Red Gold: The Managed Extinction of the Giant Bluefin Tuna

"Both unusually thorough and unusually heartfelt, Red Gold is filled with high quality factual detail yet is framed with graceful, thoughtfully considered language. As close as I’ve been to this extraordinary fish as a living creature and as the object of intense debate and conflicting policies over the years, I admire the job Jennifer Telesca has pulled off. I also learned a lot."—Carl Safina, author of Song for the Blue Ocean and Becoming Wild "Engaging and well-argued, Red Gold is an exemplary documentation of how bad-faith science conducted at the behest of corporate interests provides cover for the over-exploitation of ‘natural resources.’"—Daniel Pauly, author of Vanishing Fish: Shifting Baselines and the Future of Global Fisheries "Red Gold offers a deep and disturbing portrait of the intersecting impacts of the global food chain, international regulation, and ocean conservation. Jennifer E. Telesca’s powerful prose and analytic insight chart the drama of human-induced species decline in the name of conservation. Combining ethnography, political economy, legal studies, and scientific research with fast-paced storytelling, she provides an intimate account of ocean governance and environmental loss."—Brenda Chalfin, author of Neoliberal Frontiers: An Ethnography of Sovereignty in West Africa "Jennifer E. Telesca’s wide-ranging study of the giant bluefin tuna challenges many deeply held dogmas. We overfish because of the tragedy of the commons and think the solution is regulation. But Telesca argues that we are regulating our way to extinction. The tragedy is not of the commons, but of commodification. The drive to extinction will not stop until we value these animals as fellow travelers on this planet, rather than as resources from whom we can extract value."—Dale Jamieson, director, Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, New York University "In his decades of reviewing environmental policy literature, this reviewer has encountered few books that more passionately or poetically express grief over loss of a species than this extended epitaph for the giant warm-blooded Atlantic bluefin tuna."—CHOICE "It is worth taking a deep dive into Red Gold"—Public Books "Jennifer Telesca, in her first ethnographic monograph, writes with exuberance and determination as she examines the geoeconomics of Atlantic Bluefin tuna capture fisheries management. Using Atlantic Bluefin tuna as her ethnographic subject, Telesca follows the fish on her breathtaking travels across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and through a long history of capture by human societies."—Political and Legal Anthropology Review  "Telesca brilliantly analyzes the social and cultural dimensions of institutions engineered for economic and political ends. Red Gold can be read as an excellent ethnography and sociology of science of international deliberations, marine policymaking, and fisheries science."—American Anthropologist