¶ … Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky. Specifically, it will answer this question: "What role did codfish have in the discovery of America?" Cod and America go hand in hand, and after reading this book, it is easy to see why. Cod were the sustenance of life for many of the world's people, from the Basques to the Norsemen, and following the cod led these earliest explorers to the shores of North America. While most people think it was Christopher Columbus who first discovered North America, but that is not really the truth. Records show that Norse Vikings, like Leif Eiriksson, found the continent of North America as early as the tenth century, calling it first "Woodland" and then "Vineland" as they moved down the coast. Kurlansky writes, "Woodland could have been Newfoundland, Nova Scotia or Maine, all three of which are wooded. But in Vineland they found wild grapes, which no one else has discovered in any of these places" (Kurlansky 20). They found the shores of North America because they were ultimately looking for cod, rather than new...
Kurlansky continues the Vikings had discovered how to "preserve codfish by hanging it in the frosty winter air until it lost four-fifths of its weight and became a durable woodlike plank" (Kurlansky 21). The Basques also fished in the North Atlantic fisheries, and learned how to salt cod, another way to keep it for long periods of time. Salt cod became a staple on fishing ships, and the discovery of the great cod fisheries in the North Atlantic not only helped ultimately feed the world, but they helped feed explorers searching the globe for wealth, spices, and even a passage around the world.
Cod written by Mark Kurlansky. The author takes a look at how the countries that once flourished on their fishing industries are now really worried because of fact that the fish is near extinction. The moral of the story is that man is the main destructor of the world but fails to take appropriate action when it is really required and realizes when nothing can really be done. Cod Mark Kurlansky, author
environmental policies is very often a hazardous endeavor. Largely, this is because potential costs and benefits associated with environmental problems can only be speculated upon, rather than empirically determined. It is not clear, for instance, how much reducing a factory's greenhouse emissions will quantitatively help society; nevertheless, making good decisions regarding these issues demands that we weigh calculable figures with estimates, and sometimes, estimates with estimates. This makes the
Cod: Fish That Changed the World Environmental science is not just one science and is not concerned only with the environment. Instead, environmental science covers a wide variety of topics from several different areas. The additional areas also go beyond science and link environmental science to subjects such as politics, history, economics, and human geography. One way to consider the interdisciplinary nature of environmental science is to look at an example
Sugar and Power: The Sweet History of Sugar in the Modern Era Chef's Name "The story can be summed up in a few sentences," asserts Sydney Mintz, Professor at Johns Hopkins University, "in 1000 A.D., few Europeans knew of the existence of sucrose, or cane sugar. But soon afterward they learned about it; by 1650 in England the nobility and the wealthy had become inveterate sugar eaters, and sugar figured in their medicine,
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now