Salt
..made the world go round....
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SALT AND MONOMANIA
When writing about the history of a particular commodity or even a person, there is the danger of over-estimating the subject's importance in the general historical context. Studying the influence of salt on such great events as the rise and fall of civilizations, one may be tempted to ascribe more to the effects of one's chosen subject than the facts will stand. Indeed, the reader, simply by looking at historical happenings in the light of the developments in the salt trade may attribute a degree of monomania to the author. MRBLOCH ARCHIVES are aware of this danger but the style and method of thinking does not easily permit the necessary flexibility of this broad SALT hypotheses. So when saying, people did this or that in order to obtain salt, the reader should bear in mind that it means that salt was a major contributory factor.
For such is the complexity of causation in human affairs
and such is the distance of time, the specialist needs to be taken with
a pinch of "salt".
Yet a central question remains, even after all the allowances are made
for single-minded analysis; why has the history of mankind tended to
ignore the importance of salt, the salt trade and the alkali industry in
general? No doubt there are several reasons. One at least, is that
it is only in relatively recent years that historians have regarded trade
generally as the property object of their study. For many, history is the
history of politics largely divorced from economic and commercial considerations.
Moreover, they have traditionally paid little regard to the importance
of physical changes in climate and geography.
It is also important to appreciate how much the nature of archaeological evidence colours our view of the past. Because of their ubiquity, pottery and grave stone inscriptions are very well understood and recognised. But by their nature, alkali salts are easily dissolved and are difficult to trace in ancient ruins.
Perhaps such traditional views tend to mirror the ideas of contemporary commentators who write about what they consider remarkable rather than recording the commonplace which they take for granted.
On the other hand, the governments of several countries have tried to hide the importance and function of certain chemicals, in particular saltpetre, as an essential constituent of gunpowder. No doubt there are several reasons.
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MRBLOCH ARCHIVE, is researching the significance, of SALT [NaCl] through the period 1000 BC . up to the Industrial Revolution.
For detailed references of statements made here, or Bibliography- Please mail:
salt & ECONOMICS] salt & [ PHYSIOLOGY ] salt & [ GEOLOGY] salt & [ RELIGION ] salt & [ PALAEOCLIMATEOLOGY] salt & [ PALAEGEOGRAPHY] salt & [ ARCHAEOLOGY] salt & [ PRODUCTION] salt & [ MONOMANIA ] salt & [ HOME PAGE - SALT made the world go round
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