Here’s a species older than time, a species key to the great migrations transecting our planet—and in the space of a few years our short-term interests have brought it close to ruin. It’s a powerful metaphor (one wishes it were only a metaphor) and its tale is told with enormous care and balance. And with just the faintest hint of optimism at the end.

In this unusual alert to species depletion, Sargent's heartfelt concerns for the horseshoe crab illustrate the human side of scientific inquiry.

A popular interest book about how a 300 million year old organism became essential to the modern pharmaceutical industry. Sargent traces the discovery of horseshoe crab blood as the perfect in-vitro test for gram-negative bacteria through the development of a multi-million dollar business. He recounts the battles between multinational pharmaceutical companies to "bleed" enough crabs for Limulus lysate and the demand for crabs by the bait fishery. Regulation of the fishery by individual states complicates the issue of preserving this natural resource.

Makes for fascinating reading . . . Crab Wars offers a compact introduction to the horseshoe crab and the controversy it has recently engendered.

Sargent...has crafted a surprisingly engaging tale ... Crab Wars makes for a helpful - and entertaining - case study.

This new edition contains five additional chapters, a new epilogue, and a decidedly enlarged perspective on the possibilities for the future of these creatures given the new biomedical challenges now faced by humanity and the possibility that synthesizing what their blue blood was once the only known source of may now be possible.

This 2021 update of a book originally published in 2002 has lost none of its relevance and has actually gained some in light of the COVID-19 pandemic…Refreshingly non-academic despite its publication by an academic press…A science/medicine book with a breezy style.

Crab Wars is measured, thoughtful, informative, examining the crab's use in medicine from the 1950's to Operation Warp Speed.... (It )is a "must-have" for both college and public library Science and Environmental Studies collections, highly recommended.

This beautifully written book is nonfiction but it reads like a particularly gripping novel. It’s filled with natural history, scientific discovery, pharmaceutical developments, and plenty of politics, and yet, Sargent tells the horseshoe crabs’ tale with enormous compassion and balance.

The fascinating story of the horseshoe crab is a thought-provoking and sobering reflection on the unintended consequences of scientific progress and the dangers posed when self-regulating industries control a limited natural resource.

A revelation... a fascinating book

William Sargent’s updated second edition of Crab Wars, released first in 2003 and again in 2021, serves as a twenty-year retrospective on the state of the horseshoe crab, a timely argument for protecting the species, and a cautionary tale. Certainly, the current pandemic, certain prospect of more in the future, and the tsunami of biotechnological developments in recent years, many driven by the pandemic, make the horseshoe crab’s survival more important than ever.