Book description
Homer called salt a divine substance. Plato described it as especially
dear to the gods. Today we take salt for granted, a common, inexpensive
substance that seasons food or clears ice from roads, a word used
casually in expressions ("salt of the earth," take it with a
grain of salt") without appreciating their deeper meaning. However,
as Mark Kurlansky so brilliantly relates in his world- encompassing new
book, salt-the only rock we eat-has shaped civilization from the very
beginning. Its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the
history of mankind.
Until about 100 years ago, when modern chemistry and geology revealed
how prevalent it is, salt was one of the most sought-after commodities,
and no wonder, for without it humans and animals could not live. Salt
has often been considered so valuable that it served as currency, and it
is still exchanged as such in places today. Demand for salt established
the earliest trade routes, across unknown oceans and the remotest of
deserts: the city of Jericho was founded almost 10,000 years ago as a
salt trading center. Because of its worth, salt has provoked and
financed some wars, and been a strategic element in others, such as the
American Revolution and the Civil War. Salt taxes secured empires across
Europe and Asia and have also inspired revolution (Gandhi's salt march
in 1930 began the overthrow of British rule in India); indeed, salt has
been central to the age-old debate about the rights of government to tax
and control economies.
The story of salt encompasses fields as disparate as engineering,
religion, and food, all of which Kurlansky richly explores. Few
endeavors have inspired more ingenuity than salt making, from the
natural gas furnaces of ancient China to the drilling techniques that
led to the age of petroleum, and salt revenues have funded some of the
greatest public works in history, including the Erie Canal, and even
cities (Syrac
Homer called salt a divine substance. Plato described it as
especially dear to the gods. Today we take salt for granted, a
common, inexpensive substance that seasons food or clears ice from
roads, a word used casually in expressions ("salt of the
earth," take it with a grain of salt") without
appreciating their deeper meaning. However, as Mark Kurlansky so
brilliantly relates in his world- encompassing new book, salt-the
only rock we eat-has shaped civilization from the very beginning.
Its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of mankind.
Until about 100 years ago, when modern chemistry and geology
revealed how prevalent it is, salt was one of the most sought-after
commodities, and no wonder, for without it humans and animals could
not live. Salt has often been considered so valuable that it served
as currency, and it is still exchanged as such in places today.
Demand for salt established the earliest trade routes, across
unknown oceans and the remotest of deserts: the city of Jericho was
founded almost 10,000 years ago as a salt trading center. Because of
its worth, salt has provoked and financed some wars, and been a
strategic element in others, such as the American Revolution and the
Civil War. Salt taxes secured empires across Europe and Asia and
have also inspired revolution (Gandhi's salt march in 1930 began the
overthrow of British rule in India); indeed, salt has been central
to the age-old debate about the rights of government to tax and
control economies.
The story of salt encompasses fields as disparate as
engineering, religion, and food, all of which Kurlansky richly
explores. Few endeavors have inspired more ingenuity than salt
making, from the natural gas furnaces of ancient China to the
drilling techniques that led to the age of petroleum, and salt
revenues have funded some of the greatest public works in history,
including the Erie Canal, and even cities (Syrac
Kurlansky does a masterful job of expanding the
reader''s horizons . . . This book of minutely researched data and
history can literally make the mouth water.
Mark Kurlansky is well-known to readers through
his popular books Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the
World, and, more recently, The Basque History of the
World (both published by Walker & Company.). Salt is
an appropriate bookend to these books: the story of a humble but
ubiquitous substance inextricably interwoven with the history of
mankind.
