What was the tallest building of the ancient world? What was the plumbing like in medieval Byzantium? And just how much was the average wage in the Mughal Empire? We are used to thinking about history in terms of stories, yet we understand our own world through data. Combing through history, Peter Turchin and Dan Hoyer dive into the numbers that reveal the true shape of the past, delivering statistics and commentary on the spread of writing, bronze, monogamy, gunpowder, and the postal service.