Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World

In the tradition of microhistories, Cod opens with a small-scale, localized focus on a niche community: The out-of-work fishermen of Petty Harbour in Newfoundland. Scenes from this community serve as bookends for the broader narrative structure, featuring in both the Prologue and in the final chapters of Part 3. In opening with a modern-day community impacted by the lack of cod, Kurlansky highlights the contemporary relevance of the book’s historical topic before shifting backwards in time to explain how this depletion occurred, introducing the theme of Human Responsibilities and Impacts on Nature. 

The Prologue also showcases the author’s literary techniques in seeking to make the subject matter accessible for a general audience. The narrative structure of the frame story of Sam Lee and the Sentinel Fishery humanizes the issue of cod supplies by emphasizing the role of cod in the lives of ordinary individuals. The descriptive language dispersed throughout the book, such as the descriptions of a “flat sea of dark, polished facets” with clouds like “cotton candy fog stuck between the rocky, still-green hills of the September coastline” (3), give the history a grounded sense of immediacy and concrete reality, with the sensory details mirroring the techniques of fiction writing.

Additionally, the author often treats the figures in his narrative like characters, using physical descriptions, background context, and personal anecdotes to evoke their personality and complexity. This is especially true in the case of Sam Lee and his partners, Leonard Stack and Bernard Chafe, whose physical appearances and interactions are described in detail, such as Sam Lee’s flashy red flotation jacket, which the others tease him about. In addition to explaining their roots in the Irish immigrant culture of Petty Harbour, the Prologue also shares their banter, their complaints about the depleted fish stock, and their hopes for the future. The Prologue thus personalizes the plight of the Newfoundland fishermen and reinforces the significance of their experiences to the greater social issues the book addresses.

Finally, the Prologue introduces the primary problem of the book, overfishing and the depletion of the cod fish. The problem of overfishing, both in Newfoundland and elsewhere, introduces the theme of Scarcity, Abundance, and the Economy. The 1992 moratorium first indicates this human impact, coming as it does after years of reports about the decline of groundfish in the area, caused at least in part by offshore trawlers. As local fishermen note, large corporate fishing companies have overfished the local stock through wasteful practices. They were motivated to do so by the never-ending demands of capitalism and the misguided promises of endless abundance. Kurlansky is thus interested in exploring facets of human society, commerce, and the impacts of each on the natural world through the microhistorical lens of the cod fish.