JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER | BY THE AUTHOR OF THE VIRAL TIKTOK BOOK SALT
From the author of the New York Times bestseller Salt, an unexpected, energetic look at world history via the humble cod fish
"In [Kurlansky’s] hands, the cod proves intriguing… a hero of history… emblematic of a great crisis in the relation of people to nature."—New York Times
Wars have been fought over it, revolutions have been spurred by it, national diets have been based on it, economies have depended on it, and the settlement of North America was driven by it. Cod, it turns out, is the reason Europeans set sail across the Atlantic, and it is the only reason they could. Cod is a charming tour of history with all its economic forces laid bare and a fish story embellished with great gastronomic detail. It is also a tragic tale of environmental failure, of depleted fishing stocks where once the cod's numbers were legendary. In this deceptively whimsical biography of a fish, Mark Kurlansky brings a thousand years of human civilization into captivating focus.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Prologue: Sentry on the Headlands (So Close to Ireland)
PART ONE: A FISH TALE
1: The Race to Codlandia
2: With Mouth Wide Open
3: The Cod Rush
4: 1620: The Rock and the Cod
5: Certain Inalienable Rights
6: A Cod War Heard 'Round the World
PART TWO: LIMITS
7: A Few New Ideas Versus Nine Million Eggs
8: The Last Two Ideas
9: Iceland Discovers the Finite Universe
10: Three Wars to Close the Open Sea
PART THREE: THE LAST HUNTERS
11: Requiem for the Grand Banks
12: The Dangerous Waters of Nature's Resilience
13: Bracing for the Spanish Armada
14: Bracing for the Canadian Armada
A COOK'S TALE: SIX CENTURIES OF COD RECIPES
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
