History
by Mark Kurlansky
Why did people fight over salt?
A bag of salt costs next to nothing today. For most of history it was one of the most valuable things a ruler could control. Mark Kurlansky follows it from ancient China and Egypt to Venice, France and Gandhi's India, and shows how much turned on it.
Hear a sample · read by Laura
Salt draws water out of food, and the bacteria that make it rot can't grow. Before refrigeration that meant salt cod and herring, ham, cheese and pickles. With salt, people could eat through the winter, feed armies on the march and send sailors on long voyages.
Everyone needs salt and it comes from few places, so rulers found it easy to control. Chinese emperors made it a state monopoly, and in 81 BC the Han court held a famous debate over keeping it. France's salt tax, the gabelle, was bitterly hated.
In Sichuan, Chinese salt makers drilled deep wells with bamboo tools to reach brine, salty water trapped underground. Some wells also gave off natural gas. They piped it through bamboo tubes and burned it under their pans to boil the brine down to salt.
Modern geology found huge salt deposits under many parts of the world, and industry learned to mine and refine it cheaply. Refrigeration took over its oldest job. Something governments once guarded closely became something most of us hardly notice.
Precious
Salt was once so precious that rulers taxed it and armies fought over it.
Keeping food
Before fridges, salt was how people kept fish and meat from rotting through the winter.
Salt fish
Salted cod and herring fed sailors on long voyages and made northern ports rich.
The gabelle
France's salt tax, the gabelle, was so hated that it fed the anger behind the Revolution.
Salt March
In 1930 Gandhi walked to the sea to make his own salt, breaking British law.
A story from the book
Under British rule, Indians were not allowed to make their own salt, and the salt they bought was taxed. In March 1930 Gandhi set off on foot for the sea at Dandi, about 240 miles away. There he picked up a lump of natural salt, breaking the law.
Hot take · true or myth?
For most of history, salt was cheap and easy to find.
Myth. For thousands of years it was scarce and valuable, and rulers guarded it. Only in the last century or two, with modern geology and industry, did it become cheap and plentiful.
One thing to try
Pick one salty food in your kitchen, like soy sauce, bacon or parmesan, and look up how it began. Kurlansky shows that many of the world's best-loved foods started as ways of making something last with salt.
Knotd has the key ideas from 250+ non-fiction books, each in a few minutes, in plain words. Salt: A World History comes with a Hot Take round to make it stick.
Get the whole book on KnotdOpen in the appWhy did people fight over salt? A bag of salt costs next to nothing today. For most of history it was one of the most valuable things a ruler could control. Mark Kurlansky follows it from ancient China and Egypt to Venice, France and Gandhi's India, and shows how much turned on it.
Food that lasts the winter; Easy to tax; Bamboo, brine and gas; From treasure to table salt.
Pick one salty food in your kitchen, like soy sauce, bacon or parmesan, and look up how it began. Kurlansky shows that many of the world's best-loved foods started as ways of making something last with salt.
Yes. Knotd has the key ideas from Salt: A World History in a few minutes, in plain words, plus a Hot Take round to test them. It's one of 250+ non-fiction books in the app.
