Salt

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 civilization from the beginning, and its story is a glittering often surprising part of the history of mankind. So valuable that it has often served as currency and still does in places today, salt inspired the earliest trade routes across unknown oceans and the remotest deserts. 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 made to the Cheshire brine springs that supplied salt around the globe, Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of world history, a multilayered masterpiece that blends political, commercial, scientific, religious and culinary records into a rich and memorable tale.

ISBN 0099281996   DEWEY edition DC21 ISBN13 9780099281993 (What's this?)   Pages 320 Publisher Vintage   Weight (grammes) 464 Imprint Vintage   Published in London Format Paperback   Height (mm) 198 Publication date 06 Mar 2003   Width (mm) 132 Library of Congress HD9213   Spine width (mm) 37 DEWEY 333.85632   Academic level Tertiary education

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")

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