Jacques Cousteau The Sea King

Jacques Cousteau opened up the undersea world as no one has done before or since. But not generally know is the fascinating and compelling individual behind the acclaimed television personality. With the cooperation of many of Jacques Cousteau's collaborators, friends, and family, Brad Matsen gives us the first full picture of this remarkable life. Here is Cousteau working for the French resistance during World War II (for which he received France's Croix de Guerre); developingand risking his life to testthe regulator that made scuba diving possible; running the world's largest scuba equipment manufacturing firm; becoming a legendary catalyst of the worldwide environmental movement; starring inThe Undersea World of Jacques Cousteauand in hundreds of documentaries; and publishing more than fifty books. And here is the widowed Cousteau marrying his longtime mistressforty years his junior and the mother of two of his childrenkindling a bitter family feud that continues to this day. Vividly conveying the people, the adventure, the science, and the lure of the sea that shaped Cousteau's life, Matsen paints a luminous portrait of a man who profoundly changed the way we view, and treat, our planet.

BRAD MATSEN is the author of Titanic’s Last Secrets, Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss, and many other books about the sea and its inhabitants. He was a creative producer for the television series The Shape of Life, and his articles on marine science and the environment have appeared in Mother Jones, Audubon, and Natural History, among other publications. He lives on Vashon Island, off the coast of Washington State.


From the Hardcover edition.