Mark Kurlansky

An unexpected, energetic look at world history via the humble cod fish from the bestselling author of Salt and The Basque History of the World.

Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky has drawn enthusiastic praise for his books, which are sharply-focused studies as well as glorious celebrations of their subjects. In The Basque History of the World, he turns his eye toward Europe’s oldest surviving culture - a culture as mysterious as it...

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...

The author of Cod and The Basque History of the World takes an extraordinary look at an ordinary substance — salt, the only rock humans eat — and how it has shaped civilization from the very beginning....

From the award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of Cod and Salt, To Catch a Fish is an entertaining and beautifully written illustrated collection of essays that explore a lifetime fascination with fishing. For as long as there have been humans, there have been humans trying to catch...

Mark Kurlansky's first global food history since the best-selling Cod and Salt; the fascinating cultural, economic and culinary story of milk and all things dairy....

In what he says is the most important piece of environmental writing in his long and award-winning career, Mark Kurlansky, best-selling author of Salt and Cod, The Big Oyster, 1968, and Milk, among many others, employs his signature multi-century storytelling and compelling attention to...

The cod has played a vital part in livelihoods, diets, and health in general — as well as roles in national economies and international wars. Drawing on his love of food and food culture, Mark Kurlansky leaps into history and folklore....

From the award-winning, bestselling author of Cod comes the irresistible story of the science, history art, and culture of the least efficient way to catch a fish....

Covering popular culture, politics, war, economics, and the media, Mark Kurlansky shows how twelve volatile months transformed who we were as a people. But above all, he offers provocative insights into the underlying causes of the historical phenomenon that was the year 1968....

In this timely, highly original, and controversial narrative, New York Times best-selling author Mark Kurlansky discusses nonviolence as a distinct entity, a course of action, rather than a mere state of mind. Nonviolence can and should be a technique for overcoming social injustice and ending...

Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky presents an insider's view of Havana: the elegant, tattered city he has come to know over more than 30 years....

Before New York City was the Big Apple, it could have been called the Big Oyster. Now award-winning author Mark Kurlansky tells the remarkable story of New York by following the trajectory of one of its most fascinating inhabitants–the oyster, whose influence on the great metropolis remains...

"Every once in a while a writer of particular skills takes a fresh, seemingly improbable idea..."

New York Times bestselling author of Cod and Salt takes a delectable look at the cultural, historical, and gastronomical layers of one of the world’s most beloved culinary staples—featuring recipes from around the world....

West 86th Street knows its desserts. It’s the 1970s, and poppyseed strudel, praline ice cream cake, and New York cheesecake are as integral to Manhattan’s Upper West Side as clustered pigeons, suited doormen, and greasy diners.

The cod is a large, ugly fish that spends its life with its big mouth wide open for food. For centuries, so many cod lived in the Atlantic Ocean they couldn’t swim without bumping into each other. They were so plentiful that they became the most important fish in many cultures. Best-selling...

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...

Mark Kurlansky's new book takes us back to the food of a younger America....

How do good people find the courage to resist and end the greatest evil in their country? An untold story of the Civil War Era: pacifists in Boston who led the fight to end slavery without violence and war.