Product Description

Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod and The Basque History of the World, here turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions. Populated by colorful characters and filled with an unending series of fascinating details, Kurlansky's kaleidoscopic history is a supremely entertaining, multi-layered masterpiece.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2443 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-28
• Released on: 2003-01-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 498 pages

Los Angeles Times Book Review
Kurlansky continues to prove himself remarkably adept at taking a most unlikely candidate and telling its tale with epic grandeur.

Review
Kurlansky continues to prove himself remarkably adept at taking a most unlikely candidate and telling its tale with epic grandeur. (Los Angeles Times Book Review)

About the Author
Mark Kurlansky is the author of Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World and The Basque History of the World. Cod received a James Beard Award for Excellence in Food Writing and was a New York Times bestseller.

Customer Reviews

A great read
This book took an item we take for granted today, salt, and discussed its history. Some have criticized the author for including so many recipes. I disagree. Salt is used in cooking after all, and to put salt into a proper context we need to witness how it was used.

I enjoyed how the author wove the various aspects of the salt trade into a coherent history. For instance, that salt was so important in wartime never struck me before, though it seems obvious now.

A good, hard to put down read, Salt: A World History is a good book for people who like history, economics or the culinary arts.

Reads like someone's lame thesis
Man, this didn't work at all for me. Here's why:

- It zipped past the ancient history (which is what I like) and spent most of its time on European and (white) American history (which I usually already know and don't care about anyway).

- You know how in college you would find some weird tangent to write your paper on so it would seem somewhat original? This book feels like a whole bunch of those essays. I get it, salt was important, but it still feels forced sometimes.

- After a while, you start to get that dreaded "I'm reading history" feeling, where it all starts to look like a list of names and dates. It's totally possible to write history without writing lists; I just don't think this book pulled it off.

Here's the impression I came away from this book with: "15th-century Germans really liked salt. Here's how they made it. You know who else liked salt? 16th-century French people. Here's a recipe that uses salt. Guess who else liked salt?" Ad infinitum.

Meh.

Indiana Jones, this IS history
Remembering 2nd semester of Western Civ with a dynamic prof who loved to use the "spectrum of history" to link events...food, religion, war, hobbies, work. That is how this book is read and you must eat the whole salty pretzel to get the flavor. You must try not to quibble with a few sweeping generalizations and dwell on the great facts that link this history together. A great prequel or sequel to "COD"

well written and fun