Why am I passionate about this?

Although my Midwestern roots in southwest Michigan situated me far away from the sea, I am now an expert on small islands and remote communities in the greater Caribbean. As a result, I grew to understand that much of the everyday lived experiences of island people must contend with the sea. As a result, I have spent the last two decades studying topics such as migration, fishing, and even conservation as related to small islands from the better-known Cayman Islands to the lesser-known San Andrés and Providencia Islands. I am a history professor at the US Naval Academy.


I wrote

The Last Turtlemen of the Caribbean: Waterscapes of Labor, Conservation, and Boundary Making

By Sharika Crawford,

Book cover of The Last Turtlemen of the Caribbean: Waterscapes of Labor, Conservation, and Boundary Making

What is my book about?

Illuminating the entangled histories of the people and commodities that circulated across the Atlantic, Sharika D. Crawford assesses the Caribbean…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution

Sharika Crawford Why did I love this book?

The Common Wind is a fascinating history of how an array of people from runaway slaves to refugees from the American and French Revolutions formed a part of a clandestine communication network. This network was facilitated by inter-island commerce that disrupted and triggered “currents of revolution” like the slave rebellion turned revolution in late eighteenth Haiti. This work is a classic. It continues to inspire historians to think about mobility, information, and revolutionary change. 

By Julius S. Scott,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Common Wind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Common Wind is a gripping and colorful account of the intercontinental networks that tied together the free and enslaved masses of the New World. Having delved deep into the gray obscurity of official eighteenth-century records in Spanish, English, and French, Julius S. Scott has written a powerful "history from below." Scott follows the spread of "rumors of emancipation" and the people behind them, bringing to life the protagonists in the slave revolution.
By tracking the colliding worlds of buccaneers, military deserters, and maroon communards from Venezuela to Virginia, Scott records the transmission of contagious mutinies and insurrections in unparalleled…


Book cover of In the Eye of All Trade: Bermuda, Bermudians, and the Maritime Atlantic World, 1680-1783

Sharika Crawford Why did I love this book?

In the Eye of All Trade is a gigantic book. Do not let the book’s size scare you. It tells the history of Bermuda, and the greater Caribbean, from a maritime perspective. In six chapters, Jarvis traces how Bermuda transitioned from tobacco to maritime society. If you stick with it, you will uncover how Bermudian seafarers traveled as far as Belize to facilitate an inter-island trade in salt, mahogany, and even turtles. Bermudian success rested on adaptability to their isolated location.

By Michael J. Jarvis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In the Eye of All Trade as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In an exploration of the oceanic connections of the Atlantic world, Michael J. Jarvis recovers a mariner's view of early America as seen through the eyes of Bermuda's seafarers. The first social history of eighteenth-century Bermuda, this book profiles how one especially intensive maritime community capitalized on its position ""in the eye of all trade.""

Jarvis takes readers aboard small Bermudian sloops and follows white and enslaved sailors as they shuttled cargoes between ports, raked salt, harvested timber, salvaged shipwrecks, hunted whales, captured prizes, and smuggled contraband in an expansive maritime sphere spanning Great Britain's North American and Caribbean colonies.…


Book cover of The Windward Road: Adventures of a Naturalist on Remote Caribbean Shores

Sharika Crawford Why did I love this book?

The Windward Road is a whimsical yet eye-opening account of the lesser-explored communities who hunted and ate turtles along the Caribbean coast of Central America and islands in the Caribbean Sea. Although Archie Carr was a renowned herpetologist, he was also a superb storyteller. His adventures will undoubtedly make you laugh, squirm, and empathize with the turtles and the communities that hunted them.

By Archie Carr,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Windward Road as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Originally published in 1956, The Windward Road helped set in motion a movement to protect sea turtles that spread throughout the world and remains strong today. Archie Carr's unmatched style of nature writing, accessible to experienced naturalists and laypersons alike, explores some of nature's darkest mysteries with humour and much delight. His delightful stories of exploring the Caribbean while researching green turtles brings to life his deep passion for the people and biological diversity of the tropics.


Book cover of Far Tortuga

Sharika Crawford Why did I love this book?

Peter Matthiessen was considered one of America’s great wilderness writers. Yet in an interview, before he died in 2014, Matthiessen identified Far Tortuga as his personal favorite of all the books he had written. In this novel, Matthiessen offers a fictional account of his participation on one of the last turtle hunting voyages in the Caribbean. Drawing on his experience on the said voyage in the 1960s, Matthiessen vividly displays his keen observation skills with his depictions of the Caymanian turtle hunters and the challenges of this last generation of turtlemen. 

By Peter Matthiessen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Far Tortuga as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This adventure story is set in the Caribbean and describes the last voyage of the "Lillias Eden", an old wooden schooner employed in the turtle trade. The author's previous books include "The Snow Leopard", "Men's Lives", "The Cloud Forest" and "Under the Mountain Wall".


Book cover of The Old Man and the Sea

Sharika Crawford Why did I love this book?

The Old Man and the Sea is a classic American literary work. Hemingway in evocative and precise language helps you to empathize with Santiago, the main character and life-long mariner, who struggles to capture a huge marlin off the coast of Cuba. Since Hemingway was a sportsman, he takes the time to recreate the sensorial experience of life at sea.

By Ernest Hemingway,

Why should I read it?

13 authors picked The Old Man and the Sea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This powerful and dignified story about a Cuban fisherman's struggle with a great fish has the universal appeal of a struggle between man and the elements, the hunter with the hunted. It earned Hemingway the Nobel prize and has been made into an acclaimed film. Age 13+


Explore my book 😀

The Last Turtlemen of the Caribbean: Waterscapes of Labor, Conservation, and Boundary Making

By Sharika Crawford,

Book cover of The Last Turtlemen of the Caribbean: Waterscapes of Labor, Conservation, and Boundary Making

What is my book about?

Illuminating the entangled histories of the people and commodities that circulated across the Atlantic, Sharika D. Crawford assesses the Caribbean as a waterscape where imperial and national governments vied to control the profitability of the sea. Crawford places the green and hawksbill sea turtles and the Caymanian turtlemen who hunted them at the center of this waterscape. The story of the humble turtle and its hunter, I argue, came to play a significant role in shaping the maritime boundaries of the modern Caribbean.

Book cover of The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution
Book cover of In the Eye of All Trade: Bermuda, Bermudians, and the Maritime Atlantic World, 1680-1783
Book cover of The Windward Road: Adventures of a Naturalist on Remote Caribbean Shores

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Wendy Church Author Of Knife Skills

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Why am I passionate about this?

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Knife Skills

By Wendy Church,

What is this book about?

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Sagarine Pfister is a great cook but has been blacklisted by almost every restaurant in Chicago. She gets her chance at Louie's, a below-average restaurant, the only place that will give her a job.

Things change when she finds head chef Louie Ferrar dead in the walk-in freezer of his restaurant. But instead of closing the place down, the owner, Russian gang boss Anatoly Morzov, not only offers her Louie's job, but also…


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Interested in the Caribbean, turtles, and Cuba?

The Caribbean 208 books
Turtles 16 books
Cuba 90 books