31 Inventions that Built Our World: FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF THE WORLD...

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Jonn Elledge

31 Inventions that Built Our World

Name: 31 Inventions that Built Our World
Price: 34.99 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9781035432776

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 47 BORDERS

Jonn Elledge

$34.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

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English

WILDFIRE
25 August 2026

Prose: non-fiction; History; History of other lands; Historical geography

For over 10,000 years, the human race has 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 - happen?

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, street numbering to sewers, he guides us through the history of civilisation itself.

By: Jonn Elledge
Imprint: WILDFIRE
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
ISBN: 9781035432776
ISBN 10: 1035432773
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 25 August 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Jonn Elledge is a New Statesman and New World columnist, a regular on the podcasts Oh God, What Now? and the late, lamented Paper Cuts, and a frequent contributor to The i Paper, the Guardian and assorted other publications. He was previously an assistant editor at the New Statesman, where he created and ran its urbanism-focused CityMetric site, spending six happy years writing about cities, maps and borders and hosting the Skylines podcast. He has written three books, as well as over 200 editions of the Newsletter of (Not Quite) Everything. He lives in London, with the best dog in the world.