Whaling has become one of the most controversial environmental issues. It is not that all whale species are at the brink of extinction, but that whales have become important symbols to both pro- and anti-whaling factions and can easily be appropriated as the common heritage of humankind.

List of Figures Preface and Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1. The Creation of a 'Superwhale' Chapter 2. The Whale Protectionists Chapter 3. Diverting the Commodity Path Chapter 4. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) Chapter 5. Whaling and Identity Chapter 6. Local Responses to Global Issues Chapter 7. Conclusion Bibliography Index

"Kalland's direct approach is to be commended as well as the accessibility of the book (blessedly free of jargonized language), and for creating new avenues for further research into the attribution of values and anti-values to highly contentious environmental discourses." * Durham Anthropology Journal "Kalland's deconstruction of the 'Superwhale' as an environmentalist symbol and magnet for New Age belief systems is a very accessible and engaging example of discourse analysis. Many readers will find it a bit unsettling to recognize their own unexamined pro-whale, anti-whaling sentiments as elements of a hegemonic discourse centered on a figment of shared imagination--a body of values, sentiments, and emotive symbols--rather than a flesh and blood animal." * Choice "...a unique work. Surprisingly, perhaps, given the prominence of its subject, there is nothing comparable in the literature. It draws on the author's decades-long devotion to the topic. As a result, it is rich in its command of the academic, policy, and popular literatures on the subject. It is, simply put, authoritative. It is also convincing." * Michael Dove, Yale University "a thorough and very interesting analysis of the whaling controversy." * Kay Milton, Queen's University Belfast

Arne Kalland was until his death in 2013, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. He had written extensively on marine resource management and people's perceptions of nature. Recently he had addressed the relationship between religion and ecology. He edited several books on human-nature relations and done fieldwork in Japan, Norway and Thailand.