How the Roman empire shaped the West and the emergence of the modern economy

Most historians recounting the rise of the West begin their narratives somewhere in the Middle Ages. In this groundbreaking account, historian Taco Terpstra argues that if we want to understand how the rise of the West unfolded, we need to look further back—all the way to the Neolithic, when an upward trend in social development began.

For millennia after the Neolithic Revolution, the fastest rising…