Oren's review
Salt: A World History
by Mark Kurlansky
Oren's review
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
Oren's review
rating:
This book is a tour de force. It just happened to bludgeon me with all that force.
Salt is what makes the world work. This book sets out to make that point, and make it it does. Over. And over. A litany of places, names, times, people, and all of them had the same story - find salt, sell salt, use salt.
Yes, it's amazing the role salt has played in our world. I got that in the first 20 pages. The rest just kept making the same point. I was hoping for some progression, some point, some revelation. There isn't one, beyond "Salt is important".
For someone with a deeper understanding of world history, and the patience, this book is truly amazing. It will give you a feel for the drivers of our world in a whole new light, and how often does that happen? For me, I wound up skipping pages and pages at a time, just to see if anything new would pop up.
Salt is what makes the world work. This book sets out to make that point, and make it it does. Over. And over. A litany of places, names, times, people, and all of them had the same story - find salt, sell salt, use salt.
Yes, it's amazing the role salt has played in our world. I got that in the first 20 pages. The rest just kept making the same point. I was hoping for some progression, some point, some revelation. There isn't one, beyond "Salt is important".
For someone with a deeper understanding of world history, and the patience, this book is truly amazing. It will give you a feel for the drivers of our world in a whole new light, and how often does that happen? For me, I wound up skipping pages and pages at a time, just to see if anything new would pop up.
