This book takes a look at an ordinary substance--salt, the only rock humans eat-- and how it has shaped civilization from the very beginning.

Discourse on salt, cadavers, and pungent sources: Mandate of salt -- Fish, fowl, and pharoahs [sic] -- Saltmen hard as codfish -- Salt's salad days -- Salting it away in the Adriatic -- Two ports and the prosciutto in between -- Glow of herring and the scent of conquest: Friday's salt -- Nordic dream -- Well-salted hexagon -- Hapsburg pickle -- Leaving of Liverpool -- American salt wars -- Salt and independence -- Liberte, egalite, tax breaks -- Preserving independence -- War between the salts -- Red salt -- Sodium's perfect marriage: Odium of sodium -- Mythology of geology -- Soil never sets on -- Salt and the great soul -- Not looking back -- Last salt days of Zigong -- Ma, La, and Mao -- More salt than fish -- Big salt, little salt.