MORE : the 10,000-year rise of the world economy.

'Big and timely ... Coggan's account of the rise of the world economy is accessible and mercifully free of jargon' Sunday Times More tracks the development of the world economy, starting with the first obsidian blades that made their way from what is now Turkey to the Iran-Iraq border 7000 years before Christ, and ending with the Sino-American trade war that we are in right now. Taking history in great strides, More illustrates broad changes by examining details from the design of the standard medieval cottage to the stranglehold that Paris's three belt-buckle-making guilds exercised over innovation in the field of holding up trousers. Along the way Coggan reveals that historical economies were far more sophisticated than we might imagine - tied together by webs of credit and financial instruments much like the modern economy. Coggan shows how, at every step of our long journey, it was connections between people - allowing more trade, more specialisation, more ideas and more freedom - that always created the conditions of prosperity. Where did all this stuff come from? There are seventeen ingredients in a typical tube of toothpaste, from titanium dioxide to xanthum gum, and that's not counting the tube. Everything had to come from somewhere and someone had to bring it all together. The humblest household product reveals a web of enterprise that stretches around the globe. More is the story of how we spun that web. It begins with the earliest glimmerings of long-distance trade - obsidian blades that made their way from what is now Turkey to the Iran-Iraq border 7,000 years before Christ - and ends with the current Sino-American trade war. On such a grand scale, quirks of historical perspective leap out: futures contracts and commercial branding are among the many seemingly modern components of the global economy that have existed since ancient times. Yet it was only in the eighteenth century that a cascade of innovations began to drive up prosperity in a lasting way around the world. To piece this fascinating saga together, Philip Coggan takes the reader inside medieval cottages and hi-tech hydroponic farms, prehistoric Chinese burial mounds and modern central banks. At every step of our journey, he finds that it was connections between people that created our wealth. This gradual expansion of the human network brought us more of what we wanted, more of what we needed and more of what we never imagined. Will the same openness continue to serve us in the twenty-first century? Philip Coggan takes us from the ancient mountains of North Wales through Grand Central station and the great civilizations of Mesopotamia to the factories of Malaysia, showing how changes in agriculture, finance, technology, work, and demographics have driven the progress of human civilization. It's the story of how trade became broader and deeper over thousands of years, how governments have influenced economies, for good or ill, and how societies have repeatedly tried to tame and harness finance. This book shows how, at every step of our long journey, it was the connection between people that resulted in more trade, more specialization, more freedom, and ultimately, more prosperity A panoramic history of trade, industry and economic thought, from prehistoric times to the present.