Tracy Allaway

You know one thing I learned, actually, in the course of researching this particular topic, which happens to be rope, the whale that apparently inspired Moby Dick was called Mocha Dick.

And also Dick was basically like saying Joe back then.

Every Tom, Dick, and Harry, right?

You hear that.

So really the Moby Dick whale was Mocha Joe.

Ah, did it have a whaling theme?

He was a jerk whale?

Yeah.

I'm not going to say anything else.

That's true.

That the rope itself is the technology behind the technology.

This one's an interesting one because I think

when you say the word rope, people think of something, you know, old fashioned, like rope is Lindy, just a bundle of cords, right?

But actually, as we were about to discuss, there have been lots of technological breakthroughs in both the way rope is made and also the way rope is designed.

I definitely want to talk about space rope later on or space elevators because that's something I was completely unaware of.

But before we do, just on the book itself.

So I'm aware that these single topic books have become something of a phenomenon.

So you have people explaining the history of human development through the medium of salt or the container box or...

fish, cod, or whatever.

But what does rope actually say about civilization or human development that other single object stories maybe miss?