Joining New York Times-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky’s groundbreaking, award-winning Cod and Salt—a new classic-in-the-making.When Mark Kurlansky was seventeen, he took his first job as a commercial fisherman in the Atlantic on a forty-five-foot, wooden-hulled, two-man lobster boat, thus igniting a lifelong fascination and kinship with the mysterious creature. Since that defining experience, the lobster’s role in cuisine and culture have chang...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | THE BOOK BEHIND THE VIRAL TIKTOKOne tiny rock. One epic history.'A must-have for any serious cook or foodie.' Anthony Bourdain'This is a "wow!" book: roving, startling, engaging.' Washington Post'Kurlansky finds the world in a grain of salt.' New York Times Book ReviewAn unlikely world history from the bestselling author of Milk! and C...

Mark Kurlansky's first global food history since the bestselling Cod and Salt; the fascinating cultural, economic, and culinary story of milk and all things dairy--with recipes throughout.According to the Greek creation myth, we are so much spilt milk; a splatter of the goddess Hera's breast milk became our galaxy, the Milky Way. But while mother's milk may be the essence of nourishment, it is the milk of other mammals that humans have cultivated...

'Who would ever think that a book on cod would make a compulsive read? And yet this is precisely what Kurlansky has done' Express on SundayThe Cod. Wars have been fought over it, revolutions have been triggered by it, national diets have been based on it, economies and livelihoods have depended on it. To the millions it has sustained, it has been a treasure more precious that gold. This book spans 1,000 years and four continents. From the Vikings to Claren...

The Basques are Europe's oldest people, their origins a mystery, their language related to no other on Earth, and even though few in population and from a remote and rugged corner of Spain and France, they have had a profound impact on the world. Whilst inward-looking, preserving their ancient language and customs, the Basques also struck out for new horizons, pioneers of whaling and cod fishing, leading the way in exploration of the Americas and Asia, were among the first capitalists and ...

From the New York Times best-selling author of Cod and Salt, a definitive history of paper and the astonishing ways it has shaped today’s world.Paper is one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to produce it in ever more efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce, and art; it has formed the foundation of civilizations, p...

Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher*Life-changing food adventures around the world.From bat on the island of Fais to chicken on a Russian train to barbecue in the American heartland, from mutton in Mongolia to couscous in Morocco to tacos in Tijuana - on the road, food nourishes us not only physically, but intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually too. It can be a gift that enables a traveller to survive, a doorway into the heart of a tribe...

The conventional history of nations, even continents, is a history of warfare. According to this view, all the important ideas and significant changes of humankind occured as part of an effort to win one violent, bloody conflict or another.But there have always been a few who refused to fight. Following the grand sweep of history from Confucius to Tolstoy, Erasmus to Gandhi, bestselling author Mark Kurlansky traces pacifism and its proponents to show how many modern ideas, a united...

‘A fascinating account…combining the rigour of the historian with the powerful emotions of someone who was a twenty-year-old student at the time’ UncutIt was the year of sex and drugs and rock and roll. But what impact did it have on today’s political and social landscape?It was also the year of the Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy assassinations, the Prague Spring, the Chicago convention, the Tet offensive in ...

When Peter Minuit bought Manhattan for $24 in 1626 he showed his shrewdness by also buying the oyster beds off tiny, nearby Oyster Island, renamed Ellis Island in 1770.From the Minuit purchase until pollution finally destroyed the beds in the 1920s, New York was a city known for its oysters, especially in the late 1800s, when Europe and America enjoyed a decades-long oyster craze. In a dubious endorsement, William Makepeace Thackeray said that eating a New York oyster was like eati...

Will most of the major fisheries of the world be exhausted by 2048, as has been claimed? Have the number of large fish in the ocean decreased by 90 per cent over the past 50 years, as has been asserted by a respected scientist? Are 60 per cent of the fish species studied by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation either fully exploited or depleted, as one of their reports attests? Fishing at sea, an ancient trade and a way of life that has defined coastal towns throughout hist...

**Recommended by Chef José Andrés on The Drew Barrymore Show!A portrait of American food--before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional--from the lost WPA files**From the New York Times bestselling author who "powerfully demonstrates the defining role food plays in history and culture" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution).In the throes of the Great Depr...