31 Inventions that Built Our World

A FASCINATING DELVE INTO THE HISTORY OF THE CITY, BY THE SUNDAY TIMES #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 47 BORDERS

‘Charming and outstandingly nerdish’
ROBERT WEBB

‘I love Jonn Elledge; I love the way he looks at the world’
MARINA HYDE

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For over 10,000 years, we humans have been busy altering our environment and embracing ‘progress’, evolving seamlessly from hunter gatherers to the modern urban sophisticates we see ourselves as today.

But what are the ideas and inventions that enabled humanity to become, by the early 21st century, a majority urban species for the first time? How did the essential infrastructure of modern life – the innovations that we barely even notice, but without which our world would fall apart – actually come to be?

With his characteristic wit and boundless curiosity, Jonn Elledge invites us to join him on a fascinating and often surprising tour of the ideas and technologies that made modernity possible. From elevators to electric lighting, parks to pedestrian crossings, he guides us through the history of civilisation itself.

A History of the World in 47 Borders was The Sunday Times No 1 Bestseller April 2025