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.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
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.
-
Employees are moving out rather than up with career minimalismThe explainer From career ladder to lily pad
-
‘It is their greed and the pollution from their products that hurt consumers’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Jane Austen lives on at these timeless hotelsThe Week Recommends Here’s where to celebrate the writing legend’s 250th birthday
-
‘Mexico: A 500-Year History’ by Paul Gillingham and ‘When Caesar Was King: How Sid Caesar Reinvented American Comedy’ by David Margolickfeature A chronicle of Mexico’s shifts in power and how Sid Caesar shaped the early days of television
-
Homes by renowned architectsFeature Featuring a Leonard Willeke Tudor Revival in Detroit and modern John Storyk design in Woodstock
-
Film reviews: ‘Hamnet,’ ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ and ‘Eternity’Feature Grief inspires Shakespeare’s greatest play, a flamboyant sleuth heads to church and a long-married couple faces a postmortem quandary
-
We Did OK, Kid: Anthony Hopkins’ candid memoir is a ‘page-turner’The Week Recommends The 87-year-old recounts his journey from ‘hopeless’ student to Oscar-winning actor
-
The Mushroom Tapes: a compelling deep dive into the trial that gripped AustraliaThe Week Recommends Acclaimed authors team up for a ‘sensitive and insightful’ examination of what led a seemingly ordinary woman to poison four people
-
‘Chess’feature Imperial Theatre, New York City
-
‘Notes on Being a Man’ by Scott Galloway and ‘Bread of Angels: A Memoir’ by Patti Smithfeature A self-help guide for lonely young men and a new memoir from the godmother of punk
-
6 homes built in the 1700sFeature Featuring a restored Federal-style estate in Virginia and quaint farm in Connecticut
