The way we live now has its roots much further back in history. Do you ever wonder how we came to have seven days in a week, and when we divided off two as the weekend? Why some countries drive on the right and others on the left? When we first started to use spectacles, or plant gardens for pleasure, not just for food? Or why Christians, Jews and Muslims all regard Jerusalem as a holy city? Over eight themed chapters, How it all started takes these and more than 150 similarly intriguing questions about familiar aspects of our daily lives and traces the complex political, social, religious and cultural factors that have shaped our modern world. -Answers more than 150 intriguing questions -Fascinating information presented in an engaging and highly readable way -Deals with the little things as well as the big, from when and why we began to use forks to questions of war and peace and the location of national borders -Topics chosen because there is no immediately obvious explanation as to why we have ended up with the situations we have today -More than 700 photographs, charts and maps help explain and expand answers - from Amzon