Common salt is a substance seemingly too ordinary to think about -- yet it is the oldest of our raw materials & the basis of some of our newest inventions. Mythology & folklore abound in accounts of its power & importance. Salt has been a crucial source of revenue to governments from ancient china to "ancien regime" France & even the U.S. And the ongoing search for this valuable commodity ushered in the age of petroleum fuels. In the first comprehensive history of salt, Robert Multhauf tells the remarkable story of its production, its uses, & its role in various cultures from ancient times to the present. This book, with its excellent photographs, is to be recommended to everyone interest in the history of culture & technology. (view table of contents)

Product Description: The Origins of Chemistry integrates the histories of Greek, Arabic, and Latin alchemical traditions with philosophy, technology, and the genesis of medical chemistry. Multhauf differs from his predecessors by finding the sources of chemistry not in medieval alchemy, but in the "chemical" science of matter described in antiquity...read more