based on the BBC World Service television series Who came up with paper money? How has the legal profession changed as a result of the pill for birth control? Why was the horse collar just as crucial to the advancement of humanity as the steam engine? How did the simple spreadsheet upend the financial industry? Understanding the global economy is impossible. It connects practically all of the seven billion people on the earth and is a dynamic system of great complexity that offers over ten billion unique goods and services and grows in size every fifteen years. Millions of people receive unbelievable luxury thanks to it. Additionally, it devastates the biosphere, leaves hundreds of millions behind, and stalls alarmingly frequently. There is no one in charge of it. Indeed,