Finance Biography

Here is a bold new history of economics, the dramatic story of how the great economic thinkers built a rigorous social science without peer.

In September 2014, a Chinese company that most Americans had never heard of held the largest IPO in history - bigger than Google, Facebook, and Twitter combined. Alibaba, now the world's largest ecommerce company, mostly escaped Western notice for over 10 years, while building a customer base larger than Amazon's and handling the bulk of ecommerce transactions in China. How did it happen? And what was it like to be along for such a revolutionary ride?

In this comprehensive account of Bernie Madoff' s epic Ponzi scheme, Catastrophe exposes the real story behind the financial mastermind' s upstanding façade—his confession, his family's involvement, and his unlikely rise and incredible crash. The book defines and explains the whole diabolical debacle, including how Madoff evaded SEC watchdogs and how his far-reaching crime pervaded the world.

Beating the Odds is the improbable, inspiring autobiography of financial guru Eddie C. Brown, one of the nation's top stock pickers and money managers. It details how Brown skillfully kept Brown Capital Management afloat through the dot-com bust, 9/11, and the Great Recession. Born to a 13-year-old unwed mother in the rural South, this African-American investment whiz created a Baltimore-based financial firm that amassed more than $6 billion under management.

In December 2008, the world watched as master financier Bernard L. Madoff was taken away from his posh Manhattan apartment in handcuffs, accused of swindling thousands of innocent victims-including friends and family-out of billions of dollars in the world's largest Ponzi scheme. Madoff went to...

“Simply put, the leftist labor unions have the Democrats in their pockets. And we’re all paying the price.” Linda Chavez, President George W. Bush’s original choice for Secretary of Labor and a former union official, is one of the foremost authorities on America’s labor unions. Now, in...

Die Geschichte von fritz-kola klingt unglaublich: Als Mirco Wolf Wiegert 2003 mit einem Kumpel 7000 Euro zusammenkratzte und aus dem Studentenwohnheim heraus Coca-Cola herausforderte, war das eine Sternstunde der Gründerszene. Die beiden vertickten die ersten Kästen via Direktvertrieb an angesagte Clubs im Hamburger Schanzenviertel und eroberten von dort aus Deutschland und die Welt. Heute ist fritz die alternative Kola und Limonade Nummer eins mit fast 300 Mitarbeitern in über 25 europäischen Ländern, hat sich nicht kaufen lassen und lebt "indie" at it's best.

Whiting, Indiana Saturday, August 27, 1955 Sunrise, 6:11 a.m. Its 80 degrees in the shade, and most of the city's residents are still trying to sleep off an airless, oppressive night. But inside the plant at Whiting's biggest employer (and one of the worlds largest oil refineries), something has gone horribly wrong, something that threatens to destroy the entire community. The clock changes. 6:12 a.m. This is the story of what happened at one minute after sunrise on that cataclysmic day in 1955, spoken in the words of the people who lived through it.

Arianna Huffington is one of the world's most prominent business leaders in media. As cofounder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, she built the first internet newspaper, which eclipsed the traffic of the New York Times and won the Pulitzer Prize. This concise but richly detailed biography provides an overview of Huffington's life and career, chronicling her journey from Athens to London, New York, Washington and California, across seven decades.

What would be the "right" price for your loved one - and can you avoid putting others at risk by paying it? What prevents criminals from maltreating hostages? How do you (safely) pay a ransom? Kidnap: Inside the Ransom Business uncovers how a group of insurers at Lloyd's of London have solved these thorny problems for their customers. Based on interviews with industry insiders (from both sides), as well as hostage stakeholders, it uncovers an intricate and powerful private governance system ordering transactions between the legal and the criminal economies.

In a book that’s both accessible and enlightening, Rebecca Friedrichs recounts her 30-year odyssey as an elementary school teacher who comes face to face with the forces dividing and corrupting our schools and culture - state and national teachers’ unions. An exciting true story that features real-life testimonies of teachers, parents, and kids as well as political and social commentary, Rebecca’s journey leads her to the realization that the only hope for America’s schools and families is returning authority to parents and teachers while lessening the grip of state and national unions.

Kellogg in the late 1940s and 50s was a typical American small town complete with high school football and basketball teams, marching band, and anti-Communist clubs; yet its bars, gambling dens, and brothels were entrenched holdovers from a rowdier frontier past. The Bunker Hill Mining Company, the largest employer, paid miners good wages for difficult, dangerous work, while the quest for lead, silver, and zinc denuded the mountainsides and laced the soil and water with contaminants.

In A Just and Generous Nation, the eminent historian Harold Holzer and the noted economist Norton Garfinkle present a groundbreaking new account of the beliefs that inspired our 16th president to go to war when the Southern states seceded from the Union. Rather than a commitment to eradicating slavery or a defense of the Union, they argue that Lincoln's guiding principle was the defense of equal economic opportunity.

Although one of the most influential thinkers of the last millennium, Karl Marx was relatively unheralded during most of his lifetime. Famous for predicting the inevitable demise of capitalism, it was only after his death that his clarion call reached a wide audience: "Workers of the world unite - you have nothing to lose but your chains." Andrew Collier breathes new life into the achievements of Karl Marx, arguing that his work is still of vital relevance in today’s global climate of inequality.

Facebook's founding is legend: In a Harvard dorm, wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg invented a new way to connect with friends...and the rest is history. But for the people who actually molded this great idea into a game-changing $300 billion company, the experience was far more tumultuous and uncertain than we might expect. Mike Hoefflinger was one of those Facebook insiders.

Der Wirecard-Skandal ist einmalig in der deutschen Wirtschaftsgeschichte - ein einziger großer Fake. Wie konnte es zu diesem filmreifen Bankrott eines Dax-Konzerns kommen? Wer sind die Köpfe hinter dem Betrug? Wer muss dafür büßen? Und warum ist das weltumspannende kriminelle Netzwerk erst nach so langer Zeit aufgeflogen? Die Journalisten Bettina Weiguny und Georg Meck - beide federführend an der UFA-Verfilmung des Wirecard-Skandals beteiligt - entwerfen das Psychogramm eines Jahrhundertskandals.

Charlie Munger ist visionärer Vizepräsident von Berkshire Hathaway, einem der 20 größten Unternehmen der USA. Doch noch mehr ist er Warren Buffetts unersetzlicher Geschäftspartner, der über Jahrzehnte besser abgeschnitten hat als der Markt. Munger ist davon überzeugt, dass Sie als Investor dasselbe schaffen können. Seine Lebenserfahrung - ein Bündel interdisziplinärer Denkmodelle aus Wirtschaft, Psychologie und Philosophie - ermöglicht es ihm, Emotionen und Investitionen strikt zu trennen und so die üblichen Fallstricke beim Investieren zu meiden. Das können auch Sie.

Pulling back the curtain, Matt Picheny reveals the power of purposeful investing to improve life for you, your family, and even the world, one passive investment at a time. His uncommon journey from actor to real estate investor exposes the power of passive income to liberate you from necessity, setting you financially free to write your own story.

On the death of France's most glorious king, Louis XIV, in 1715, few people benefited from the shift in power more than the intriguing financial genius from Edinburgh, John Law. Law had proposed to the English monarch that a bank be established to issue paper money with the credit based on the value of land. But Queen Anne was not about to take advice from a gambler and felon. So, in exile in Paris, he convinced the bankrupt court of Louis XV of the value of his idea.

Magazine entrepreneur Randall Lane had a prime seat at Wall Street's biggest greed fest. The Zeroes is a memoir about the excesses and bad behavior of an outsider who got pulled into a crazy, self-contained world.