An all-in-one deep dive into the Atlantic herring and its far-reaching dominions.This book contains almost everything you didn't know you needed to know about Atlantic herrings. (Pacific and Baltic varieties are in there too.) Herrings make the world bigger: with spawnings seen from space, a trillion individuals make this one of the tastiest and most abundant vertebrates on Earth.From 'A Beginning' to 'Zuiderzee', count the wars fought over herrings; don't forget Scotland vs the Holy Roman Empire. The herring's high-pitched farts were logged as Soviet submarines, and one herring joke featured in a Jonson play, four Shakespeare plays and the glorious, suppressed fantasia Nashes Lenten Stuffe. Herrings mock taxonomists; physically change with sea temperature and salinity; stuff predators full to bursting, then swim away.The Great Sardine Litigation? The true history of kippers? Bloaters? Reds? Chopped herring? Shuba? All this and more. Between sustainable fishery genetics, sixteenth-century Bavaria's 'Herrings, herrings, stinking herrings', and Van Gogh's ear, every entry is a story, a comic journey, an adventure. Some even come with recipes.