Rana Dasgupta is a recipient of one of this year's Windham Campbell Prizes for non-fiction.
Against the Grain
Scott is one of those rare academics whose writing is a thing of beauty. This book shows how the first states – such as Sumer in Mesopotamia – could not have emerged without grain. As a durable and transportable form of value, grain could be taxed – and everything else flowed from that.
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The City of Blue and White
Anne Gerritsen, 2020
This fascinating book tells the extraordinary story of China's porcelain industry, which from the 14th century began to export everywhere. Six centuries ago, China was already the "factory to the world".
Empire of Cotton: A Global History
Sven Beckert, 2014
Silver, cotton and sugar fuelled the shift to Western power. In rich detail, this describes the hair-raising manoeuvres that allowed Britain, in particular, to build an "empire of cotton" and so dominate the modern world.
Late Victorian Holocausts
Mike Davis, 2000
Davis’s account of the destruction of Asia is not for the faint-hearted: his descriptions of mass famines in 1870s India and China – which had been, until recently, the richest places on the planet – are excruciating. But they teach us a lot about the enormous hunger for success that both countries have displayed in the past few decades.
The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality
Katharina Pistor, 2019
The mechanics of law might seem an obscure subject. Pistor gives you the sense it is the only subject. She shows how the legal artifice creates capital; and so reveals why the global distribution of wealth changes so little over time, and why our political system can never fulfil the utopian promises on which its legitimacy rests. Dark and fascinating.
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October 19 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday's editorial cartoons include Pete Hegseth and the press, an absence of government, and George Washington crossing the Delaware
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AI: is the bubble about to burst?In the Spotlight Stock market ever-more reliant on tech stocks whose value relies on assumptions of continued growth and easy financing
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A little-visited Indian Ocean archipelago
The Week Recommends The paradise of the Union of the Comoros features beautiful beaches, colourful coral reefs and lush forests
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Diane Keaton: the Oscar-winning star of Annie HallIn the Spotlight Something’s Gotta Give actor dies from pneumonia at the age of 79
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Heirs and Graces: an ‘enthralling’ deep dive into the decline of nobilityThe Week Recommends Eleanor Doughty explores the ‘bizarre fascination’ with the British aristocracy
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Taylor Swift’s Showgirl: Much glitter, little goldFeature Swift’s new album has broken records, but critics say she may have gotten herself creatively stuck
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Theater review: Masquerade218 W. 57th St., New York City 218 W. 57th St., New York City
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