Andrew Smith's "American Tuna" is a breezy, magazine article-style, book-length look at the American love affair with tuna, the fish and the food. The several species of tuna and tuna-like fish have been a prime fishing stock for generations around the world but only in the last hundred years or so did it become a favorite of American consumers.Smith's narrative travels on two parrallel tracks: the attempts to interest the American public in the consumption of tuna, and the efforts to organize an industry to meet the demand for tuna once it became an American favorite. The "rise and fall" theme of the book plays out in two ways. US consumer demand for tuna went from near zero to near universal in the first 50 years of the 20th Century, before recently falling back to some degree, based perhaps on concerns about methyl-mercury contamination. The US tuna industry became the world's largest by the end of World War II, only to become almost entirely outsourced by the end of the century. Virtually all US tuna is now caught and processed outside the US.Smith's narrative is very accessible and concise at well under 200 pages plus a collection of (interesting) tuna recipes. The general reader may find it to be quite interesting. The fisheries or fish expert may find it a good introduction that raises more questions than it answers, particularly with respect to the economic and legal details of high seas fisheries and the reasons why the processing side of the industry has migrated overseas.