Micro History

misskittystryker:

leupagus:

mcbitchtits:

literarysins:

lightspeedsound:

lightspeedsound:

janeymac-ie:

hlahlahlahlahly:

atthelamppost:

lecieltumultueux:

powells:

literarysins:

I had to read Cod my freshman year of High School and my brain nearly leaked out of my ears to escape. So. Dry.

The
Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

Red by Jacky Colliss Harvey

The Birth of the Pill by Jonathan Eig

Coal by Barbara Freese

Salt by Mark Kurlansky

Rain by Cynthia Barnett

Cod by Mark Kurlansky

And a Bottle of Rum by Wayne Curtis

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English by John McWhorter

Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast

Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson

Spice by Jack Turner

Color by Victoria Finlay

Rabid by Bill Wasik

The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant

At Home by Bill Bryson

Don’t even get me STARTED on microhistories. 

I love this genre.

How have I only read two of these?

I’ve read Cod, and Consider the Fork, and At Home, and I need to read the rest of these right now. I can also recommend the following:

Chloroform: The Quest for Oblivion by Linda Stratmann

On The Map: Why the world looks the way it does by Simon Garfield

Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle  by Thor Hanson

Hunger: An Unnatural History by Sharman Apt Russell

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of his Time by Dava Sobel

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach

This is seriously a huge portion of my amazon kindle library

literarysins:

I had to read Cod my freshman year of High School and my brain nearly leaked out of my ears to escape. So. Dry.

^^I can’t tell if that’s a pun re: salted cod or not.

But also too mark kurlansky starts out super cool and then it’s like GOD I’M RUNNING THROUGH MUD MUST FINISH TO SPITE EVERYBODy

100% a pun XD

Yeah I mean as I recall some of it wasn’t TERRIBLE but eventually I was like “I get it, I get why I should care, but I’m not going into environmental policy I’m sorry about your fish and their impact” 

I’m going to recommend Scurvy by Stephen R. Brown because it will fuck your shit up

THANK YOU JESUS AND ALSO JEREMIAGOESWHOA FOR FINDING THIS POST FOR ME

I dunno if The Ghost Map counts for this but that history of cholera is amazingly done. 

I’d recommend The American Plague by  Molly Caldwell Crosby. And I’d second the above recommendation for The Ghost Map.