Mark Kurlansky

Publisher's description: In this monumental new book, award-winning author Mark Kurlansky has written his most ambitious work to date: a singular and ultimately definitive look at a pivotal moment in history. With 1968, Mark Kurlansky brings to teeming life the cultural and political history of that world-changing year of social upheaval. People think of it as the year of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet it was also the year of the Martin Luther...

From the author who gave us "Cod," "Salt," and other informative bestsellers, the first biography of Clarence Birdseye, the eccentric genius inventor whose fast-freezing process revolutionized the food industry and American agriculture.

Through tracing paper's evolution, Mark Kurlansky challenges common assumptions about technology's influence, affirming that paper is here to stay. 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 formed the foundation of civilizations, promoting...

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. The future stewards of our world require a how-to manual for seeing through big lies and thinking critically, because big lies...

A magnificent species whose survival is inextricably tied to the survival of the planet In what he calls "the most important environmental writing" in his long and award-winning career, best-selling author and journalist Mark Kurlansky recounts the sobering history of salmon and their perilous future. Kurlansky employs his signature multicentury storytelling and compelling attention to detail to chronicle the harrowing yet awe-inspiring life cycle...

"Fly fishing, historian Mark Kurlansky has found, is a battle of wits, fly fisher vs. fish--and the fly fisher does not always (or often) win. The targets--salmon, trout, and char--are highly intelligent, wily, strong, and athletic animals. The allure, Kurlansky finds, is that fly fishing makes catching a fish as difficult as possible. There is an art, too, in the crafting of flies. Beautiful and intricate, some are made with more than two dozen pieces...