Jack Turner

Durante siglos, las especias suavizaban los ácidos vinos, enmascaraban el hedor de los cadáveres y se usaban como afrodisíacos en las noches de bodas. Eran imprescindibles en la cocina, la medicina y el culto religioso; y, dada su escasez, simbolos de riqueza y poder: tanto en Oriente como en Occidente llegaron a valermas que los metales preciosos. Por ello, durante todo el medievo se discutio si representaban paradisiacos dones del Señor o tan solo vanas y pecaminosas tentaciones. Ya en el Renacimiento, el deseo de poseerlas llevo a los exploradores a dar la vuelta al mundo: en buena medida debemos a las especias un hito historicocomo el descubrimiento de un nuevo continente. En este ensayo sensual, fascinante y documentado, Jack Turner nos invita a recorrer el globo y visitar la mitologia y la literatura desde la Antiguedad hasta la conquista de America para descubrirnos el peso del deseo en la historia.

In the heart of the Sahara, legends speak of a lost city made of gold The Golden Citadel, where a forgotten king once trapped the power of the sun itself. When former soldier and adventurer Daniel Creed comes into possession of an ancient map, his search for fortune becomes a race against death. Pursued by ruthless treasure hunters and haunted by the deserts secrets, Daniel joins forces with Zahra Al-Mansur, a woman bound to the Citadel by blood and destiny. Together, they uncover a civilization that defied nature and paid the ultimate price. Beneath the dunes lies more than treasure; it holds a light that should never have been awakened. As the sands shift and the Citadel stirs once more, Daniel must choose between survival, truth, and the power no man was meant to possess.An action-packed adventure of mystery, myth, and human ambition where every grain of sand hides a story of fire and gold.

In this brilliant, engrossing work, Jack Turner explores an erafrom ancient times through the Renaissancewhen what we now consider common condiments were valued in gold and blood.Spices made sour medieval wines palatable, camouflaged the smell of corpses, and served as wedding night aphrodisiacs. Indispensible for cooking, medicine, worship, and the arts of love, they were thought to have magical properties and were so valuable that they were often kept under lock and key. For some, spices represented Paradise, for others, the road to perdition, but they were potent symbols of wealth and power, and the wish to possess them drove explorers to circumnavigate the globeand even to savagery.Following spices across continents and through literature and mythology, Spice is a beguiling narrative about the surprisingly vast influence spices have had on human desire.Includes eight pages of color photographs.One of the Best Books of the Year: Discover Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle

An essential history of a taste that shaped the world. Spices: for centuries the staple of cuisine, remedies and ritual, they have commanded the highest of prices. To this day, saffron is, per ounce, one of our most expensive commodities. For their sake, fortunes have been made and lost and new worlds discovered. Astoundingly, in the 17th-century more people died for the sake of cloves than in all the European dynastic wars of the period. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs depict a merchant fleet sailing to the Horn of Africa and returning with a priceless cargo of cinnamon. Only the story of mankinds infatuation with precious metals can rival the story of spice; and only the history of silver and gold rivals spice for its improbable and extraordinary combination of discovery and conquest, greed and violence.