In the latter half of the fourth millennium BC, our ancestors witnessed a remarkable transformation, progressing from simple agrarian villages to complex urban civilizations. In regions as far apart as the Nile Valley, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, and the Indus Valley, the first states appeared...

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, global trade increased dramatically: between 1816 and 1914 trade grew between 3 and 4 percent per annum, compared with about 1 percent annual trade growth in preceding centuries. Southeast Asian commodity production for the global economy boomed:...