This book sets out to place the particular histories of salt in a global perspective and write the history of a human commodity as a theme in world history. The author shows how a history of salt cannot be separated from the histories of commerce, medicine, diet, cooking, taxation, invention and war.
Preface - PART 1 SALT AND SOCIETY - Primitivity - Antiquity - The Dark and Light Ages - The Middle Ages - Late Tradition, Early Modernity - Modernity - PART 2 SALT AND THE STATE - The Venetian Salt Administration - The French Salt Administration - The Habsburg Salt Administration - The Ottoman Salt Administration - The Indian Salt Administration under the Raj - The Chinese Salt Administration under the Late Empire and Early Republic - Notes - Select Bibliography - Index