From the author of the acclaimed Measuring America, a dazzling chronicle, through history and across cultures, about how the ability to own the land we inhabit has shaped modern society.Barely two centuries ago, most of the world's productive land still belonged either communally to traditional societies or to the higher powers of monarch or church. But that pattern, and the ways of life that went with it, were consigned to history by, Andro Linklater persuasively ...

At approximately 5:15pm on the afternoon of May 11, 1812, Spencer Perceval, the all-powerful Prime Minister of Great Britain, was fatally shot at short range in the lobby of Parliament. His assailant was John Bellingham, a man who blamed his government for not intervening when he was unjustly imprisoned in Russia. The killer made no effort to escape in the confusion; remarkably, he firmly believed he would not only be exonerated, but applauded, for his action. But he was not to enjoy relie...

Using the same blend of narrative and rhetorical brilliance that made his critically acclaimed debut history so successful, Andro Linklater begins with premier U.S. surveyor Andrew Ellicott calculating the Pennsylvania-Virginia border in 1784- using telescope, chronograph, and astronomical tables. As pioneers move westward, Ellicott and his kind create property which hastens the formation of stabilizing government.

"This expertly written and eminently enjoyable chronicle is highly recommended for history and history of science collections." —Library Journal"Make room on the library shelf for the never-before-told saga of the survey that converted the vast wilderness west of the Ohio River into a commodity marked out for government sale." —Booklist, Starred ReviewHow we ultimately gained the American Customary System-the last traditional system in the world-and how Gunter's chain indel...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this “ambitious and challenging” (The New York Review of Books) work, the bestselling author of Monsoon and Balkan Ghosts offers a revelatory prism through which to view global upheavals and to understand what lies ahead for continents and countries around the world.In The Revenge of Geography, Robert D. Kaplan builds on the insights, discoveries, and theories of great geographers and geopo...

**From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower“A dazzling history of Western ideas.”—The Economist“Mr. Ferguson tells his story with characteristic verve and an eye for the felicitous phrase.” —Wall Street Journal“[W]ritten with vitality and verve . . . a tour de force.” —Boston Globe**Western civilization’s rise to global dominance is the single most important historical phenome...

NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • From two winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, “who have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity”“A wildly ambitious work that hopscotches through history and around the world to answer the very big question of why some countries get rich and others don’t.”—The New York TimesFINALIST: Financial T...

A cinematic and thrilling true story exploring the life and catastrophic marriage of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore—“a tale of wealth, status, and privilege, laced with lust, greed, [and] pride” (The Times)“Spectacular . . . Serious, perceptive, thoughtful and—by no means least—compulsively readable.”—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington PostWith the death of her fabulously wealthy coal magnate father, Mary Eleanor...

The epic story of the rise and fall of the empire of cotton, its centrality to the world economy, and its making and remaking of global capitalism.
 
Cotton is so ubiquitous as to be almost invisible, yet understanding its history is key to understanding the origins of modern capitalism. Sven Beckert’s rich, fascinating book tells the story of how, in a remarkably brief period, European entrepreneurs and powerful statesmen recast the world’s most significant manufacturing industry,...

Dark and foggy Victorian streets, the murderous madman, the arsenic-laced evening meal - we all think we know the realities of Victorian crime. Adrian Gray's thrilling book recounts the classic murders, by knife and poison, but it also covers much more, taking the reader into less familiar parts of Victorian life, uncovering the wicked, the vengeful, the foolish and the hopeless amongst the criminal world of the nineteenth century. Here you will encounter the women who sol...

"Readers cannot but be provoked and stimulated by this splendidly iconoclastic and refreshing book."—Andrew Porter, New York Times Book ReviewThe Wealth and Poverty of Nations is David S. Landes's acclaimed, best-selling exploration of one of the most contentious and hotly debated questions of our time: Why do some nations achieve economic success while others remain mired in poverty? The answer, as Landes definitively illustrates, is a complex interplay of cultur...

In this classic work of economic history and social theory, Karl Polanyi analyzes the economic and social changes brought about by the "great transformation" of the Industrial Revolution. His analysis explains not only the deficiencies of the self-regulating market, but the potentially dire social consequences of untempered market capitalism. New introductory material reveals the renewed importance of Polanyi's seminal analysis in an era of globalization and free trade.