Salt: A World Historyby Mark Kurlansky, Scott Brick (narrator)
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781597770972
Publication Date: May 1, 2006
Pages: 828
Genre: History, Science
Publisher: Phoenix Books
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 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.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. It’s a straight up history, and I found it not at all boring. On some level I knew salt was historically important, but that’s about it. Its importance, it’s perceived rarity, the lengths cultures would go to for salt – I had no idea. Needless to say, I learned a lot, and I liked it. So much so that I found myself listening to this outside my car trips as I did mundane tasks at work that didn’t require my attention (cleaning tech). Included throughout the text are recipes – mostly historical, but even so, it makes me wish I had a printed copy of this book for my shelves.
The narrator, Scott Brick, gets a lot of credit for the rating. He did a fantastic job, reading this as if the thoughts were his own and you were in the midst of an enjoyable conversation. Very natural, and his voice extremely pleasant to listen to.