Book excerpt: "To read this book is to spend a day on a 40-foot shrimp boat in a southern Texas bay, then return home to an isolated port town whose economy revolves around shrimping and whose future is in jeopardy. Often reading like a good novel, Maril's political economy of the Texas shrimp industry is written by someone who knows the inner workings of the industry and the communities that depend upon it. A rich and highly engaging study of the industry". -- Contemporary Sociology.