A History of the Global Economy

This is a history of the global economy, starting with the appearance of Homo sapiens and ending with the 21st century with a final chapter that attempts to look into the future. It belongs to the new genre of histories of the human species or H. sapiens from the time the species emerged: other recent examples are the books by Blainey (2000), Harari (2014) and Rutherford (2016).1 The book by White differs from the others in that it uses the concepts and tools of the discipline of economic history to enlighten our understanding of the history of global economic activity. I shall use my understanding of growth economics and the analysis of globalization to evaluate what the discipline of economic history adds to our understanding of global history