Battery
Murderers in early 19th century London feared surviving their executions. That’s because their bodies were often handed to scientists for strange anatomical experiments. If George Foster, executed in 1803, had woken up o…
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy
Behind every price tag, spreadsheet, and market fluctuation lies a human story of curiosity, accident, and sometimes sheer stubbornness. In 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy, the BBC World Service presents a journey through the seemingly ordinary objects and concepts that quietly built the world we live in. Host Tim Harford goes far beyond dry economic theory, digging into the surprising origins of things like the plow, the bar code, or the limited liability company. Each episode unpacks how a single invention or idea rippled out, reshaping work, society, and global power structures in ways we rarely stop to consider. You’ll hear how the humble receipt fueled commerce, how the shipping container erased distances, and how double-entry bookkeeping enabled empires. This isn't just a history lesson; it's a series of detective stories that connect the dots between a tangible thing and the abstract forces that govern our daily lives. The podcast makes the invisible architecture of our world visible and compelling, revealing the economic fingerprints on everything from your smartphone to your supermarket shelf. Harford’s engaging storytelling transforms complex topics into accessible and genuinely fascinating narratives, reminding us that the modern economy wasn't built by abstract forces alone, but by concrete things dreamed up by people. Tune in to understand not just how the economy works, but how it came to be.
Episodes
Public Key Cryptography
Take a very large prime number – one that is not divisible by anything other than itself. Then take another. Multiply them together. That is simple enough, and it gives you a very, very large “semi-prime” number. That is…
Robot
Robots threaten the human workforce, but their ubiquity and growing competence make them crucial to the modern economy. In 1961 General Motors installed the first Unimate at one of its plants. It was a one-armed robot re…
Disposable Razor
King Camp Gillette came up with an idea which has helped shape the modern economy. He invented the disposable razor blade. But, perhaps more significantly, he invented the two-part pricing model which works by imposing w…
Clock
There’s no such thing as “the correct time”. Like the value of money, it’s a convention that derives its usefulness from the widespread acceptance of others. But there is such a thing as accurate timekeeping. That dates…
The words 'clever' and 'death' crop up less often than 'Google' in conversation. That’s according to researchers at the University of Lancaster in the UK. It took just two decades for Google to reach this cultural ubiqui…
Insurance
Legally and culturally, there’s a clear distinction between gambling and insurance. Economically, the difference is not so easy to see. Both the gambler and the insurer agree that money will change hands depending on wha…
Paper
The Gutenberg printing press is widely considered to be one of humanity’s defining inventions. Actually, you can quibble with Gutenberg’s place in history. He wasn’t the first to invent a movable type press – it was orig…
Antibiotics
In 1928 a young bacteriologist named Alexander Fleming failed to tidy up his petri dishes before going home to Scotland on holiday. On his return, he famously noticed that one dish had become mouldy in his absence, and t…
Billy Bookcase
Low cost, functional and brilliantly efficient, an Ikea Billy bookcase rolls off the production line every three seconds. There are thought to be over 60 million of them already in service. Few could find the Billy bookc…
