For most of human history nearly everyone was very poor, and average incomes barely moved across centuries. Hunger was common, and roughly half of children died before adulthood in many places. The big divergence came with the Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain and spread to Western Europe and North America, where productivity and output per person surged. Other regions grew more slowly, so by the twentieth century the gap between rich and poor countries was enormous. Today's global inequality is largely the result of these two centuries of uneven growth, shaped by when technological change arrived, which places traded, and which had stable institutions.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.