From the author of Cod—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.

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

WINNER OF THE JOHN AVERY AWARD AT THE ANDRE SIMON AWARDS If we can save the salmon, we can save the world Over the centuries, salmon have been a vital resource, a dietary staple and an irresistible catch. But there is so much more to this extraordinary fish. As international bestseller Mark Kurlansky reveals, salmon persist as a barometer for the health of our planet. Centuries of our greatest assaults on nature can be seen in their harrowing yet awe-inspiring life cycle. Full of all Kurlansky's characteristic curiosity and insight, Salmon is a magisterial history of a wondrous creature. 'An epic, environmental tragedy' Spectator 'These creatures have nurtured our imagination as surely as our bodies. This book does them justice!' Bill McKibben

An Ernest Hemingway Biography Like No Other"...illuminates his life and works in ways not seen before." -Sigrid Nunez, National Book Award winner and author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through #1 New Release in Historical Latin America Biographies Discover Hemingway's biography through the eyes of a fellow author and journalist. New York Times bestselling author of Salt, Mark Kurlansky turns his historical eye to the life of Ernest Hemingway. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, The Importance of Not Being Ernest shows the huge shadow Hemingway casts. The perfect gift for writers. By a series of coincidences, Mark Kurlansky's life has always been intertwined with Ernest Hemingway's legend, starting with being in Idaho the day of Hemingway's death. The Importance of Not Being Ernest explores the intersections between Hemingway's and Kurlansky's lives, resulting in creative accounts of two inspiring writing careers. Travel the world with Mark Kurlansky and Ernest Hemingway in this personal memoir, where Kurlansky details his ten years in Paris and his time as a journalist in Spain-both cities important to Hemingway's adventurous life and prolific writing. Paris, Basque Country, Havana and Idaho. Get to know the extraordinary people he met there-those who had also fallen under the Hemingway spell, including a Vietnam veteran suffering from the same syndrome the author did, two winners of the Key West Hemingway look-alike contest, and the man in Idaho who took Hemingway hunting and fishing. In this unique gift for writers, find: A memoir full of entertaining and illuminative stories Little-known historical facts about Hemingway's life Anecdotes about those who suffer from what the Kurlansky calls "hemitis" Readers of Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley in Search of America, or The Boys will love The Importance of Not Being Ernest.

Big lies are told by governments, politicians and corporations to avoid responsibility, cast blame on the innocent, win elections, disguise intent, create chaos and gain power and wealth. Big lies are as old as civilisation. They corrupt public understanding and discourse, turn science upside down and reinvent history. They prevent humanity from addressing critical challenges. They perpetuate injustices. They destabilise the world. The modern age has provided ever-more-effective ways of spreading lies but it has also given us the scientific method, which is the most effective tool for finding what is true. In the book’s final chapter, Kurlansky reveals ways to deconstruct an allegation. A scientific theory has to be testable and so does an allegation. BIG LIES soars across history: alighting on the “noble lies� of Socrates and Plato; Nero blaming Christians for the burning of Rome; the great injustices of the Middle Ages; the big lies of Stalin and Hitler and their terrible consequences; the reckless lies of contemporary demagogues, which are amplified through social media; lies against women and Jews are two examples in the long history of “othering� the vulnerable for personal gain; up to the equal-opportunity spotlight in America. “Belief is a choice�, Kurlansky writes, “and honesty begins in each of us. A lack of caring what is true or false is the undoing of democracy. The alternative to truth is a corrupt state in which the loudest voices and most seductive lies confer power and wealth on grifters and oligarchs. We cannot achieve a healthy planet for all the world’s people if we do not keep asking what is true.�

For the past two millennia, the ability to produce paper in ever more efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce and art. It has created civilisations, fostering the fomenting of revolutions and the stabilising of regimes. Now, on the cusp of "going paperless", Mark Kurlansky challenges common assumptions about technology's influence, affirming that paper is here to stay.

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?

In late 1946, Stig Dagerman was assigned by the Swedish newspaper Expressen to report on life in Germany immediately after the fall of the Third Reich. First published in Sweden in 1947, German Autumn, a collection of the articles written for that assignment, was unlike any other reporting at the time. While most Allied and foreign journalists spun their writing on the widely held belief that the German people deserved their fate, Dagerman disagreed and reported on the humanness of the men and women ruined by the war-their guilt and suffering. Dagerman was already a prominent writer in Sweden, but the publication and broad reception of German Autumn throughout Europe established him as a compassionate journalist and led to the long-standing international influence of the book. Presented here in its first American edition with a compelling new foreword by Mark Kurlansky, Dagerman's essays on the tragic aftermath of war, suffering, and guilt are as hauntingly relevant today amid current global conflict as they were sixty years ago.

