This Hill Made Everyone Rich. Except Its Own Country

Around 1600, one hill in the Andes was producing more than half of the world's mined silver. Its coins paid for Spain's wars, crossed the Pacific to buy Chinese silk and became America's first dollar. Today Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in South America. So why did the silver make everyone rich except the people next to it? And why did the cold, empty colonies up north, the ones with nothing worth digging, end up eight times richer than Latin America? Follow one coin from Potosí to Seville, Manila and Philadelphia, and see what forced labor, land grants, schools and ballots did to both halves of the Americas. Chapters 0:00 Follow the coin 0:42 Two starting lines 1:29 A city at 4,000 meters 2:13 The long road out 3:08 Nothing worth digging 4:19 Break up, boom, bust 5:25 The receipt 6:24 Next: Britain's head start #geography #history #economics