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Born in 1839, Henry George learned about poverty early in life, first as a boy-sailor and afterwards by working as a type-setter with a wife and children to support. A talented writer, he gradually rose to become managing editor of the San Francisco Times, and later set up his own crusading journal, the San Francisco Daily Evening Post, only to see his newspaper crushed by the combined power of the press and telegraphic monopolies. Undaunted, George set himself the task of explaining a universal economic conundrum - why does a country's increasing prosperity always result in the most abject poverty for the lowest strata of society? Untrained in economics, he came to the subject with fresh eyes: "I had no theory to support, no conclusions to prove.