Puns aside, this is no soft topic. Any researcher in Latin American 19th-century economic history knows that the export economy can involve some gritty details, from the guano industry (that's bat $%^&) in Peru to saltpeter in Chile. Saltpeter, also known as peter dirt, is the slang term for sodium nitrate, a chemical that cane be used as a fertilizer and as a food preservative.
What is Saltpeter?
Saltpeter is, perhaps, best known among the masses as a purported anti-aphrodesiac, at the center of many urban legends. During WWII American GIs claimed the Army fed them saltpeter in their food to cut down on sexual arousal and to make barracks and battlefield life more bearable. This is just a myth, as no evidence has been produced to prove the claim, but the idea that saltpeter makes for a more flaccid life remains inextricably intertwined with the word "saltpeter," regardless of mythbusting.
The Nitrate King
John Thomas North was not well known in his home country, but by the end of his years in Chile he had skyrocketed to the top of England's wealthy subjects, having developed and exploited the sodium nitrate mining and export industry in Chile. Victorian England was not, as a rule, kind to self-made men, with class and long-entrenched aristocratic conventions hamstringing social climbers. North was, in many ways, a Robber Baron on the wrong continent, better appreciated in the United States than in his own home country.
Edmundson's research is above reproach; methodical and almost zealous adherence to exhaustive historical mining is evident. The dry academic writing style makes The Nitrate King simply good, and not great, and a book that will not find much of a wider audience outside of academia. The book was written for an academic audience, and succeeds in reaching professional historians, but could have readily translated into a more popular historical biography with a different approach.
The Nitrate King offers readers a very unique slice of history, but one that comes at a steep price. Academic niche subjects do not, as a rule, sell many copies when in book form. Hence the word "niche." As such, The Nitrate King is priced at a hefty $85 in hardcover (no paperback issued as of this writing), making this one book that readers need to be motivated to buy. It's not an impulse purchase. Palgrave MacMillan has not put the book out in eBook form, which is a shame, as a cheaper electronic version could gain the book a wider audience among academics and interested lay persons alike.
Melanie Zoltan - Melanie Zoltan is a former college professor and administrator who has written for About.com, PCWorld, Brain Child, Thomson Gale, and ...
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