A Book A Week - Week 30: Salt, a World History

This week's book:
   Salt, a World History   by Mark Kurlansky

Grade:  A

Yes, this really is a history of salt.  Table salt.  The stuff you put on french fries even though there's plenty on them already.  I loved it.  Salt and french fries and this book.

You remember when I mentioned that a way to make people like you is to engage their nostalgia?  Well, I was victim of that again this week.  One of my undergraduate concentrations was in History, and reading this book was like doing upper division work in history once more.
    I do realize that I have alienated a huge portion of the population by even mentioning course work in history, but if more people read books like this they wouldn't automatically associate history with dry dates and dead generals.

The author wasn't kidding when he titled the book 'a World History,' he really does look at salt production, salt trade, and control of salt as it relates to building the world you and I live in today.  He starts in China, where salt production led to not only the first brine wells, but also cooking with natural gas.  He then moves on to the Romans, the Venetians, the Vikings, the American Civil War, and on to modern times.
    This is not - thankfully - a comprehensive exploration of all things salt across all of recorded history.  I think even I would consider that boring.  The author hits the high points, building his case that salt, the control of it, the production of it, the transport and buying and selling of it, has shaped every culture and thus all of history.

As far as narrative mechanics, the author keeps things interesting, even lively.  If this were solely a scholarly effort he might 'begin at the beginning' and plod through his research in time order.  I'm happy to say that he does not do this (for the most part).  For instance, when talking about salt's role in conquest, he talks about salting fish as a preservative, and how that fish was used to feed the vast Catholic population of Medieval Europe, for whom eating meat on Friday was - literally in some cases - a capital offense.  He jumps from era to era, for instance coming to modern France, then Enlightenment France, the ancient Rome as he talks about the importance of salt not only to make war but to preserve peace.

If I had one quarrel it would be with the recipes.  Yes, there are recipes in this book.  Too many for my tastes.  I get it, people the world over use salt as a preservative and flavor enhancer.  One or two recipes would make the point, but he includes many.  More in the first part of the book than the last, but they're not absent anywhere.  It seems to me almost a cynical inclusion, there to spice up (forgive me) what might seem an otherwise dry treatise.  To me they just interrupt the flow.
   It's also long, 450 pages of dense type.  I didn't mind at all, but if you're looking for a light Summer read you can breeze through in an afternoon on the beach, this ain't it.

Who should read this book?  If you like history books, definitely get this one, it's great.  It's going on my bookshelf next to my other must-have history books.  If you'd rather poke your own eyes out than read history then you should probably avoid it.  Just know you're missing a great read.  

Next week:
 The Panopticon   by Jenni Fagan
 This is debut fiction, the author's first novel.  I had some awful experiences with first novels so far - Twilight and Ready Player One - but I also had a really great experience too: The Golem and the Jinni.  I'll roll the dice again this coming week.