Salt's ionic lattices are one of the central elements of organic life. But even though the extraction of sea salt is one of the oldest forms of human landscaping, we rarely ask where salt comes from and how it is produced. Sea salt production sites are found all over the world, usually located around shallow shorelines. Tom Hegen has explored these magical landscapes from the air and obtained spectacular images in the process. This gorgeously illustrated book shows how the landscape has been shaped by salt mining and how the mining process has created structures that take on an almost painterly, abstract quality in Hegen's photographs. Salt Works is a study of color and geometry, an ode to beauty of the everyday.

Mark Kurlansky's first global food history since the bestselling Cod and Salt; the fascinating cultural, economic and culinary story of milk and all things dairy – with recipes throughout

While mother's milk may be the essence of nourishment, it is the milk of other mammals that humans have cultivated ever since the domestication of animals more than 10,000 years ago. Today, milk is a test case in the most pressing issues in food politics, from industrial farming and animal rights to GMOs, the locavore movement and advocates for raw milk, who controversially reject pasteurisation.

Profoundly intertwined with human civilisation, milk has a compelling and surprisingly global story to tell, and historian Mark Kurlansky is the perfect person to tell it. Tracing the liquid's diverse history from antiquity to the present, he details its curious and crucial role in cultural evolution, religion, nutrition, politics, and economics.

Mark Kurlansky's bestselling works of nonfiction view the history of the world through unexpected lenses, including cod, salt, and paper. In this new book for young readers his lens is the art of the big lie. Big lies are told by governments, politicians, and corporations to avoid responsibility, cast blame on the innocent, win elections, disguise intent, create chaos, and gain power and wealth. Big lies are as old as civilization. They corrupt public understanding and discourse, turn science upside down, and reinvent history. They prevent humanity from addressing critical challenges. They perpetuate injustices. They destabilize the world. As with his book World Without Fish, Kurlansky has written A History of Big Lies for young readers, the future stewards of our world. It is not only a history but a how-to manual for seeing through big lies and thinking critically. "I hope that you will keep asking yourself what is true as you read this book and live your life," he entreats readers at the outset. "If the Age of Enlightenment is not to be followed by the Age of Chaos, we have to think for ourselves." A History of Big Lies soars across history, alighting on the "noble lies" of Socrates and Plato, Nero blaming Christians for the burning of Rome, the great injustices of the Middle Ages, the big lies of Stalin and Hitler and their terrible consequences, and the reckless lies of contemporary demagogues, which are amplified through social media. Lies against women and Jews are two examples in the long history of "othering" the vulnerable for personal gain. Nor does America escape Kurlansky's equal-opportunity spotlight. The modern age has provided ever-more-effective ways of spreading lies, but it has also given us the scientific method, which is the most effective tool for finding what is true. In the book's final chapter, Kurlansky reveals ways to deconstruct an allegation. Is there credible, testable evidence to support it? If not, suspect a lie. A scientific theory has to be testable, and so does an allegation. Who is the source? Who benefits? Is there a money trail? Especially in the age of social media, critical thinking counters lies and chaos. "Belief is a choice," Kurlansky writes, "and honesty begins in each of us. A lack of caring what is true or false is the undoing of democracy. The alternative to truth is a corrupt state in which the loudest voices and most seductive lies confer power and wealth on grifters and oligarchs. We cannot achieve a healthy planet for all the world's people if we do not keep asking what is true."

"Henry David Thoreau wrote, 'Who hears the fishes when they cry?' Maybe we need to go down to the river bank and try to listen." 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 detail to chronicle the harrowing yet awe-inspiring life cycle of salmon. During his research Kurlansky traveled widely and observed salmon and those who both pursue and protect them in the Pacific and the Atlantic, in Ireland, Norway, Iceland, Japan, and even the robust but not as frequently visited Kamchatka Peninsula. This world tour reveals an eras-long history of man's misdirected attempts to manipulate salmon and its environments for his own benefit and gain, whether for entertainment or to harvest food. In addition, Kurlansky's research shows that all over the world these fish, uniquely connected to both marine and terrestrial ecology as well as fresh and salt water, are a natural barometer for the health of the planet. He documents that for centuries man's greatest assaults on nature, from overfishing to dams, from hatcheries to fish farms, from industrial pollution to the ravages of climate change, are evidenced in the sensitive life cycle of salmon. With stunning historical and contemporary photographs and illustrations throughout, Kurlansky's insightful conclusion is that the only way to save salmon is to save the planet and, at the same time, the only way to save the planet is to save the mighty, heroic salmon.

