Rating: 
Summary: I should have loved this book but.....
Review: By all accounts I should have loved this book. It is well-researched, beautifully presented, and it is the sort of book I just love - a story about a tiny piece of obscure history bought into perspective. I mean I loved Dava Sobel's book "Longitude" and Milton's book "Nathaniel's Nutmeg" - I thought "Cod - A biography of a fish that changed the world" would be a shoe-in to be on my favourites pile. I just didn't enjoy it as much as I felt I should have - and as much as I tried to. I was a bit put off from the start - the prologue just didn't 'read' for me. I know Kurlansky was trying to put the story into a modern perspective - how fishermen in North America have become conservationists of what was one of the most abundant types of fish in the world, but I found the writing uneven. The quote I remember mostly as feeling a bit clumsy here is almost at the end of the prologue. Kurlanksy tells us about some men who are tagging a cod which subsequently dies - he writes "That makes no one, because they are hungry." - OK, this probably doesn't sound too bad to you reading this review - but it just didn't feel right in the paragraph to me. And the rest of the book felt the same - with odd exceptions. Some chapters showed great flashes of brilliance, and some chapters were brilliance in themselves - I thought Chapter 4 - 'The Rock and the Cod' - was particularly good and Kurlansky's dry wit when talking about the first pilgrims to America and their faults (arriving in winter - nearly starving, ignoring foods they didn't know, ignoring the immense fishing industry off the coast &c.) was wonderfully put. Yet I compare that to chapter two - which was a really long discussion of the names of cod, and how they developed those names all over the world - and a lot about the species of cod generally - normally I love that sort of trivia, I just found I dragged my way through that chapter - it seemed interminable to me for some reason. Between each chapter are short recipes from the period - and at the end of the book is a very long and good recipe section - with historic recipes for cod from all over the world. I loved the recipes and have copied a few to try one day (the Jamaican "Codfish Run Down" looks particularly good to me. The book is beautifully bound, it has a lovely cover and printing - and I really liked both the size and the shape of it - well aesthetics of books are still important aren't they? I suppose it is fair to say that this is a good book, that Kurlansky really does know his stuff, - I just found it quite uneven.
Rating: 
Summary: There's a reason it's widely recommended...
Review: If you're one of the many people who's been caught up in the wave of highly focused historical books that have innundated our book stores, then this book is for you. Kurlansky presents the history of one of the most mundane items possible (excepting the humble potato and there's a book on that too) with an engaging and informative style. The book presents as a mix of history, current events, and recipes. It misfired at times. There is not discussion (or recommendation) regarding management of resources or planning for the future of our fisheries. And some absolute statements (such as the superiour development of Basque cod cuisine) deserve to be challenged. And Kurlansky doesn't consider the fishing history of Native Americans; although, it may be for lack of documentation (I don't know; I'm not a historian; that's why I read these things). In spite of this, it's an outstanding book. It meets the two key requirements for me in this regard; one, I recommend it to other people who report back on how much they liked it; and two, I'll read it again. Buy it. Read it. You'll probably enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Yummy...
Review: I read both Mark Kurlansky's Cod and Salt books. I recommend Cod book for those who are not hungry yet not too full since it's full of recipes that makes your mouth water.... Not recommemded for people who are hardcore Red Sox fans since this author writes certain sentences that might offend a little about Bostonians' favorite baseball team. I think Salt book is better for those who do not want too much recipes on cod. However, Cod book is worth the price if you ever lived around Newfoundland, New England, England, Iceland, or places that fished cod.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoroughly enjoyable journalism, pretty good history.
Review: Though this book is sold as a history book, Kurlansky is not primarily a historian. His background is in journalism, which is evident from his writing style and his use of source material. While the narrative is lively and full of poetic prose, it is also severely lacking in documentation. But this only really matters if you're reading the book for hard history. After all, the New York Times doesn't use footnotes either. Kurlansky succeeds in demonstrating the preeminence of cod to the history, culture, and especially the economy of the North Atlantic. The book makes a strong case that cod is the unsung hero of American history, and played an integral part in shaping the nation (at least in the north). The author may overemphasize cod's importance in a few instances (his claim that the American Revolution was fought primarily over cod comes to mind), but for the most part, he's on solid ground. The best parts of the book are the last 2 sections, which deftly demonstrate how greed, combined with ignorance, has led to the near commercial extinction of codfish. He balances his sympathy for the plight of the modern fisherman with an honest portrayal of the denial and blame-shifting that goes on in fishing communities. He makes a great case for conservation, regulation, and an end to the use of trawlers in order to allow the cod to repopulate the waters and restore the fishing industry. In all, the book is extremely well-written, compellingly told, and often convicting. The author's wit and style make up in large part for his minor shortcomings as a historian. And if his agenda is sometimes a bit transparent, it is a good agenda. Buy this book and read it. You'll never think of commodities the same way again.
