Salt: A World History

by Mark Kurlansky

Kurlansky follows the history of salt and salt production from ancient times to modern all around the world. From evaporating brine in clay pots to evaporating brine over wood, then coal, fires to mining vast salt mines, this history was interesting.

The best parts for me were seeing how salt influenced history — like the role it played in the American Revolution or the American Civil War. I think that incorporating even a chapter or two of this kind of history into high school history classes might spark an interest that modern text books can’t. I know I would have been more interested…I always found history to be dry and dull, but this is just the sort of thing to spice it up (pardon the pun).