Several textbooks and useful compendia on fisheries have been published recently, and others are in preparation. The question then arises: why publish another book on fisheries at this time? My answer is 1) that fishery research and management are such broad subjects that it is difficult, if not impossible, to cover them adequately in one volume; 2) that consequently each author has stressed those aspects of greatest immediate interest to him; and 3) that to the best of my knowl edge no adequate broad treatment of the sociopolitical aspects of fishery management has yet appeared, although some good discussions have been published for particular fisheries. This volume grew out of a course that I have taught for the last 12 years at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Originally, the title of the course was Fishery Ecology, which was a matter of surprise to some students when they attended the fi rst few 1 ectures. Despite the sudden recent emergence of ecology as a household word, most people do not understand what the term means. I have found that even some graduate students forget that man is a potent force in the dynamic state of aquatic life. This is not only because he does things that change the environment and so affects living things in it, but also because he has such strange ways of thinking and of managing his affairs.