Mark Kurlansky is an American journalist and author of both fiction and nonfiction. His 1997 book Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World traces how a single fish shaped economies, exploration and national fortunes, and it was translated into more than fifteen languages. Kurlansky's Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea won the nonfiction prize at the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He also wrote Salt: A World History, which follows the mineral through human civilization.