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 efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce and art. It has created civilisations, fostering the fomenting of revolutions and the stabilising of regimes. History's greatest press run produced 6.5 billion copies of Mao zhu xi yu lu, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Zedong) and Leonardo da Vinci left behind only 15 paintings but 4,000 works on paper. Now, on the cusp of "going paperless"-and amid speculation about the effects of a digitally dependent society-we've come to a world-historic juncture to examine what paper means to civilisation. Through tracing paper's evolution, Mark Kurlansky challenges common assumptions about technology's influence, affirming that paper is here to stay. Paper will be the history that guides us forward in the twenty-first century.

Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod and The Basque History of the World, here turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions.  Populated by colorful characters and filled with an unending series of fascinating details, Kurlansky's kaleidoscopic history is a supremely entertaining, multi-layered masterpiece.

In this timely, highly original, and controversial narrative, "New York Times "bestselling 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 wars, he asserts, which is why it is the preferred method of those who speak truth to power.
"Nonviolence" is a sweeping yet concise history that moves from ancient Hindu times to present-day conflicts raging in the Middle East and elsewhere. Kurlansky also brings into focus just why nonviolence is a "dangerous" idea, and asks such provocative questions as: Is there such a thing as a "just war"? Could nonviolence have worked against even the most evil regimes in history?
Kurlansky draws from history twenty-five provocative lessons on the subject that we can use to effect change today. He shows how, time and again, violence is used to suppress nonviolence and its practitioners-Gandhi and Martin Luther King, for example; that the stated deterrence value of standing national armies and huge weapons arsenals is, at best, negligible; and, encouragingly, that much of the hard work necessary to begin a movement to end war is already complete. It simply needs to be embraced and accelerated.
Engaging, scholarly, and brilliantly reasoned, "Nonviolence" is a work that compels readers to look at history in an entirely new way. This is not just a manifesto for our times but a trailblazing book whose time has come.

"From the Hardcover edition."

* "Accessible to middle-grade readers... The Cod's Tale] considers how the cod fits into human history.... 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
What was it that enabled the Vikings, Christopher Columbus, and the Pilgrims to cross the cold Atlantic Ocean to America? What became a staple of the medieval diet in Europe, helped spur the American Revolution, and allowed the early New Englanders to start making money of their own?
Would you believe that it was a fish?
The cod
Based on Mark Kurlansky's New York Times bestselling adult book, "Cod," this picture book offers a unique look at over a thousand years of world history.
"Breezy, kid-friendly prose.... Fascinating and informative... bound to hook young readers."
--The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

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, 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.

From the rural Sichuan province where the last home-made soya sauce is made to the Cheshire brine springs that supplied salt around the globe, Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of world history, a multilayered masterpiece that blends political, commercial, scientific, religious and culinary records into a rich and memorable tale.

'They are a mythical people, almost an imagined people, ' writes Mark K urlansky. Settled in seven provinces in a corner of France and Spain i n a land that is marked on no maps except their own, separated by the daunting Pyrenees Mountains, the Basques are a nation without a countr y with an ancient and dramatic story that illuminates Europe's own sag a. Signs of their civilisation exist well before the arrival of the Ro mans in 218 BC; many believe they are the original Europeans. Their an cient and forbidden tongue - Euskera - is equally mysterious: it is re lated to no other language on earth. Yet the Basques' contributions t o the world have been clear and remarkable. They have always been a pa radoxical blend of inbred tradition and cutting-edge internationalism. Prior to and during the age of exploration, they connected Europe to North and South America, Africa and Asia, and one of their own, Juan S ebastian de Elcano, was the first man to circumnavigate the globe in 1 522. Their influence has been felt in religion and in business: they w ere among the first capitalists, and later led the Industrial Revoluti on in southern Europe. Mark Kurlansky's passion for the Basque people and his exuberant eye for detail shine throughout. The book blends po litical, literary, and culinary history into a rich and heroic tale.

Announcing the paperback edition of World Without Fish, the uniquely illustrated narrative nonfiction account--for kids--of what is happening to the world's oceans and what they can do about it. Written by Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod, Salt, The Big Oyster, and many other books, World Without Fish has been praised as "urgent" (Publishers Weekly) and "a wonderfully fast-paced and engaging primer on the key questions surrounding fish and the sea" (Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish).?It has also been included in the New York State Expeditionary Learning English Language Arts Curriculum. Written by a master storyteller, World Without Fish connects all the dots--biology, economics, evolution, politics, climate, history, culture, food, and nutrition--in a way that kids can really understand. It describes how the fish we most commonly eat, including tuna, salmon, cod, swordfish--even anchovies-- could disappear within fifty years, and the domino effect it would have: the oceans teeming with jellyfish and turning pinkish orange from algal blooms, the seabirds disappearing, then reptiles, then mammals. It describes the back-and-forth dynamic of fishermen, who are the original environmentalists, and scientists, who not that long ago considered fish an endless resource. It explains why fish farming is not the answer--and why sustainable fishing is, and how to help return the oceans to their natural ecological balance. Interwoven with the book is a twelve-page full-color graphic novel. Each beautifully illustrated chapter opener links to the next to form a larger fictional story that perfectly complements the text.

