Machine generated contents note: Foreword by Sir John Templeton -- Author's Introduction -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1 Making Tracks: The Industrial Revolution, -- Canals, and Railways -- Chapter 2 Breaking Out: The Story of the U.S. Railroads -- Chapter 3 Investing at the Speed of Sound: --...

This book highlights the contribution of language standardization to the economic rise of the West between 1600 and 1860. Previous studies have been unable to explain why during this period almost all industrial innovation was confined to small areas around the main cultural centers of three...