Cod tells the unlikely history of a single fish and its outsized influence on the modern world.

For centuries, Atlantic cod shaped trade routes, fuelled empires, and fed working populations across Europe and North America. Mark Kurlansky traces how this one species quietly underpinned exploration, colonisation, and the global fishing economy.

Blending environmental history, maritime culture, and food writing, the book moves between Viking voyages, Basque fishermen, New England ports, and the eventual collapse of cod fisheries in the twentieth century. Along the way, Kurlansky shows how something as ordinary as a fish can reveal the hidden infrastructure of global history.

Published in the 90's, Cod remains one of the most readable and influential works of narrative food writing.