Rating: 
Summary: Salt is not just food
Review: I learned a lot about salt from reading this book. Salt has been a symbol of preservation, power, oppression, health and wealth. Kurlansky takes the reader for a trip around the world to places like China, England, India the Middle East, and all over Europe to show how salt was found, made, used and valued. There are all kinds of information in this book. Salt was used to not only preserve food and also human bodies. Salt was used to make gunpowder. It has also been used to deice roads in the United States. Ancient people in China and Egypt got salt by evaporating seawater. People in Mexico evaporated urine and burned plants to extract salt. I learned a lot about geography and places like Parma and the Po River in Italy where Parma cheese was first made. I learned that the area around the Dead Sea was not only a great source of salt, but also a tourist attraction with hotels and health spas. I did not know people died for salt in the Civil War. Millions of slaves died making salt in mines and wells. The South actually lost the war because it could not produce enough salt to feed their armies. Making salt was a way to actually avoid military service. Salt became a symbol for all the injustices of government. By the late 18th century more than 3000 French men women or children were sentenced to prison or even death for crimes like smuggling against the salt tax called the gabelle. Women hid salt in their breasts, clothing, and even their posteriors. Smuggling was also widespread in China where the salt smuggler was seen as a hero fighting the evil salt administration. The gardens of one Chinese province has become a tourist attraction because of the salt smugglers. The British controlled the use, production, and the cost of salt in India until Gandhi's historic salt march in 1930 in which he defied British law by merely picking up some salt off a beach. This book is also filled with many interesting recipes using salt with ingredients like sauerkraut, anchovies, salted beef, and honey. This is a wonderful book, because it covers so many interesting subjects. This book makes salt fascinating.
Rating:
Summary: A Gem of a Book!
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed SALT. I picked up a copy on a whim and was very glad I did. It offers a fascinating account of a commodity many might consider mundane but in fact had a pivotal role in history, commerce, and the development of civilization. Highly absorbing.
Rating: 
Summary: You really have to be interested in salt
Review: I thought this book would be more about world history, following salt as a narrative. But the book is really about salt. The book does trace salt through history, but it is really about salt and not about the period and how salt fit into the times. So if you are really interested in salt this is a good book, otherwise I would skip.
Rating:
Summary: Needs more salt
Review: I was excited when I heard about this book because I thought it would be a very fun and interesting read . . . and I still think it could have been. Unfortunately, a better title for the book would be "World History With A Dash of Salt", because there's far more cultural history than salt history here. For example, page 37 talks about the ancient Egyptians' beliefs concerning the afterlife and their burial traditions. What does that have to do with salt? Well, not much that I can tell after having read this book, and therein lies the problem: while it's true that salt is the common thread throughout, the connection to salt is often just that -- a thread. For example, as at least one other reviewer has already pointed out, treating saltpeter as "salt" is a stretch for anyone who's not a chemist. While it may technically qualify as a "salt", saltpeter is not the same thing as sodium chloride and is certainly not a substance that you or I would ever be found sprinkling on popcorn or a baked potato. One footnote that I'd like to add is that I was briefly puzzled by the breathless reviews on the back of the dust jacket. "Exciting, illuminating and thought-provoking", says The Boston Globe. Wow, all that for a book about salt?!? That reviewer must not get out of the house much. When I saw Newsday's description of "A delectable portrait of an uncanny, indomitable nation" I immediately wondered if they were referring to the same book, and as it turns out, they're not -- those reviews are for the author's other titles. Sure, I understand that they'd like for us to buy more of his books, but that's the first time I can recall seeing a dust jacket that only has rave reviews for other titles. After having read it, though, I think I understand why. Since I don't normally enjoy reading history books, perhaps I had unrealistic expectations before reading this one. However, I think I'd have given it a more favorable rating if it had been "distilled" (so to speak) to have a higher ratio of salt to history.
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic
Review: In the tradition of John McPhee, Kurlansky takes you into a world that you know - but find you don't know Jack! His Cod book was wonderful...Salt is great! It is delightful to find how something we take for granted has changed the world. I wouldn't be surprised if this one takes off like "How the Irish Saved Civilization". This book is one that you will lend to many, and recommend to even more.
