Mark Kurlansky: Hello. My name is Mark Kurlansky. There doesn't seem to be a lot of certainty about how we ended up with the name Kurlansky. My grandfather, my father's father, took the name in Riga, Latvia at the beginning of the 20th century. It was a family that he was staying with, and there are several stories, but it appears he was in hiding, was involved in some kind of political activities. Some family members describe him as a little bit Bolshevik. Don't know.