Rating:
Summary: A Cod piece
Review: Overall, I thought Cod to be an "ok" read. It's strongest points were the inclusion of historic references to cod, images, and recipes - a novel approach for a non-fiction work. I also found the stories of contemporary cod fishermen (who aren't allowed to fish!) quite compassionate and the history of Basque fishers-of-cod both enlightening and surprising. However, Kurlansky was often repetitive with his cod anecdotes, and I found his writing style to be a bit cumbersome and slow. I'm a big fan of John McPhee's work, which exemplifies the essay as poetry, and I had hoped that Kurlansky might offer a new, strong voice in the non-fiction, natural history essay. I was a bit disappointed that the central text read much like an undergrad research paper. I do plan to read his recent book Salt because I find the subject premise intriguing. If you like eating fish or fishing, are interested in how natural and human history intertwine, or are simply a fan of nature writing, I would recommend giving Cod a try.
Rating:
Summary: hungry for a lost fish
Review: A purse-sized history of the cod fishery, from the Basques & vikings to the fishes' modern decimation by large scale bottom-dragging. The social & historical ramifications spawned (no pun intended) by the international quest for this fish are incredible. Kurlansky's book weaves historical accounts in choronological order with hundreds of years of recipes for preparing cod. Though the book was well-written, concise, and highly interesting, I found it oddly incongruous to read about the vast decimation of this species yet find myself hungry for the very same fish after reading the next page's recipe for it.
Rating:
Summary: A bitter ecological tale for our time
Review: This is a fascinating book. It's also very sad, because it illustrates the ability of modern people to almost unconsciously wipe out the natural resources of our planet. Codfish were once the "buffalo" of the oceans -- big, fat, useful and dumb. As one early explorer wrote, to catch cod all you need do is lower and bucket into the water and haul it back up full of fish. Sorta like buffalo in the days when passengers could shoot them from the windows of passing trains as a harmless sport intended solely to break the boredom of the trip. Yes, this book is a bitter ecological tale for our time. It is also a wonderful history of a marvelous fish. Kurlansky obviously had fun writing it, and his love of cod shows in the comfortable style of his writing. He delves into word origins for the different ways used to describe cod, and he plays with the history of a dozen or so nations to illustrate the impact one fish had on entire peoples. Plus, he includes dozens of recipes by which cod was cooked for generations. But he also explains why such an international treasure has almost vanished. "Whatever steps are taken, one of the greatest obstacles to restoring cod stocks off Newfoundland is an almost pathological collective denial of what has happened," Kurlansky writes near the end of the book. "Newfoundlanders seem prepared to believe anything other than they have killed off nature's bounty." What happened? Kurlansky writes that "One Canadian journalist published an article pointing out that the cod disappeared from Newfoundland at about the same time that stocks started rebuilding in Norway. "Clearly the northern stock had packed up and migrated to Norway," he adds. If this is the Canadian attitude, in one of the self-proclaimed best educated and wealthiest of nations, it's not hard to understand why and how Third World nations have environmental problems. My personal experience with a similar depletion is in the Sea of Cortez, where Mexican fishermen have taken about 20 years to just about exterminate the sharks. Shrimp boats, based in Puerto Penasco, have likewise decimated the shrimp. Who's to blame? The United States, of course, because the Americans built dams on the Colorado River which prevents the river water from reaching the sea. There's always someone else to blame. As I said earlier, it's a sad book. Yet, it is an excellent one and perhaps one of the most appropriate to read in terms of what is fast happening to our marine life. Cod are invisible, not like cute furry little baby seals which so excited Europeans a few years ago when they saw how Canadians clubbed them to death to avoid marking the fur. If the future of our world depends on cute pictures on TV, then our future is truly in deplorable shape. But, the fact this book exists and is written with elegance, style, wit and great insight, may persuade thick-headed politicians that even "invisible" wildlife deserves protection from our greed and ignorance. If not, and having known many politicians for many years I'm not optimistic, it is a beautiful elegy to a noble fish. What happens when a native species disappears? Well, two centuries ago the US Southwest had some of the world's finest grasslands. Then came the Russian Thistle, an almost useless weed that choked out the grass. Now we celebrate this import in song, "See them tumbling along . . . . . the tumbling tumbleweeds." It happens.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: One of the worst written books I have read in 2 years. The story: for hundreds of years there were a lot of people catching and eating cod, but then they were overfished and there are no longer giant stocks of cod. Now you have no reason to get this book, as the author does not add much to that sentence - but drags it out. A bunch of relatively unrelated fish facts and boring details of random fish stories - but no storytelling ability is present. Dull and repetitive.
Rating:
Summary: Gastronomic History
Review: Mark Kurlansky's 'fish tale' spans over 400 years of American and world history to reveal how something as seemingly insignificant as one species can alter the course of a country's history. Starting with the Basque fishermen who may have 'discovered' North American before Columbus (but after the Norse), Kurlansky shows how cod became a staple in our diet and affected incidents such as the American Revolution and slavery. He also makes a good case for conservation of the modern Atlantic cod, and present factors that could render this fish for all intents and purposes extinct. From my perspective, the 'cod wars' of the mid-20th century were the most entertaining, and provide a mirror for more well-known historical events such as the Cold War. Sprinkled throughout are recipes -- modern and ancient -- for preparing cod, including snacking on codheads. On the whole, a fascinating look at how war, diplomacy, trade and exploration were fueled by one species, and how we refuse to change our customs, diets, and livelihoods even if we are destructive to our environment and ourselves.
Rating:
Summary: What a dish!
Review: This book has to be one of the most entertaining history texts in, well, history. I couldn't put it down. What a joy!
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