Mark Kurlansky

Homer called it a divine substance. Plato described it as especially dear to the gods. As Mark Kurlansky so brilliantly relates here, salt has shaped civilisation from the beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of mankind. Wars have been fought over salt and, ...

The 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...

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, espec...

They are a mythical people, almost an imagined people, writes Kurlansky. Signs of their civilization exist well before the arrival of the Romans in 218BC. Their forbidden tongue is equally mysterious, it is related to no other, but today the Basques are enjoying what may be the most important cultur...

Break out the TV dinners! From the author who gave us" Cod," "Salt," and other informative bestsellers, the first biography of Clarence Birdseye, the eccentric genius inventor whose fast-freezing process revolutionized the food industry and American agriculture.

"Excellent ink drawings, brightened with colorful washes, illustrate incidents from the text with clarity, a flair for the dramatic, and a sense of humor." ("Booklist," starred review) "Kurlansky is a masterful storyteller. . . . Schindler's pictures, from serious to silly, add to the pleasure . . ...

Growing up in the years following World War II, Joel Bloom always played soldiers with his friends. But by the time he's eighteen, the Vietnam War is in full swing, and it's not as simple as the war games he played when he was a child. Old enough to be drafted, Joel loves his country, but he knows t...

What is What? Could it be that noted author Mark Kurlansky has written a very short, terrifically witty, deeply thought-provoking book entirely in the form of questions? A book that draws on philosophy, religion, literature, policy - indeed, all of civilization - to ask what may well be the twenty m...

Growing up in the years following World War II, Joel Bloom and his friends dreamed of either fighting in the military or leading the Dodgers to the World Series. But when Joel turns eighteen, the Vietnam War is in full swing, and the sides of war he learned about as a child are not nearly as clear. ...

One of the reasons baseball fans so love the sport is that it involves certain physical acts of beauty. And one of the most beautiful sights in the history of baseball was Hank Greenberg's swing. His calmly poised body seemed to have some special set of springs with a trigger release that snapped hi...

What is What? Could it be that noted author Mark Kurlansky has written a very short, terrifically witty, deeply thought-provoking book entirely in the form of questions? A book that draws on philosophy, religion, literature, policy-indeed, all of civilization-to ask what may well be the twenty most ...

"Una fantAstica historia social" por el autor de "Salt" y "Cod" ("USA Today") ? ? En el pueblo de San Pedro de MacorA-s en RepAblica Dominicana, el bA(c)isbol es comAnmente visto como la Anica forma de tener una vida mejor. Para aquellos que lo logran, los millones de dA3lares que reciben del las Gr...

Almost fifty years ago, Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" awakened the consciousness of an entire generation by bringing to light the harmful effects of DDT and other toxic chemicals; she forever changed the way people view the natural world. In "The World Without Fish", bestselling author Mark Kurlan...

All-new stories about the food we share, love, and fight over from the national bestselling author of "Cod and Salt." In these linked stories, Mark Kurlansky reveals the bond that can hold people together, tear them apart, or make them become vegan: food. Through muffins or hot dogs, an indigenous ...