Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World
Mark Kurlansky · 1997
A fish shaped empires, started wars, and fed civilizations. Kurlansky makes the mundane epic.
The case against
Kurlansky's thesis demands that one fish explain empire, war, and the discovery of America, and the overclaiming shows. The book proceeds as anecdote, anecdote, recipe; centuries blur past without much argument connecting them. It also launched the single-commodity-explains-everything genre, for which some penance is owed. Charming for a hundred pages, until you realize the structure is a filing cabinet.
Nonfiction · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
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