Victoria Bateman

Humanity’s journey from poverty to prosperity is filled with men who have become household names. But how many female entrepreneurs, merchants and industrialists can you name? Victoria places women at the centre of the story of economic growth. Starting in the Stone Age and continuing to the present day, proving that women weren’t ‘missing’ from economic life, they were merely hidden from view. We discover the female workers who helped to build the Great Pyramid of Giza, and to plumb the city of ancient Rome; the silk weavers who made a vital contribution to the development of the Silk Road and global trade; the women who dominated London’s brewing trade during medieval times; and the brave twentieth-century pioneers who fought to make our economies not just richer but fairer.