Random Thinking

Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World
by Mark Kurlansky

Cod could have been a good book but the author, Mark Kurlansky, seems intent on driving home his point that the cod fish has been vital through the course of civilization. Unfortunately, Mr. Kurlansky isn�t afraid to exaggerate or in some cases simply twist the truth in order to make this point. I can’t speak for the entire book since I am not an expert on the entire history that he covers, but I can point out a couple of blatant errors. “How did the Vikings survive in greenless Greenland”, Mr. Kurlansky asks on page 21. Cod is his answer. But that is incorrect. Greenland was not “greenless” when the Vikings settled there. As a quick trip to Wikipedia shows, Greenland was much warmer at the times the Vikings settled there. “These remote communities thrived and lived off farming, hunting and trading…” Not a single mention of fishing for cod. The second serious error of fact has to do with the Pilgrims. The author claims that the Mayflower was heading to New England for the rich cod fisheries. This is not true. The Pilgrims were actually headed 250 miles further south to the mouth of the Hudson River and only ended up in New England because of bad weather, lack of reliable maps, and illness on board ship. The book “Mayflower” doesn’t even have an index entry for “cod” which would seem fairly unlikely if the fish was really as important as Mr. Kurlansky makes it out. These are two very serious errors and leave the entire book open to question. Looking through the reviews on Amazon I found quite a few small errors mentioned. Is any of Mr. Kurlansky’s remaining history reliable?

What about the book in general? It is what is best called pop-history. Short chapters that mention a topic but go into depth on nothing is the rule. A perfect example is his discussion of the three cod wars between Great Britain and Iceland. You will find very little detail on a topic that could have been very interesting. Instead Mr. Kurlansky moves quickly through the wars apparently to keep to his sixteen-page chapter limit. We don’t even get a detailed chapter on the star of the book, the cod. The simple fact that cod is a good source of omega-3 fatty acids isn’t even mentioned.� And there are also many examples of contradictions within the book. For example, on page 145 Mr. Murlansky says that the Icelandic fishermen avoided basing their boats in the fjords because they used oar-powered boats and it “would have added too many hours of rowing time to and from the fishing grounds.” But a couple of sentences later he says the fishermen preferred to use oars “because the winds around fjords are erratic.” If the fishermen aren’t traveling through the fjords then why are the winds in the fjords even relevant?

Overall, the book is lightweight, quick reading that will be forgotten soon after reading. The book is not much like the many interesting cod recipes that Mr. Kurlansky sprinkles through the book but more like processed fish sticks produced by factory ships.