50 Things That Made the Modern Economy

Tim Harford takes one invention per episode and explains how it changed the way people live and work. Most episodes run about nine minutes, which makes this the easiest show on the list to fit into a short drive or a coffee break. Begin with barbed wire, a neat example of how a simple fence reshaped the American West. The first series ran on the BBC World Service from 2016 to 2017 and a second began in 2019, so the feed is finished and can be dipped into in any order.