Part adventure story, part manifesto, this is legendary ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau''s passionate plea for sustaining life on earth. Explorer, diving pioneer, filmmaker, inventor, and activist, Jacques Cousteau was blessed from his childhood with boundless curiosity about the natural world. As the leader of fascinating, often dangerous expeditions all over the planet, he discovered firsthand the complexity and beauty of life on earth and undersea-and watched the toll taken by human activity in the twentieth century.In his magnificent last book, available for the first time in the United States, Cousteau describes his deeply informed philosophy about protecting our world for future generations. Weaving gripping stories of his adventures throughout, he and coauthor Susan Schiefelbein address the risks we take with human health, the overfishing and sacking of the world''s oceans, the hazards of nuclear proliferation, and the environmental responsibility of scientists, politicians, and people of faith. Written over the last ten years of his life with frequent collaborator Schiefelbein, who also introduces the text and provides an update on environmental developments in the decade since Cousteau''s death, this prescient, clear-sighted book is a remarkable testament to the life and work of one of our greatest modern adventurers.

Jacques Cousteau (1910–1997) was world renowned as an ocean explorer, filmmaker, educator, and environmental activist. He won three Oscars and the Palme d''Or for his films; was nominated for forty Emmys during the run of his TV series, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau; and wrote or coauthored more than seventy-five books, including The Silent World, which has sold 5 million copies in twenty-two languages. As director of the Oceanographic Institute of Monaco and a member of the advisory committee of the International Atomic Energy Agency, he was active in the conservation and anti-nuclear-proliferation movements. Susan Schiefelbein has won the National Magazine Award and the Front Page Award for her cover stories on social issues. A former editor at the Saturday Review, where she first worked with famed ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, she went on to write the narration for many of his documentary films, including winners of the Peabody and the Ace Awards. She lives in Paris. Stephen Hoye has won thirteen AudioFile Earphones Awards and two prestigious APA Audie Awards, including one for the New York Times bestseller Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki. A graduate of London''s Guildhall and a veteran of London''s West End, Stephen has recorded many other notable titles, such as Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong and The Google Story by David A. Vise and Mark Malseed.