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Jack Turner was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1968. He received his B.A. in Classical Studies from Melbourne University and his Ph.D. in International Relations from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and MacArthur Foundation Junior Research Fellow. He wrote his first book Spice, in 2004, in Georgia. He is also the host of the The Science channel, documentary series, What the Ancients Knew. He has worked as a cook, a farmhand, a photographer, and travelled extensively in Britain, Spain, Indochina, South America, Syria, Southern Africa and Australia. He can speak and/or read seven languages. He now lives with his wife, Helena and their children in Geneva, Switzerland
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In the preface of your book, you recall a primary school lesson about the
role of spices in the "Age of Discovery." Have you always been interested in
spices? What inspired you to write a book about their history?
My teacher's remark undoubtedly stuck in the mind, but I'm not sure if there
was a single "eureka" moment so much as a gradual snowballing of
interest. I have found spices fascinating as far back as I can remember, since
the time I was a little kid and my mum prepared marvelous spicy kormas, chutneys
and curries (she is a superb cook, so maybe she should take the credit). Spices
only became more fascinating as they cropped up all over the place in references
I came across at random. At university, where I read Greek and Latin, they
appeared in the most unexpected places: a reference to cassia in a poem by
Sappho written in the 6th century BC; a Roman poet's sarcastic remarks about
pepper. Reading the life of the Venerable Bede I was struck by a reference to
pepper in Dark Age England. My early interest was mainly in the logistics of the
matter: How on earth did they get it? The decision to pursue the subject further
was, I suppose, essentially the culmination of a long-standing interest.
...
Nicholas A. Basbanes is an award-winning investigative journalist and was literary editor of the Worcester Sunday Telegram. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and ... (more)
Laurence Bergreen is the bestselling author of Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe. His other books include Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492–1504; Marco Polo: From Venice to ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Spice
Try:
Over the Edge of the World
by Laurence Bergreen
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