What readers think of Salt, plus links to write your own review.

I am still reading the book, having received it as a gift. I enjoy it very much as I am involved in a fascinating study of world history from some unusual perspective (it should be a reasonable and valid view of history, of course) like perspective of salt, or perspective, let's say, of paper...Do you know of someone who would write a world history as a history of paper invention? I will write it, then )))

It seems, we are sick and tired of studying wars and war heroes as the only causes and purposes for world history. There must be deeper reasons for why things happened the way they happened, not just Greeks overcoming Persians, or Rome overcoming Carthage...God is the ultimate author of world history and through such innovative approaches He actually prompts us a new vision of what was happening, why and what will be the outcome. Isn't it the purpose why we study history? To know the future...Salt is an excellent example of why things happened the way they happened, but salt is not the only or the deepest reason...Although contributing to deeper reasons...)))

Kurlansky's SALT, has kept my attention, and as a foodie I have a new admiration for the stuff and what someone had to go thru to mine this substance--history and today. I've just started being interested in colors of salt and now am spurred on to find the unusual...more than just grey salt. Thank you Kurlansky for giving us something to learn and not just car chases. A good read and an excellent economics lesson.

Hard to believe so much history could be found in one four-letter word. Those I've shared this book with have rave reviews about it. It puts into a new perspective the struggles of the human race to rise from the stages of hunter-gatherers to industrialists. Kurlansky has given my passions for food and culinary arts a paradigm shift and wrought changes in my recipes. I have a wonderfully fresh slant on prosciutto and parmesan. There's a seller on our table filled with Ukrainian rocksalt and garum has become a household word. It may be ancient politics, but more enthralling for me than today's news.

You can learn a great deal about human history in this book. Unfortunately, being assigned reading often makes nonfiction books disliked. Read this book if you like a well written story about a substance needed for us to live, that has been taxed, fought over and now tossed on streets. You will never look at a saltshaker the same again.

This is a very good book although it become a little pedantic and repetitious at times. Clearly the author enjoys writing about the marriage of food with history and, it's true, many of the anecdotes and facts are interesting. However, the average reader may feel that a little Salt goes a long way. It's like watching your cousin's wedding video...lovely as it may be, you get bored long before the tape finishes.

My advice: read a few chapters, take a few weeks off and pick it up again. It is infinitely more interesting to read the book in this manner and you don't feel like your head will explode if you have to hear the tale of yet another evaporative salt marsh pond.

We had to read this book for AP history and it was really interesting and helped with even textbook content because of the mention of well known figures suck as Ghandi and Plato and Mao Zedong, and many more as well as discussed many major historical event in relation to salt. It also gave another view on how salt shaped societies, economies, myths, and superstitions. Although some of the information got kind of monotonous, the facts were interesting throughout. Consequently I don't think I'd recommend the book to anyone that either didn't have to read it or just loves building their knowledge of the overlooked things in life. :)

Kurlansky's book is not great. I had to read it for a school assignment and it had no story-line and it was just random facts after facts thrown at you. I hated it!

Even as a strong fictional reader and writer as I am, I must admit the information in this book was very interesting. The information itself was astounding, but the length and way it was expressed was very poor. This book had no real hook and nothing to keep the reader compelled to reading it. The transitions were good- it was somewhat confusing to stop because the only ending point in a subject was between chapters, but the book itself was dully written and in no way a treat to read. This book was one that is read maybe 20 minutes a day (if even) to spare your boredom and brain cells.