Mark Kurlansky, author of A Continent of Islands and A Chosen Few, writes for Audubon magazine,
Food & Wine, and the International Herald Tribune.
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
"This eminently readable book is a new tool for scanning world history."
�The New York Times Book Review
"An elegant brief history. . .related with a vast brio and wit."
�Los Angeles Times
"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 McCollough
Penguin Putnam, Inc. Website
February, 2000
Summary
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?