Mark Kurlansky's first global food history since the bestselling Cod and Salt; the fascinating cultural, economic, and culinary story of milk and all things dairy--with recipes throughout. According to the Greek creation myth, we are so much spilt milk; a splatter of the goddess Hera's breast milk became our galaxy, the Milky Way. But while mother's milk may be the essence of nourishment, it is the milk of other mammals that humans have cultivated ever since the domestication of animals more than 10,000 years ago, originally as a source of cheese, yogurt, kefir, and all manner of edible innovations that rendered lactose digestible, and then, when genetic mutation made some of us lactose-tolerant, milk itself. Before the industrial revolution, it was common for families to keep dairy cows and produce their own milk. But during the nineteenth century, mass production and urbanization made milk safety a leading issue of the day, with milk-borne illnesses a common cause of death. Pasteurization slowly became a legislative matter. And today, milk is a test case in the most pressing issues in food politics, from industrial farming and animal rights to GMOs, the locavore movement, and advocates for raw milk, who controversially reject pasteurization. Profoundly intertwined with human civilization, milk has a compelling and a surprisingly global story to tell, and historian Mark Kurlansky is the perfect person to tell it. Tracing the liquid's diverse history from antiquity to the present, he details its curious and crucial role in cultural evolution, religion, nutrition, politics, and economics.

To some, 1968 was the year of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet it was also the year of the Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy assassinations; the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; Prague Spring; the antiwar movement and the Tet Offensive; Black Power; the generation gap; avant-garde theater; the upsurge of the women's movement; and the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union.
In this monumental book, " "Mark Kurlansky brings to teeming life the cultural and political history of that pivotal year, when television's influence on global events first became apparent, and spontaneous uprisings occurred simultaneously around the world. Encompassing the diverse realms of youth and music, politics and war, economics and the media, "1968" shows how twelve volatile months transformed who we were as a people-and led us to where we are today.

"Mr. Brunner's winning book is a reassuring, nostalgic reminder that winter is the season of both play and regeneration."-Wall Street Journal In Winterlust, a farmer painstakingly photographs five thousand snowflakes, each one dramatically different from the next. Indigenous peoples thrive on frozen terrain, where famous explorers perish. Icicles reach deep underwater, then explode. Rooms warmed by crackling fires fill with scents of cinnamon, cloves, and pine. Skis carve into powdery slopes, and iceboats traverse glacial lakes. This lovingly illustrated meditation on winter entwines the spectacular with the everyday, expertly capturing the essence of a beloved yet dangerous season, which is all the more precious in an era of climate change "Brunner masterfully does in words what resilient and adventurous people have done in their lives for centuries; he finds beauty in blizzards and ice and the crystallized enchantment of snow." -Dan Egan, Pulitzer finalist and author of The Death and Life of the Great Lakes

A remarkable portrait of American food before World War II, presented by the "New York Times"abestselling author of "Cod" and "Salt."
Award-winning "New York Times"abestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America: Before the national highway system brought the country closer together; before chain restaurants imposed uniformity and low quality; and before the Frigidaire meant frozen food in mass quantities, the nationas food was seasonal, regional, and traditional. It helped form the distinct character, attitudes, and customs of those who ate it.
In the 1930s, with the country gripped by the Great Depression and millions of Americans struggling to get by, FDR created the Federal Writersa Project under the New Deal as a make-work program for artists and authors. A number of writers, including Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, and Nelson Algren, were dispatched all across America to chronicle the eating habits, traditions, and struggles of local people. The project, called aAmerica Eats, a was abandoned in the early 1940s because of the World War and never completed.
"The Food of a Younger Land" unearths this forgotten literary and historical treasure and brings it to exuberant life. Mark Kurlanskyas brilliant book captures these remarkable stories, and combined with authentic recipes, anecdotes, photos, and his own musings and analysis, evokes a bygone era when Americans had never heard of fast food and the grocery superstore was a thing of the future. Kurlansky serves as a guide to this hearty and poignant look at the countryas roots.
From New York automats to Georgia Coca-Cola parties, from Arkansas possum-eating clubs to Puget Sound salmon feasts, from Choctaw funerals to South Carolina barbecues, the WPA writers found Americans in their regional niches and eating an enormous diversity of meals. From Mississippi chittlins to Indiana persimmon puddings, Maine lobsters, and Montana beavertails, they recorded the curiosities, commonalities, and communities of American food.