Ice

About This Book

"Cultural historian Karal Ann Marling considers the history of ice, "hard, cold water." What better place to start than with dessert? The pleasure of ice cream on a hot day has been known since the sixteenth century, although it wasn't until a few hundred years later that refrigeration made the treat available to the masses. From this sweet beginning, Marling expands her icy explorations to the realm of fiction - the ice crossing in Uncle Tom's Cabin, the frozen wasteland of Frankenstein, the utopias reached through imagined holes in the polar ice - and to the movies and Broadway, with their treatment of extreme landscapes. The study of ice by a true aficionado yields fascinating insights and may just inspire readers to embrace winter - or to make their way to the nearest ice cream shop."--Jacket.