lively account of the American tuna industry's fortunes and misfortunes over the past century, the celebrated food writer and scholar Andrew F. Smith relates how tuna went from being sold primarily as a fertilizer to becoming the most commonly consumed fish in the country. The so-called "chicken of the sea" is both the subject and the backdrop for other facets of American history: U.S. foreign policy, immigration and environmental politics, and American dietary trends.