Book description
Homer called it a divine substance. Plato described it as especially
dear to the gods. As Mark Kurlansky so brilliantly relates here, salt
has shaped civilisation from the beginning, and its story is a
glittering, often surprising part of the history of mankind. Wars have
been fought over salt and, while salt taxes secured empires across
Europe and Asia, they have also inspired revolution - Gandhi's salt
march in 1930 began the overthrow of British rule in India.
From the rural Sichuan province where the last home-made soya sauce
is produced to the Cheshire brine springs that supplied salt around
the globe, Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of world
history, a multi-layered masterpiece that blends political,
commercial, scientific, religious and culinary records into a rich and
memorable tale.
Mark Kurlansky is the author of 23 books of fiction, nonfiction,
children's writing
.
His best-selling
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
won the 1999 James Beard Award for Food Writing and the 1999
Glenfiddich Award. His other works include:
Salt
,
The Basque History of the World
and the short story collection
The White Man in the Tree
. He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.
