Age of Invention: The Second Soul, Part I

You’re reading Age of Invention, my newsletter on the causes of the British Industrial Revolution and the history of innovation, which goes out to 28,000 people. This is the first instalment of this year’s special series on unsung materials. To stay tuned, subscribe here:Subscribe nowHere’s a riddle. There was a product in the seventeenth century that was universally considered a necessity as important as grain and fuel. Controlling the source of this product was one of the first priorities for ...