Unlocking the World

About the book

Unlocking the World by John Darwin is a history book for adult readers.

The dramatic story of how steam power reshaped our cities and our seas, and forged a new world order Steam power transformed our world. It revolutionized work and production, but also the ease and cost of movement over land and water. The result was to throw open vast areas of the world to the rampaging expansion of Europeans and Americans on a scale previously unimaginable.

Unlocking the World is the captivating history of the great port cities which emerged as the bridgeheads of this new steam-driven economy, reshaping not just the trade and industry of the regions around them but their culture and politics as well. They were the agents of what we now call 'globalization', but their impact and influence, and the reactions they provoked, were far from predictable. Nor were they immune to the great upheavals in world politics across the 'steam century'. This book is global history at its very best.

Delivery & pickup: Available from Whimsy and Wonder with New Zealand delivery or Christchurch pickup.