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More copies of this ISBN:Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the Worldby Mark Kurlansky
Staff Pick
Mark Kurlansky is King of the microhistory. Much like his previous books Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World and Salt: A World History, The Big Oyster goes way beyond the usual scope of food history, this time detailing the oyster's broader influence on the development of New York. A fascinating glimpse into both the city and the bivalve, this richly detailed gem is engrossing to the end. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:A delightful romp through history with all its economic forces laid bare, Cod is the biography of a single species of fish, but it may as well be a world history with this humble fish as its recurring main character. Cod, it turns out, is the reason Europeans set sail across the Atlantic, and it is the only reason they could. What did the Vikings eat in icy Greenland and on the five expeditions to America recorded in the Icelandic sagas? Cod — frozen and dried in the frosty air, then broken into pieces and eaten like hardtack. What was the staple of the medieval diet? Cod again, sold salted by the Basques, an enigmatic people with a mysterious, unlimited supply of cod.
As we make our way through the centuries of cod history, we also find a delicious legacy of recipes, and the tragic story of environmental failure, of depleted fishing stocks where once their numbers were legendary. In this lovely, thoughtful history, Mark Kurlansky ponders the question: Is the fish that changed the world forever changed by the world's folly? Review:"A loving eulogy not only to a fish, but to the people whose lives have been shaped by the habits of the fish, and whose way of life is now at an end". New York Newsday Review:"Kurlansky relates [the] information in an entertaining style while providing accurate scientific information." Library Journal Review:"This eminently readable book is a new tool for scanning world history. It leads to a vastly different perception of why folks did what they did....Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is history filtered through the gills of the fish trade." New York Times Book Review Review:"Writing with a bright, crisp, journalistic flair, Kurlansky situates the cod in all its historic glory..." Kirkus Reviews Review:"Books as beautifully written and elegantly illustrated as this are, unhappily, as rare as cod. Kurlansky's marvellous fish opus stands as a reminder of what good non-fiction used to be: eloquent, learned, and full of earthy narratives that delight and appall. This book yields a feast of common and uncommon truths about the greatest of all hunters, homo sapiens." The Globe and Mail Review:"[A] marvellously enlightening...concise biography that does justice to the vibrant and tragic history of the cod." St. John's Evening Telegram Review:"Stephen King would be proud. In Cod, Mark Kurlansky has created a little book of horrors that is compulsively readable." The Georgia Straight Review:"A beautiful, vivacious essay on life and manners, not overlooking human folly." The Financial Post Review:"Every once in a while a writer of particular skill takes a fresh, seemingly improbable idea and turns out a book of pure delight. Such is the case of Mark Kurlansky and the codfish." David McCullough Review:"[T]his remarkable and informative volume should net any number of happy readers." Publishers Weekly About the AuthorMark Kurlansky has written articles for the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, the International Herald Tribune, and Partisan Review. He is also the author of two other books, A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny (Ballantine) and The Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry(Ballantine). When not travelling around the world, Mark makes his home in New York City with his wife and daughter. Table of ContentsPrologue: Sentry on the Headlands (So Close to Ireland)
PART ONE: A FISH TALE
PART TWO: LIMITS
PART THREE: THE LAST HUNTERS A COOK'S TALE: SIX CENTURIES OF COD RECIPES
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