Beyond the Outer Shores: The Untold Odyssey of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell - Paperback

by Eric Enno Tamm (Author)

In the 1930s, while the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression sent most of America into the doldrums, a lively intellectual and artistic community formed in the West, revolving around three legendary friends: Ed Ricketts, John Steinbeck, and Joseph Campbell. Steinbeck immortalized Monterey's bohemian spirit in Cannery Row, but the area's true lifeblood was his best friend and mentor, Ed Ricketts. Today Ed Ricketts is usually remembered as "Doc"--the beer-drinking philosopher-scientist who presided over Monterey's population of "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches" in Cannery Row--but Ricketts was actually a trailblazing ecologist who did seminal work in the emerging field on the Pacific Coast. His ideas were decades before their time, and his two books, Between Pacific Tides and Sea of Cortez (coauthored with Steinbeck), are still considered classics. Now, some sixty years after his untimely death, Ricketts' ecological approach and ethic seem more relevant than ever.

Author Biography

Eric Enno Tamm was raised in the fishing village of Ucluelet on the outer shores of British Columbia. He has worked as the executive director of the Coastal Community Network in B.C. and as a freelance journalist in Europe. His writing has appeared in Wallpaper*, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Globe and Mail, and Canadian Geographic, among others. He works for Ecotrust Canada, an environmental group based in Vancouver, Canada. Beyond the Outer Shores is his first book.