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Homer called salt a divine substance. Plato described it as especially dear to the gods. Today we take salt for granted, a common, inexpensive substance that seasons food or clears ice from roads, a word used casually in expressions ("salt of the earth," take it with a grain of salt") without...

Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, adapted as a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is "an extraordinary achievement" (The New Yorker)--a magnificent,...

Wars have been fought over it, revolutions have been spurred by it, national diets have been based on it, economies have depended on it, and the settlement of North America was driven by it. Cod, it turns out, is the reason Europeans set sail across the Atlantic, and it is the only reason they could...

Whatever your favourite tipple, when you pour yourself a drink, you have the past in a glass. You can likely find them all in your own kitchen -- beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, cola. Line them up on the counter, and there you have it: thousands of years of human history in six drinks...

A history of the trade that controlled the world and left an indelible impression on our taste buds; a sweeping story of avarice, ingenuity and exploration, spanning the globe and the centuries in its epic reconstruction of this magnificent obsession. Spices: for centuries the staple of...

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE BANCROFT PRIZE PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST The epic story of the rise and fall of the empire of cotton, its centrality to the world economy, and its making and remaking of global...

From the New York Times best-selling author of Cod and Salt, a definitive history of paper and the astonishing ways it has shaped today's world. Paper is one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to...

A surprising, charming, and ever-fascinating history of the seemingly simple game that has had a profound effect on societies the world over. Why has one game, alone among the thousands of games invented and played throughout human history, not only survived but thrived within every...

Rain is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive.   It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of the world's water. Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain. Cynthia Barnett's Rain <...

** A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK ** 'Fascinating . . . The history of the world through the eye of a needle . . . I recommend this book to anyone' THE SPECTATOR 'A charming, absorbing history that takes us on a journey from the silk roads to sportswear, from ruffs to...

"In many ways, Land combines bits and pieces of many of Winchester's previous books into a satisfying, globe-trotting whole. . . . Winchester is, once again, a consummate guide."--Boston Globe The author of The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World, and ...

"Hugely impressive, a major work."--NPR A pioneering and groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction that offers a dramatic new perspective on the history of humankind, showing how through millennia, the mosquito has been the single most powerful force in determining...

An eye-opening exploration of blood, the lifegiving substance with the power of taboo, the value of diamonds and the promise of breakthrough science Blood carries life, yet the sight of it makes people faint. It is a waste product and a commodity pricier than oil. It can save...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As entertaining as it is incisive, Stoned is a raucous journey through the history of human desire for what is rare, and therefore precious. What makes a stone a jewel? What makes a jewel priceless? And why do we covet beautiful things? In this brilliant...

For almost five millennia, in every culture and in every major religion, indigo-a blue pigment obtained from the small green leaf of a parasitic shrub through a complex process that even scientists still regard as mysterious-has been at the center of turbulent human encounters. ...

A gripping historical narrative that explores the rich chronicle of innovation, revolution, and controversy of our world's most famous fat: butter. The delicious kitchen staple we so often take for granted is not merely a stick tucked into our refrigerator door. It's a...

A groundbreaking examination of the role that wood and trees have played in our global ecosystem--including human evolution and the rise and fall of empires--in the bestselling tradition of Yuval Harari's Sapiens and Mark Kurlansky's Salt. As the dominant species on...

An "entertaining and enlightening" deep dive into the alcohol-soaked origins of civilization--and the evolutionary roots of humanity's appetite for intoxication (Daniel E. Lieberman, author of Exercised). While plenty of entertaining books have been written about the history...

For thousands of years, people of all cultures have made and used clocks, from the city sundials of ancient Rome to the medieval water clocks of imperial China, hourglasses fomenting revolution in the Middle Ages, the Stock Exchange clock of Amsterdam in 1611, Enlightenment observatories in India...

Uncovers the history of hair removal practices and sheds light on the prolific culture of beauty From the clamshell razors and homemade lye depilatories used in colonial America to the diode lasers and prescription pharmaceuticals available today, Americans have used a staggering...

Longlisted for the Porchlight Business Book Awards "A smart and accessible cultural history."-Los Angeles Times "A fantastic examination of what became the mall ... envision[ing] a more meaningful public afterlife for our shopping centers."-...

Sweating may be one of our weirdest biological functions, but it's also one of our most vital and least understood. In The Joy of Sweat, Sarah Everts delves into its role in the body--and in human history. Why is sweat salty? Why do we sweat when stressed? Why do some people produce...

No two curries are the same. This Curry asks why the dish is supposed to represent everything brown people eat, read, and do. Curry is a dish that doesn't quite exist, but, as this wildly funny and sharp essay points out, a dish that doesn't properly exist can have infinite, equally...

A savory account of how the pursuit of delicious foods shaped human evolution Nature, it has been said, invites us to eat by appetite and rewards by flavor. But what exactly are flavors? Why are some so pleasing while others are not? Delicious is a supremely...

"A book that draws us in to the strange beauty of what we so often run away from." -- Robin Ince, author of The Importance of Being Interested In this eye-opening and entertaining work of popular science in the spirit of The Mosquito, Entangled Life, and The Book of Eels, a...

A WASHINGTON STATE BOOK AWARD FINALIST  New York Times bestselling author William Alexander provides "an entertaining, broad-ranging history of the tomato" (Mark Pendergrast) in this fascinating and erudite microhistory. ...