Salt

From proverbs to technical arguments, from anecdotes to examples of folklore, chemist and philosopher Pierre Laszlo takes us through the kingdom of "white gold." With "enthusiasm and freshness" (Le Monde) he mixes literary analysis, history, anthropology, biology, physics, economics, art history, political science, chemistry, ethnology, and linguistics to create a full body of knowledge about the everyday substance that rocked the world and brings zest to the ordinary.

For the sake of salt, Rome created a system of remuneration (from which we get the word "salary"), nomads domesticated the camel, the Low Countries revolted against their Spanish oppressors, and Gandhi marched against the tyranny of the British. Through the ages, salt has conferred status, preserved foods, and mingled in the blood, sweat, and tears of humanity. Today, chefs of haute cuisine covet it in its most exotic forms—underground salt deposits, Hawaiian black lava salt, glittery African crystals, and pink Peruvian salt from the sea carried in bricks on the backs of llamas.

From proverbs to technical arguments, from anecdotes to examples of folklore, chemist and philosopher Pierre Laszlo takes us through the kingdom of "white gold." With "enthusiasm and freshness" (Le Monde) he mixes literary analysis, history, anthropology, biology, physics, economics, art history, political science, chemistry, ethnology, and linguistics to create a full body of knowledge about the everyday substance that rocked the world and brings zest to the ordinary. Laszlo explains the history behind Morton Salt's slogan "When it rains, it pours!" and looks into the plight of the salt miner, as well as spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance. Salt is a tour de force about a chemical compound that is one of the very foundations of civilization.

Pierre Laszlo is an emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Liège, Belgium, and the École polytechnique near Paris, France. Of his many published works six have been translated into English, including Organic Reactions: Logic and Simplicity and Organic Chemistry Using Clays.

Roy Herbert:
Takes us through the astonishing history of this substance with lightness as well as learning... [his] observations are fascinating.

The distinction between the scientific and the nonscientific blurs. One becomes astonished that every day one samples a chemical with such a rich cultural aura—which is to say the wager by the author is a success.

Oliver Sacks:
I have been darting, delightedly, from one section to another—from Salting Herring to extreme halophiles, to Spectroscopy. It is a marvellous mosaic leavened with great charm and lightness.

Teresa Weaver:
A weirdly compelling blend of chemical analysis and anecdotal history.

A slender, impish concoction.... To say this is a quirky book is like saying Rita Hayworth was an okay-looking gal.... Calvinesque in many ways—filled with lightness, delightful tangents, postmodernist hijinks.

History, chemistry, physics, economics, anthropology, technology... linguistics, art history... and culinary arts are all explored in this wonderful, multicultural Renaissance approach to the subject of salt.... Salt is not just plain, and this book is a pleasure to read.

A breathless read... because of the suprising appeal and importance of the subject itself.

Readers will never again think of salt... in the same simple way.

Offers a rich pickle barrel of facts and anecdotes about salt.

Rich in fact and analysis...takes the seemingly trivial subject of salt and implies that it is not merely an essential element of life but that it is perhaps the veritable motor of human history.