Interesting book that was an easy read.  Each invention is a chapter that essentially stands alone, so it’s an easy book to pick up and put down.  The author’s self-described purpose is not to list the fifty most economically significant inventions.  It’s instead to tell of interesting inventions that shaped the economy by tugging on a complex web of economic connections.  Sometimes they tangled us up, sometimes they sliced through old constraints, and sometimes they weaved entirely new patterns.

The author is a good writer and the book is enjoyable and informative.  The only downside is that he’s a European who thinks all good things and all responsibility are ultimately inherent in government.  The book was written in 2017, so there are numerous references to climate change and several digs at the current administration in Washington.  That aside, however, the book is worth reading.  The fifty inventions are (apparently in no certain order):

1. The plow
2. The gramophone
3. Barbed wire
4. Seller feedback (pioneered by eBay)
5. Google search
6. Passports
7. Robots
8. The welfare state
9. Infant formula
10. TV dinners
11. The pill
12. Video games
13. Market research
14. Air conditioning
15. Department stores
16. The dynamo
17. The shipping container
18. The bar code
19. The cold chain (refrigerated transportation)
20. Tradable debt
21. The Billy bookcase (Ikea)
22. The elevator
23. Cuneiform
24. Public-key cryptography
25. Double-entry bookkeeping
26. Limited liability companies
27. Management consulting
28. Intellectual property
29. The compiler
30. The iPhone
31. Diesel engines
32. Clocks
33. Chemical fertilizer
34. Radar
35. Batteries
36. Plastic
37. The bank
38. Razors and blades
39. Tax havens
40. Leaded gasoline
41. Antibiotics in farming
42. M-pesa (mobile money)
43. Property registers
44. Paper
45. Index funds
46. The S-bend (traps in drain pipes)
47. Paper money
48. Concrete
49. Insurance
50. The lightbulb