Salt Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus Salt

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Zusammenfassung von Salt

Name: Salt
Rating: 4.5 (82 reviews)
Author: Mark Kurlansky

Mark Kurlansky

A World History

4.5 (82 Bewertungen)

23 Min.

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What’s in it for me? Discover how a basic mineral dominated nations and inspired revolutions.

Each day, people like you consume approximately one teaspoonful of white, crystalline rock. Scientists call it sodium chloride; you call it table salt. Whatever its name, it keeps you alive.

You probably don’t give a lot of thought to how salt ended up a staple in your kitchen pantry, but centuries ago, your ancestors fought tooth and nail to control its sale and spread.

Salt taxes triggered political uprisings well into the twentieth century. The rise of trading empires such as Venice was based on salt, and Indian independence only became a reality after Gandhi took to gathering salt crystals at the shoreline, against British orders.

In short, any historian worth his salt will be amazed at this mineral’s role in shaping human history.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

how two potentially deadly substances combine to make salt;
why the ancient Japanese tossed salt on theater stages; and
what an Egyptian mummy and a salted fish have in common.

Your personal survival depends on salt; human civilization has been shaped by this simple mineral.

Sitting on nearly every table in the Western world is a shaker of table salt. An ingredient that heightens the flavor of food, salt is truly commonplace and simple. Or is it?

Table salt is actually made up of two volatile chemical compounds. The first is a silvery white metal called sodium, also known as natrium or “Na” on the periodic table. Sodium alone is so unstable that it bursts into flame when it comes in contact with water!

Salt’s second component is chlorine, or “Cl.” When you add chlorine to water, this poisonous gas turns into a dangerous acid!

But when you combine chlorine with sodium, you get NaCl or sodium chloride – a stable, edible compound that we know as humble table salt.

Well, salt isn’t so humble – sodium chloride is of vital importance to our health. If you don’t eat enough salt, you may suffer from headaches or muscle weakness, and even die.

Thanks to sodium, your heart keeps beating, your nerves can send signals to each other, and your cells can feed themselves. You need salt to stay alive, yet your body can’t produce it. Worse, you lose salt everyday – through sweating, for instance.

You might also be surprised to hear that salt has shaped civilizations.

This mineral was the first international trade good and was even used as money because it was considered so precious. It was salt that gave humans a way to preserve food from spoiling.

Salt has also held many different cultural roles. Ancient Egyptians believed salt created sexual desire, so priests refused to eat it. In Judaism and Islam, salt is thought to protect against evil spirits. A similar belief existed in ancient Japan, which is why theater stages would be sprinkled with salt before performances.

Ancient China and Egypt were the first cultures to discover the wonders of salt.

China was the birthplace of many innovations, from the invention of gunpowder and the compass to printing and – you guessed it, the extraction of salt.

The Chinese were the first culture to harvest salt by boiling ocean water. Ancient Romans eventually caught on and spread this method of salt extraction throughout Europe, but that wasn’t until much later.

Salt made civilizations like the Celts, the ancient Romans and their successors rich and powerful.

You’re probably familiar with the ancient Roman empire, but have you heard of the Celts? These ancient peoples left behind no written records. We only know about the Celts from the annals of their enemies, the Romans.

Ancient Roman writers called these peoples the Gauls, after the Greek word “hal,” which means salt.

Salt, cod and herring are three basic items that shaped the history of medieval Europe.

Who was the first European to set foot in the New World? Not Columbus, that’s for sure. It was the Vikings who first made the long journey across the Atlantic Ocean.

How did they manage it? By building great boats to weather the voyage, and amassing generous stores of salted fish to keep them fed.

The struggle over salt was a catalyst in both the French and American revolutions.

Much has been made of the role of tea and taxation in the American colonies’ fight for independence. But salt also played a role, and a large one at that.

Many early settlers were fishermen who were able to quickly establish a prosperous trading business – and being self-reliant, they harvested salt themselves.

Demand for salt shaped the continuing conflict between America and Britain after the revolution.

After the American Revolution, salt continued to play an influential role in the young United States. Despite having recognized the colonies’ independence, Britain sought to restrict US trade.

In 1812, this inspired a new conflict, during which the British tried to destroy all the newly created saltworks in America. But troops couldn’t bring the American salt industry down so easily.

Advances in chemistry and technology have helped society better understand salt and its extraction.

In our first blink, we learned the chemistry of salt, or sodium chloride.

Just two centuries ago, salt’s chemical makeup was a mystery. By 1800, however, chemists began to explore electrolysis, a process that allowed them to break down liquids into chemical components with an electric current.

The salt industry caused much environmental damage, while salt taxes helped big firms dominate.

Cheshire, a county in northwest England, harvested salt from brine springs before the Roman conquest.

Several centuries later, salt from Cheshire became a worldwide delicacy and was known as Liverpool salt. The regional industry boomed, which as a result had a considerable impact on the local environment.

Today salt is no longer the precious commodity it once was, but we still can’t live without it.

It’s astonishing how the value of salt has changed over the centuries. Thankfully, we don’t fight wars over salt anymore; we also consume much less of it in our food.

Today, just eight percent of the salt production in the United States is linked to the food industry. This is partly because we don’t use salt to preserve food anymore, preferring canning or flash freezing.

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Worum geht es in Salt?

Salt (2002) tells the fascinating story of this basic mineral, from its early uses in food preservation to its role as a precious commodity, driving trade and conquest. These blinks shed light on the political conflict sparked by society’s demand for salt as well as the environmental damage wrought by the salt industry.

Bestes Zitat aus Salt

The body of an average adult contains 250 grams of salt.

—Mark Kurlansky

Wer Salt lesen sollte

People interested in the history of salt and its role in trade, war and revolutions
Readers fascinated by the unusual forces that shape history

Über den Autor

Mark Kurlansky is a journalist who also writes fiction, children’s fiction and nonfiction books, having authored some ten bestsellers including Cod, also available in blinks.

Kategorien mit Salt

Health & Nutrition Nature & the Environment History

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