The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea
Jack E. Davis
Winner • Pulitzer Prize for History Winner • Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction Finalist • National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction) A New York Times Notable Book of the Year Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, NPR, Library Journal, and gCaptain Booklist Editors’ Choice (History) Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence In this “cri de coeur about the Gulf’s environmental ruin” (New York Times), “Davis has written a beautiful homage to a neglected sea” (front page, New York Times Book Review). Hailed as a “nonfiction epic . . . in the tradition of Jared Diamond’s best-seller Collapse, and Simon Winchester’s Atlantic” (Dallas Morning News), Jack E. Davis’s The Gulf is “by turns informative, lyrical, inspiring and chilling for anyone who cares about the future of ‘America’s Sea’ ” (Wall Street Journal).
Award History
2 wins · 4 total
| Award | Year | Result | Category / Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pulitzer Prize in HistoryMajor | 2018 | Winner | Secondary source |
| Kirkus Prize for NonfictionMajor | 2017 | Winner | Official source |
| Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in NonfictionMajor | 2018 | Longlist | Official source |
| National Book Critics Circle Award for NonfictionMajor | 2017 | Finalist | Official source |
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies
This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.
01 Central figures
None extracted with sufficient confidence.
02 Central places
None extracted with sufficient confidence.
03 Suggested argument
No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.
04 Reading orientation
35 / 100 academicSerious trade
An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.
Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 25%.