THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE * AN ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. These fundamental materials have created empires, razed civilizations, and fed our ingenuity and greed for thousands of years. Without them,...

The protagonists of this book won't be familiar to most readers. Pythagoras, Newton and Descartes seldom feature. Instead, it highlights the remarkable lives and works of a diverse group of pioneers, who fought millennia of oppression to leave a spectacular legacy of mind-melting ideas and theorems....

LONGLISTED FOR THE CUNDHILL HISTORY PRIZE 'An acerbic, compelling and always accessible account of how opium corrupted the world' TLS 'The writing is sublime, the research thorough, the eye for story superb' Sunday Telegraph