This book affected the way that I looked at the world, from a historical perspective, and in every world-building exercise I've ever undertaken for a novel or short story.It literally change my perspective. A must read for anyone who wants to write speculative fiction or understand why it is that some groups of people, i.e., the West, has so much, and some other groups, i.e., the developing world, has so little. I really wish I'd read this before I wrote The Amadeus Net. Not that I feel like I got the relationships wrong, but because I may have been a little too hard on both parties.
