American Business History

An enlightening and entertaining interrogation of the myth of American self-reliance and the idea of hard work as destiny “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” This phrase, arguably Thomas Edison’s most famous quote, has been drilled into the minds of...

It’s Not too Late to Build Toward a Better Future! Rick Caruso has earned a reputation for being a problem solver—somebody who’s not afraid of facing big challenges. From his appointment to Water Commissioner and later Police Commissioner in Los Angeles to his bold real estate ventures...

“The go-to guy on minimum wage” (Nobel Laureate and New York Times bestselling author Paul Krugman) tackles one of the thorniest social issues of our times—income inequality—from a new vantage point with field-leading economics. How did the labor market stop working for so many in the...

J. G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions, and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields". The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s, drained one of America 's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world.

Myers was an American journalist and historian who published a series of highly critical and influential studies on the social costs of wealth accumulation.

A landmark work from one of the preeminent historians of our time: the first published biography of Andrew W. Mellon, the American colossus who bestrode the worlds of industry, government, and philanthropy, leaving his transformative stamp on each. Following a boyhood in nineteenth-century...

A revelatory history of American division through the prism of two ships, whose widespread use to define that division has been lost to memory despite their enduring legacy In the bitterly polarized decades leading up to the American Civil War, it was commonplace to argue that America’s strife...

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice For decades, affirmative action reshaped not just American higher education but the broader society, opening doors that had been closed for centuries and transforming who entered the pathways to power. But the Supreme Court in 2023 killed...

In The Foresighted Ambedkar, Anurag Bhaskar argues that India’s Constitution was drafted not just between 1946 and 1950 but over the course of four decades. Dr Ambedkar was the only person to have been involved at all the stages related to the drafting of the Indian constitutional document...

A sweeping history of the legendary private investment firm Brown Brothers Harriman, exploring its central role in the story of American wealth and its rise to global power Conspiracy theories have always swirled around Brown Brothers Harriman, and not without reason. Throughout the nineteenth...

For women approaching midlife who have abandoned themselves in service of others, a memoir of jumping feet first into a new life, reclaiming long-forgotten joys, and discovering a renewed sense of self after divorce As Kate Washington approached her 50th birthday, she was also ending a 23-year...

In his 1996 #1 New York Times bestseller We’re Right, They’re Wrong, political strategist James Carville eviscerated the Republican economic agenda and debunked many of the GOP’s ludicrous positions on national issues such as health care, welfare, tax reform, and economic growth. Now...

The world--famous former con artist and bestselling author of Catch Me if You Can now reveals the mind--boggling tricks of the scam trade--with advice that has made him one of America's most sought--after fraud--prevention experts. "I had as much knowledge as any man alive concerning the...

A reissue of Sammy Davis Jr.’s 1965 autobiography, Yes I Can chronicles this entertainment icon’s rise to stardom, and his career-spanning pursuit of racial justice. “I had to prove I was somebody. And I knew the only way to do that was to show the world what I could do.” —Sammy Davis...

The gripping, definitive account of the private family behind one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world. When Edward C. Johnson 2d founded Fidelity in 1946, investing was a pursuit reserved for the elite. Today, more than $15 trillion flows through Fidelity’s customer...

Morgan Siler is one of Washington, D.C.'s most powerful K Street law firms, its roster of clients stocked with multibillion-dollar corporations. The obsessive efforts of its senior partner, Peter Morgan, have transformed it from an old-fashioned business into a veritable Goliath. As Peter...

In this ambitious and groundbreaking history of the dollar, financial journalist and economic scholar Brendan Greeley makes a new argument about the origins of our money—and the people and nations who have surrendered to it. America’s money is global money—nearly every nation in the world...

The only woman in Forbes’ Greatest Business Stories of All Time and the first woman to chair a company on the New York Stock Exchange, Mary Kay Ash has a life story that reads like a Barbara Taylor Bradford novel Growing up in Depression-era Texas, Mary Kathlyn Wagner is a dutiful daughter and...

In his acclaimed book American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips warned of the perilous interaction of debt, financial recklessness, and the spiking cost (and growing scarcity) of oil- warnings that are proving to be frighteningly accurate. Now, in his most significant and timely book yet, Phillips...

“Contravening conventional wisdom, Zelizer offers a spirited defense of parties and partisanship.” —Frances Lee, Princeton University Partisanship is a dirty word in American politics. If there is one issue on which almost everyone in our divided country seems to agree, it’s the belief...