Rating:
Summary: A Salty Tale
Review: In this book, Kurlansky attempts to do for salt what he did for cod in his book about the fish the changed the world. Salt seems a broader topic, though one whose historical impact is less unified. This gives the book a rather disjointed aspect, as though we need jump through each culture's perspective and history in making, acquiring and using salt. While various themes do emerge, Kurlansky seems more taken with the project of finding interesting and flavourful anecdotes to fill the pages and hold the reader's interest. He is mostly successful, from the story of prehistorical miners perfectly preserved in salt to the role that salt played in the development of American history. There are very few bases that he does not appear to touch, but nevertheless the story is never quite so cohesive as to justify this especially meandering approach. Despite this, I have been annoying my friends and relatives for weeks with the sorts of salty nuggets that Kurlansky often uncovers. There are, it seems, a million and one things you can do with brine. Unfortunately, Kurlansky never really develops a sense of what is magical and special about salt - it's transformative properties. Why does it preserve so well? Why does it change dull food into the gourmet? And why this particular fascination with salt through human history? Kurlansky often seems like an accountant searching for something valuable along the salt trail. He often succeeds and these stories can be quite fascinating, but unlike his history of cod, the story never comes together. The history of salt is really just the history of a chemical and though in many respects it is fascinating in its own right, its own right is really not as expansive or inclusive as Kurlansky would have us believe. These complaints are not, however, quite so deep as they sound. The book is consistently interesting and well-written throughout. Kurlansky has mastered clear and articulate non-fiction writing. He never stays too long on a subject, and finds interest in each of his digression. I would recommend his book on cod and his excellent, if uneven, collection of short stories before tackling this one, but it is, in the end, certainly worth getting to.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but not fascinating
Review: In this monumental work, author Mark Kurlansky traces the history of salt. Beginning with ancient China, he then goes through pharonic Egypt, Rome, Europe, the United States, India, and back to modern China. Along the way, he discusses salt, how it's made, and what's made with it. If you want to know about salt through the ages, then this is the book for you. That said, though, this thick book just seems to ramble along without any true theme. It covers everything about salt, but does it in a long-winded manner, which often allowed my attention to meander off, in search of more meaningful topics. If you are interested in salt, then I cannot imagine a more perfect resource for you. Overall, I give this book a somewhat guarded recommendation.
Rating:
Summary: Sodium Chloride - In its Own Words
Review: Kurlansky evidently isn't destined to be a biographer of people, or a chronicler of events, but he's created his own special niche of "thematic" histories. This history, which doubles as a cookbook, tells you everything you want to know about brine, salt, soy sauce, fish sauce, Tobasco sauce, salt mines, pickles and cheese. Kurlansy's special brilliance is his ability to connect (or re-connect) mental dots - things that you'd intuitively associate with each other, but never quite knew why. The ideal example is his story of the city of Parma, which had the largest salt mine in Northern Italy. Since salt is a central component of both ham and cheese, it's natural that this city gave us Parma Ham and Parmesan Cheese. And the tale goes on, with anecdotes of the Habsburgs' salt (in Saltzburg), the fall of the British Empire (Ghandi's march to the sea, to make his own salt and break the Liverpool monopoly) and American capitalism (Morton's). A tour de force.
Rating:
Summary: Sodium Chloride - In its Own Words
Review: Kurlansky evidently isn't destined to be a biographer of people, or a chronicler of events, but he's created his own special niche of "thematic" histories. This history, which doubles as a cookbook, tells you everything you want to know about brine, salt, soy sauce, fish sauce, Tobasco sauce, salt mines, pickles and cheese. Kurlansy's special brilliance is his ability to connect (or re-connect) mental dots - things that you'd intuitively associate with each other, but never quite knew why. The ideal example is his story of the city of Parma, which had the largest salt mine in Northern Italy. Since salt is a central component of both ham and cheese, it's natural that this city gave us Parma Ham and Parmesan Cheese. And the tale goes on, with anecdotes of the Habsburgs' salt (in Saltzburg), the fall of the British Empire (Ghandi's march to the sea, to make his own salt and break the Liverpool monopoly) and American capitalism (Morton's). A tour de force.
Rating:
Summary: Engaging but Error Prone
Review: Kurlansky's book is interesting and easy-to-read (I think he has an excellent, very straight-forward, non-convoluted writing style). However, his book contains a lot of errors. For example: He has magnesium in light bulbs (it used to be in flash bulbs), and only nitrates in old-time gun powder (it also contained charcoal and usually sulphur). It's disconcerting to not know what else to believe. Also, I'm disapointed that none of the editorial reviews shown seem to address his errors.
|
