Just One Word

My column recently printed in the Wheeling News-Register.

The British politician Benjamin Disraeli once said, “The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.” The authors I have selected for today’s column have done just that. For fun I have chosen books that have just one word titles. I hope you enjoy these books and will begin your own hunt to include other just one word book titles to this list.

Dam!: Water, Power, Politics, and Preservation in Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite National Park by John. Simpson. Although the valley is in Yosemite National Park, in 1913 Congress authorized the construction of a dam and reservoir on the Tuolumne River, flooding the Hetch Hetchy. The dam was built, despite opposition by John Muir and others, to deliver water and electricity to San Francisco, when other, less destructive options were available. Gorgeous landscapes and dirty politics, extraordinary engineering feats and boundless greed, and a cast of colorful characters make for a thought-provoking and relevant history.

Windswept: The Story of Wind and Weather by Marq De Villiers. Chapter by chapter, the author examines the place of wind in mythology, ancient scientific beliefs about air and wind, composition of the atmosphere, wind scales and patterns, historical and modern weather forecasting, the mechanics of hurricanes, how wind moves pollution around the globe, and technology utilizing wind power. The book's grace notes lie in entertaining did-you-know nuggets. Among them: a great storm that lashed London in 1703 caused windmill blades to rotate so fast that friction set them on fire.

Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource by Marq De Villiers. Also by Canadaian author DeVilliers, this examines the checkered history the management of water. For sheer travelogue pleasure, his informal survey hops from the Sea of Galilee to Victoria Falls to a Russian boat ride down the Volga, as he delves into the science, ecology, folklore, history and politics of water. The news he brings back is ominous: rapidly growing populations, ever-increasing pollution, desertification and falling water tables endanger a fragile, finite resource.

Sahara: The Extraordinary History of the World's Largest Desert by Marq De Villiers. A third book on the list by this award winning author, “If you traveled across the United States from Boston to San Diego, you still wouldn’t have crossed the Sahara.” He charts the course of Atlantic hurricanes and offers the physics of windblown sand and the formation of dunes. He chronicles the formation of the massive aquifers that lie beneath the desert, some filled with water that pre-dates the appearance of modern man on Earth.

Oyster: History on the Half Shell by Mark Kulansky uses an important natural resource as the focus of an inviting social and economic history. Oysters were native to the New York Harbor area, where once upon a time a pristine estuary created an ideal habitat. Oysters thrived there for centuries in enormous populations that were easily harvested by the armful. When Western explorers led by Henry Hudson arrived in the early 1600s, gifts offered by Native peoples included welcome supplies of the shellfish, a longtime favorite food item in Europe. Oysters boomed and kept booming–until waterfront pollution destroyed the abundant beds. This ecological cautionary tale is enriched by wide-ranging narratives about the customs and politics of earlier times.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World

Salt: A World History Here are two other great reads by Mark Kulansky. Like the title noted above, Kulansky uses these other important natural resources to tell the stories of social and economic history. Cod is the story about the fish that probably has mattered more in human history than any other. It helped to inspire the discovery and exploration of North America and had a profound impact upon the earliest economic development of New England and eastern Canada. Today over fishing is a constant threat.

For the history of salt, Kurlansky begins in China 8000 years ago. His forte is in choosing a common entity and telling its tale with epic grandeur.

Hooked: Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish by G. Bruce Knecht. The Patagonian toothfish is an ugly creature considered too bland for eating by most South Americans. Its high fat content, codlike texture and lack of a fishy taste convinced a Los Angeles fish merchant that, given an exotic new name, it would do quite well in America. By 1998, "Chilean sea bass" had become the hottest restaurant craze. Knecht weaves a parallel plot with an Australian patrol boat is hunting down a pirate vessel for stealing toothfish. The chase takes them thousands of nautical miles away to dangerous Antarctic waters and involves South African mercenaries and a dramatic boarding in dangerous seas. hor calls "the marine equivalent of strip mining."

Blue: The History of a Color. by Michel Pastoureau and

Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World
by Simon Garfield

Here are books on similar subjects, two colors, yet written from very different disciplines. Blue is a beautiful look at the art history of this color. The Garfield book is a chemical history book that traces the creation of the first synthetic dye, thus opening the way for industrial applications of chemistry which later brought significant advances in the fields of medicine, perfume, photography, and even explosives.

Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner. There was a time, for a handful of peppercorns, you could have someone killed. Throw in a nutmeg or two, you could probably watch. There was a time when grown men sat around and thought of nothing but black pepper. How to get it. How to get more. How to control the entire trade in pepper from point of origin to purchase. Turner opens up the whole story of pepper and brings the exotic scents of the East deep into the history of Western culture.

Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World by Larry Zuckerman. This book goes beyond the usual scope of spud history, which commonly focuses on the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. Although this disaster is a key event in the book, the potato's broader influence in the Western world was far more complex--changing the shape of agrarian societies, triggering world emigration, and even influencing social-welfare reforms. Snippets from journals, newspaper editorials, and government documents make this a fascinating glimpse of four centuries' worth of a vegetable to which we normally wouldn't give a second thought.

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife. This book describes how one digit has bedeviled and fascinated thinkers from ancient Athens to Los Alamos. He argues that the concept of nothingness and its twin, infinity, have repeatedly revolutionized the foundations of civilization and philosophical thought. If you're already a fan of mathematics or science, you will enjoy this book; if you're not, you will be by the time you finish it.

And finally, for any fiction readers who have persevered through this book column, here are two novels with titles of just one word:

Silk by Alessandro Baricco. This startling, sensual novel tells a story of adventure, sexual enthrallment, and a love so powerful that it unhinges a man's life. In 1861 French silkworm merchant Hervé Joncour is compelled to travel to Japan, where, in the court of an enigmatic nobleman, he meets a woman. They do not touch; they do not even speak.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind. Set in 18th-century France, Perfume relates the fascinating and horrifying tale a person as gifted as he was abominable. Born without a smell of his own but endowed with an extraordinary sense of smell, he becomes obsessed with procuring the perfect scent that will make him fully human. With brilliant narrative skill Susskind exposes the dark underside of the society and explores the disquieting inner universe of this singularly possessed man.