How Has Cod Shaped Economies As Revealed In 'Cod: A Biography Of The Fish That Changed The World'?

2025-06-17 12:30:44 352

3 Answers

Annabelle
Annabelle
2025-06-18 16:43:11
This book reframed how I see economic history. Cod wasn’t just a commodity—it was currency. Viking explorers used dried cod to trade for Mediterranean goods, and later, it became the first truly global food product. The Portuguese ‘bacalhau’ trade funded their Age of Discovery ships, while England’s fishing fleets became nurseries for naval recruits who’d later dominate seas. The author shows how cod’s preservation methods (like salt-curing) accidentally sparked other industries; the salt trade boomed to meet demand, and wooden barrel production became an art form.

What shocked me was cod’s role in slavery economies. Plantation owners bought cheap cod to feed workers, creating a dark symbiosis between fisheries and human bondage. Even today, remnants of this system linger—Portuguese salt cod remains a staple in former colonies like Brazil. The book’s most haunting lesson is how societies bet everything on a single resource. When cod vanished off Canada, it wasn’t just fish that disappeared—it was livelihoods, traditions, and a way of life centuries in the making.
Lila
Lila
2025-06-20 21:19:41
Reading 'Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World' was eye-opening. This fish didn’t just fill stomachs—it built empires. The book shows how cod fueled European expansion, especially for Portugal and England. Ships crossed oceans just to haul back salted cod, which kept for months and fed armies. The trade routes created new ports, like Newfoundland, that grew into cities. Wars were fought over fishing rights, and economies rose or fell based on cod stocks. It’s wild to think a single species bankrolled exploration and even influenced the American Revolution—Britain’s restrictive fishing laws pissed off colonists. When cod stocks crashed in the 20th century, entire coastal towns went bankrupt overnight. The book makes you realize how fragile our ties to nature really are.
Eva
Eva
2025-06-23 06:16:35
The economic impact of cod, as detailed in Mark Kurlansky’s book, is staggering in its scale and longevity. For centuries, cod was the petroleum of its day—a resource so valuable it shaped global politics. The Basques built Europe’s first industrial-scale fishery, drying and salting cod to sell across the continent. This trade financed their voyages to North America long before Columbus. The English and French later fought literal wars over Newfoundland’s cod-rich waters, proving control of fisheries meant control of wealth.

What’s fascinating is how cod enabled colonialism. Cheap, nutritious dried cod became the staple food for enslaved people on Caribbean plantations, creating a grim economic loop: cod fed slaves who produced sugar that Europe consumed. The book also highlights how technological advances—like the schooner or trawler nets—always aimed at harvesting more cod, faster. When overfishing collapsed the Grand Banks fishery in the 1990s, it wasn’t just an ecological disaster. It erased a 500-year-old economic pillar, costing 40,000 jobs and reshaping maritime cultures forever. Kurlansky makes a compelling case that modern capitalism’s roots are soaked in saltwater and fish guts.
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