The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans

Seashells have been the most coveted and collected of nature's creations since the dawn of humanity. They were money before coins, jewelry before gems, art before canvas.

In The Sound of the Sea, acclaimed environmental author Cynthia Barnett blends cultural history and science to trace our long love affair with seashells and the hidden lives of the mollusks that make them. Spiraling out from the great cities of shell that once rose in North America to the warming waters of the Maldives and the slave castles of Ghana, Barnett has created an unforgettable history of our world through an examination of the unassuming seashell. She begins with their childhood wonder, unwinds surprising histories like the origin of Shell Oil as a family business importing exotic shells, and charts what shells and the soft animals that build them are telling scientists about our warming, acidifying seas.

From the eerie calls of early shell trumpets to the evolutionary miracle of spines and spires and the modern science of carbon capture inspired by shell, Barnett circles to her central point of listening to nature's wisdom--and acting on what seashells have to say about taking care of each other and our world.

ISBN-13: 9781324022077

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Norton - W. W. & Company - Inc.

Publication Date: 07-05-2022

Pages: 448

Product Dimensions: 8.40(w) x 5.40(h) x 1.20(d)

Cynthia Barnett is the author of three previous books, including Rain, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and named a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing. She lives with her family in Gainesville, Florida, where she is also Environmental Journalist in Residence at the University of Florida.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Cockles 1

Part I Miracle

1 First Shells (Marine fossils, Quadrireticulum allisoniae) 17

2 Everything from Shells (The Chambered Nautilus, Nautilus pompilius) 39

3 The Voice of the Past (Triton's Trumpet, Charonia tritonis) 59

4 Great Cities of Shell (The Lightning Whelk, Sinistrofulgur sinistrum) 81

Part II Capital

5 Shell Money (The Money Cowrie, Monetaria moneta) 113

6 Shell Madness (The Precious Wentletrap, Epitonium scalare) 139

7 American Shells (The Lettered Olive, Oliva sayana) 163

8 Shell Oil (The Murex, Hexaplex trunculus) 193

9 Shell Shock (The Junonia, Scaphella junonia) 217

Part III Oracle

10 The End of Abundance (The Bay Scallop, Argopecten irradians) 243

11 Saving the Queens (The Queen Conch, Aliger gigas) 267

12 Glowing Future (The Giant Clam, Tridacna gigas) 291

13 Trust in Nature (The Geographer Cone, Conus geographus) 313

Conclusion The Open End (Shell People, Homo sapiens) 331

Acknowledgments 343

Notes 349

Index 403