Still vital, still picturesque, New England"s fishing communities have played a special role in American history. Seventeenth-century fishermen on Maine"s outer islands saved the pilgrims from starvation; eighteenth-century cod fishermen helped to build America"s earliest towns; nineteenth-century whalers from Nantucket and New Bedford gave the nation its first great fortunes. The fishermen"s fierce sense of independence helped inspire the American Revolution. This illustrated book, drawing on blueprints, art, archives, personal papers and journals, provides a vivid account of the fishermen"s lives and the communities in which they lived - and still live. From Connecticut to Nantucket, New Bedford to the Maine islands, the author explores these communities shaped by the sea and its produce.