Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky examines many civilizations from a variety of time periods through the lens of their salt usage to highlight the role salt has played in human history. This included the Indian Independence Movement by Ghandi, the impact of salt loss for the South in the Civil War, Primarily, it was preservative until the 1900s. Ancient civilizations used salt to preserve their foods, pay their solders, and build up their economies through trade. There were a lot of fun facts in this book, so I've included them below. My big complaint for this book is that I found it to be extremely Eurocentric and Sinocentric. I think it largely comes from a lack of documentation in Africa and Latin America, but the author also took liberties to call colonizers "visionary," as opposed to just describing what they did and the impact. Additionally, I found myself wanting more details, so maybe I'm just a depth person more than a breadth person, which isn't the fault of the author.
Fun facts:
Venice built its wealth on salt trading and in AD 600, used landfill to extend the mainland closer to the islands of modern-day Venice (p84).
Horses worked salt mines in Germany, and some spent their entire lives below ground (p166).
In 1830, the Wieliczka Salt Mine Band was formed and played in the mine, due to the acoustics (p167).
The ketchup we know today came from an eighteenth century English anchovy sauce (p183).
When early American colonizers hunted, they would leave a red herring on the trail to confuse wolves, creating the expression we know today as "red herring," (p211).
Slavery was used for salt production (p245).
Cajuns were originally French refugees who fled Nova Scotia after it fell to the British in the eighteenth century and moved to Louisiana (p269).
Relating this book back to the MLK biography, a key difference in Ghandi's movement for Indian independence was that it was never about Ghandi, it was about the movement. The American civil rights movement became about MLK as much as civil rights.
The word "pastrami" comes up from "pastra," the Romania verb "to preserve," (p389).
Overall, this book was solid, not my favorite.