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Prince Valient’s off to the salt mines
There’s a great book out there, Salt: A World History, described by its publisher thus:
In his fifth work of nonfiction, Mark Kurlansky turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions.
At the time I read the book, salt was so common and so cheap that discovering its history as a treasured commodity was an astonishing surprise. That seems to be changing, of course, and soon, I expect we’ll be wondering what people used for our source before backyard evaporation stills, just as tomorrow’s children will be shocked to learn that society used to use lightbulbs, instead of candles.
So yesterday!
