Table of Contents

Salt: A World HistoryIntroduction: The Rock

Part One
A Discourse on Salt, Cadavers, and Pungent Sauces

Chapter One: A Mandate of Salt
Chapter Two: Fish, Fowl, and Pharoahs
Chapter Three: Saltmen Hard as Codfish
Chapter Four: Salt's Salad Days
Chapter Five: Salting It Away in the Adriatic
Chapter Six: Two Ports and the Prosciutto in Between

Part Two
The Glow of Herring and the Scent of Conquest

Chapter Seven: Friday's Salt
Chapter Eight: A Nordic Dream
Chapter Nine: A Well-Salted Hexagon
Chapter Ten: The Hapsburg Pickle
Chapter Eleven: The Leaving of Liverpool
Chapter Twelve: American Salt Wars
Chapter Thirteen: Salt and Independence
Chapter Fourteen: Liberté, Egalité, Tax Breaks
Chapter Fifteen: Preserving Independence
Chapter Sixteen: The War Between the Salts
Chapter Seventeen: Red Salt

Part Three
Sodium's Perfect Marriage

Chapter Eighteen: The Odium of Sodium
Chapter Nineteen: The Mythology of Geology
Chapter Twenty: The Soil Never Sets On . . .
Chapter Twenty-One: Salt and the Great Soul
Chapter Twenty-Two: Not Looking Back
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Last Salt Days of Zigong
Chapter Twenty-Four: Ma, La, and Mao
Chapter Twenty-Five: More Salt than Fish
Chapter Twenty-Six: Big Salt, Little Salt

Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Mark Kurlansky was born in Hartford, Connecticut. After receiving a BA in Theater from Butler University in 1970—and refusing to serve in the military—Kurlansky worked in New York as a playwright, having a number of off-off Broadway productions, and as a playwright-in-residence at Brooklyn College. He has worked many other jobs, including as a commercial fisherman, a dock worker, a paralegal, a cook, and a pastry chef. In the mid-1970s he turned to journalism, and from 1976 to 1991 he worked as a foreign correspondent for The International Herald Tribune, The Chicago Tribune, The Miami Herald, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Based in Paris and then Mexico, he reported on Europe, West Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America, Latin America, and the Caribbean. His articles have appeared in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Miami Herald, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Time, The New York Times and many more. He has had 35 books published including fiction, nonfiction, and children's books. His books include Havana, Cod, Salt, Paper, The Basque History of the World, 1968, The Big Oyster, among other titles. He has received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Bon Appetit’s Food Writer of the Year Award, the James Beard Award, and the Glenfiddich Award. He lives in New York City.

Reviews

"Kurlansky finds the world in a grain of salt...fascination and surprise regularly erupt from the detail." —The New York Times Book ReviewThis is terrific food writing; like fleur de sel, something scarce and to be savored." —San Francisco Chronicle"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"If you are drawn to history and curious about the origins of foods, allow Mark Kurlansky to take you on an incredible journey through the centuries by way of salt." —The Baltimore Sun"Kurlansky does a masterful job of expanding the reader's horizons....This book of minutely researched data and history can literally make the mouth water." —The Boston Globe

In his latest work, Kurlansky (Cod, The Basque History of the World) is in command of every facet of his topic, and he conveys his knowledge in a readable, easy style. Deftly leading readers around the world and across cultures and centuries, he takes an inexpensive, mundane item and shows how it has influenced and affected wars, cultures, governments, religions, societies, economies, cooking (there are a few recipes), and foods. In addition, he provides information on the chemistry, geology, mining, refining, and production of salt, again across cultures, continents, and time periods. The 26 chapters flow in chronological order, and the cast of characters includes fishermen, kings, Native Americans, and even Gandhi. An entertaining, informative read, this is highly recommended for all collections. [For another book on the topic, see Pierre Laszlo's more esoteric Salt: Grain of Life, LJ 7/01; other recent micro-histories include Joseph Amato's Dust, Mort Rosenblum's Olive, and Tom Vanderbilt's The Sneaker Book. Ed.] Michael D. Cramer, Raleigh, NC Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

"Kurlansky finds the world in a grain of salt...fascination and surprise regularly erupt from the detail." -The New York Times Book ReviewThis is terrific food writing; like fleur de sel, something scarce and to be savored." -San Francisco Chronicle"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"If you are drawn to history and curious about the origins of foods, allow Mark Kurlansky to take you on an incredible journey through the centuries by way of salt." -The Baltimore Sun"Kurlansky does a masterful job of expanding the reader's horizons....This book of minutely researched data and history can literally make the mouth water." -The Boston Globe