Mark Kurlansky

The year 1968 encompasses the diverse realms of youth and music, politics and war, economics and the media. It was the year of sex and drugs and rock and roll. It was also the year of the Martin Luther King's assassination, and the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. This book shows us how one volatile year helped shape us into who we are.

The best-selling author of Cod and Salt provides a detailed look at 1968, a pivotal year in the history of the twentieth century, bringing to life the turbulent events, politics, culture, economics, and social changes that marked a volatile year that included the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Tet offensive, and more. Reader's Guide included. Reprint. 46,000 first printing.

Mark Kurlansky, bestselling author of Salt and Cod, serves up a smorgasbord of food writing through the ages, from Plato to Louis Prima Choice Cuts offers more than two hundred mouth-watering selections, including Brillat-Savarin on chocolate; Waverley Root on truffles; M. F. K. Fish on gingerbread; Pablo Neruda on French fries; Alexandre Dumas on coffee; and a vast variety by Escoffier, Elizabeth David, A. J. Liebling, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Dickens, Balzac, Chekhov, Orwell, and Alice B. Toklas, among others. Filled throughout with recipes, menus, classic photographs, and Kurlansky's own original drawings, Choice Cuts is a must-have for any serious lover of food." The most outrageously broad, gregarious food writing anthology." -SaveurMark Kurlansky is the author of many books including Salt, The Basque History of the World, 1968, and The Big Oyster. His newest book is Birdseye.

Wars have been fought over salt and, while salt taxes secured empires across Europe and Asia, they have also inspired revolution - Gandhi's salt march in 1930 began the overthrow of British rule in India.

A history of salt notes its role as currency, in the establishment of trade routes and cities, and as an agenda of war, noting key figures who played major parts in its manufacture and distribution. Reprint.

In A Chosen Few, Mark Kurlansky explores the many reasons why Jews have returned to Germany and Poland, and why Jews remain in Europe, how they have managed not only to continue their way of life, but to thrive and prosper. Through the lives of individuals both ordinary and famous, Kurlansky shows us the face of European Jewry - a face that may wear the scars of persecution, but looks toward a better future with hope and boundless determination.

The White man in the Tree is a comedy of cultural misunderstanding set in the Caribbean, New York and Paris, a novella and eight stories about people who, because of their differences - between men and women, blacks and whites, Jews and Christians, rich and poor - misjudge each other.

"A lively, anecdotal, all-encompassing history of Basque ingenuity and achievement." --Atlantic Monthly From Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod, Salt, Birdseye, and Paper--the illuminating story of an ancient and enigmatic people Straddling a small corner of Spain and France in a land that is marked on no maps except their own, the Basques are a puzzling contradiction--they are Europe's oldest nation without ever having been a country. No one has ever been able to determine their origins, and even the Basques' language, Euskera--the most ancient in Europe--is related to none other on earth. For centuries, their influence has been felt in nearly every realm, from religion to sports to commerce. Even today, the Basques are enjoying what may be the most important cultural renaissance in their long existence, as displayed by new cookbooks like chefs Alexandra Raij and Eder Montero's The Basque Book and restaurateur Jose Pizarro's Basque. Mark Kurlansky's passion for the Basque people and his exuberant eye for detail shine throughout this fascinating book. Like Cod, The Basque History of the World, blends human stories with economic, political, literary, and culinary history into a rich and heroic tale. Among the Basques' greatest accomplishments: - Exploration--the first man to circumnavigate the globe, Juan Sebastian de Elcano, was a Basque and the Basques were the second Europeans, after the Vikings, in North America - Gastronomy and agriculture--they were the first Europeans to eat corn and chili peppers and cultivate tobacco, and were among the first to use chocolate - Religion--Ignatius Loyola, a Basque, founded the Jesuit religious order - Business and politics--they introduced capitalism and modern commercial banking to southern Europe - Recreation--they invented beach resorts, jai alai, and racing regattas, and were the first Europeans to play sports with balls "Entertaining and instructive... Kurlansky's] approach is unorthodox, mixing history with anecdotes, poems with recipes." -The New York Times Book Review

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.

'Who would ever think that a book on cod would make a compulsive read? In a story that brings world history and human passions into captivating focus, he shows how the most profitable fish in history is today faced with extinction.

"A charming fish tale and a pretty gift for your favorite seafood cook or fishing monomaniac. But in the last analysis, it's a bitter ecological fable for our time." -Los Angeles Times 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 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? "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 McCullough

In this richly detailed portrait of the individual countries and peoples of the Caribbean, Mark Kurlansky brings to life a society and culture often kept hidden from foreigners,the arts, history, politics, and economics of the region, as well as the vivid day-to-day lives of its citizens. From the Newyoriccans of Levittown, Puerto Rico to the state-salaried popular musicians of Cuba to the practitioners of good political hurricanemanship (who know how to stretch statistics to bring in relief funds), A Continent of Islands paints portraits that will prove equally fascinating to tourists who know the Caribbean only as a string of beach resorts, and to readers curious about U. S. efforts to influence its neighbours.