From the bestselling author of A History of the World in 6 Glasses, an eye-opening road trip through 5,500 years of humans on the go, revealing how transportation inevitably shapes civilization.Hailed for their "colorful, smooth, and wonderfully engaging" writing (Smithsonian), Tom Standage's fleet-footed and surprising global histories have delighted readers and cemented his reputation as one of our leading interpreters of technologies past and present. N...

'Speckled with anecdotes, insights and surprises. It is great fun - and utterly timely' Sunday Times'Standage writes with a masterly clarity' New York Times'The product of deep research, great intelligence and burnished prose . . . It is rare that I encounter a non-fiction author whose prose is so elegant that it is worth reading for itself. Standage is a writer of this class' Wall Street Journal

The world can be an amazing place if you know the right questions to ask:How did carrots become orange? What's stopping us from having a four-day week? How can we remove all the broken bits of satellite from orbit? If everything is so terrible, why is the global suicide rate falling?The keen minds of the Economist love to look beyond everyday appearances to find out what really makes things tick. In this latest collection of The Economist Explains, they have gathered togeth...

Throughout history, food has done more than simply provide sustenance. It has acted as a tool of social transformation, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict and economic expansion. In An Edible History of Humanity Tom Standage serves up a hugely satisfying account of ways in which food has, indirectly, helped to shape and transform societies around the world. It is a dazzling account of gastronomic revolutions from pr...

Which James Bond drinks the most martinis?What do Satanists really believe?How do hurricanes get their names?Why are bees disappearing?Is chocolate healthy?...Go Figure has the answers.Bringing together the very best from the clever people at The Economist, Go Figure explains the mind-boggling, the peculiar and the profound, things you might always have quietly wondered about and yet more you didn't know you didn't know...

The more we ponder, the odder the world can seem.How do footballers get their shirt numbers?Why does having daughters make couples more likely to divorce?How do you move a horse from one country to another?What counts as a journey into space?The keen minds at The Economist contemplate all these questions and more in their quest for the globe's most extraordinary quandaries and conund...

Our extraordinary world makes more (and sometimes less) sense when you wonder:What's driving the international turkey-meat boom?How does a cannonball determine a maritime boundary?Where can you wed your mobile phone?Why do septuagenarians have a better chance of summiting Mount Everest than ever?The ever-keen minds of The Economist Explains solve all these riddles and more in their latest encyclopaedic excursion around the globe. Baf...

The bestselling author of A History of the World in 6 Glasses charts an enlightening history of humanity through the foods we eat.Throughout history, food has done more than simply provide sustenance. It has acted as a tool of social transformation, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict and economic expansion. An Edible History of Humanity is an account of how food has helped to shape and trans...

The world can be an amazing place if you know the right questions to ask:How much does a ghost reduce a house's value? How are winemakers responding to climate change? How much should you tip your Uber driver? Should your dog fear Easter more than fireworks?The keen minds of The Economist love to look beyond everyday appearances to find out what really makes things tick. In this latest collection of The Economist Explains, they have gathered the weirdest a...

Calling all problem-solvers drawn to the smart, quirky and counter-intuitive.Challenge yourself to join the dots, get your facts straight and sort the genuine from the fake in this puzzle book inspired by the sharpest brains at The Economist.Do stocks with catchy names outperform the market? Is Bohemian Rhapsody really longer than Hey Jude? And can geopolitics affect the popularity of dog breeds? Packed with hidden connections and...

Some questions you never think to ask. Others, you didn't know you didn't know. And some facts are so surprising they cry out for answers.What can a president actually do? Why do cities sink into the ground? Why is Australia seemingly invulnerable to recessions? Why do people in couples do more housework than singletons?The brilliant minds of the Economist collect these questions. Individually, they might seem bite-sized and inconsequential, but taken together they can reveal...

Today we are endlessly connected: constantly tweeting, texting or e-mailing. This may seem unprecedented, yet it is not. Throughout history, information has been spread through social networks, with far-reaching social and political effects. Writing on the Wall reveals how an elaborate network of letter exchanges forewarned of power shifts in Cicero's Rome, while the torrent of tracts circulating in sixteenth-century Germany triggered the Reformation. Standagetraces the story of t...