Financial History

“They’re still trying to hide the weenie,” thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. . . It quoted [CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company’s creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. “Don’t assume that there...

In 2019, a Chinese entity called Tencent overtook Facebook to become the world's fifth-largest company. It was a watershed moment, a wake-up call for those in the West accustomed to regarding the global tech industry through the prism of Silicon Valley: Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft. Yet to many of the two billion-plus people who live just across the Pacific Ocean, it came as no surprise at all.

From the invention of interest in Mesopotamia and the origin of paper money in China, to the creation of mutual funds, inflation-indexed bonds, and global financial securities, here is a sweeping survey of financial innovations that have changed the world. Written by a distinguished group of experts - including Robert Shiller, Niall Ferguson, Valerie Hansen, and many others - The Origins of Value traces the evolution of finance through 4,000 years of history.

Ron Chernow examines the forces that made dynasties like the Morgans, the Warburgs, and the Rothschilds the financial arbiters of the early twentieth century and then rendered them virtually obsolete by the century's end. As he traces the shifting balance of power among investors, borrowers, and bankers, Chernow evokes both the grand theater of capital and the personal dramas of its most fascinating protagonists.

Edited by three of the policymakers who led the government's response to the crisis, with chapters written by the teams tasked with finding policy solutions, this book provides a comprehensive accounting of the internal debates and controversies surrounding the measures that were taken to stabilize the financial system and the economy. Offering previously untold insight into the key choices (including rejected options) and a frank evaluation of successes and failures, this volume is both an important historical document and an indispensable guide for confronting future financial calamities.

Hong Kong: The History and Legacy of Asia’s Leading Financial Center chronicles the turbulent history of Hong Kong, and how it became one of the wealthiest places in the world despite its challenging political environment.

This myth shattering book reveals the methods Nouriel Roubini used to foretell the current crisis before other economists saw it coming and shows how those methods can help us make sense of the present and prepare for the future. Renowned economist Nouriel Roubini electrified his profession and...

Why are the airlines always in a crisis? Everyone has a horror story about air travel—cancellations, delays, lost baggage, tiny seats, poor service. In this day and age, there is no reason that flying should be this bad. In Why Flying Is Miserable, Ganesh Sitaraman, a law professor and policy...

Circle of Greed is the epic story of the rise and fall of Bill Lerach, once the leading class action lawyer in America and now a convicted felon. For more than two decades, Lerach threatened, shook down and sued top Fortune 500 companies, including Disney, Apple, Time Warner, and—most...

When Hank Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, was appointed in 2006 to become the nation's next Secretary of the Treasury, he knew that his move from Wall Street to Washington would be daunting and challenging. But Paulson had no idea that a year later, he would find himself at the very...

From New York magazine’s architecture critic, a walking and reading guide to New York City—a historical, cultural, architectural, and personal approach to seven neighborhoods throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, including six essays that help us understand the evolution of the city...

Here is a bracing deconstruction of the framework for understanding the world that is learned as gospel in Economics 101, regardless of its imaginary assumptions and misleading half-truths. Economism: an ideology that distorts the valid principles and tools of introductory college economics...

Becoming a young Wall Street banker is like pledging the world's most lucrative and soul-crushing fraternity. Every year, thousands of eager college graduates are hired by the world's financial giants, where they're taught the secrets of making obscene amounts of money-- as well as how to dress...

Mark Twain's lifetime spans America's era of greatest economic growth. And Twain was an active, even giddy, participant in all the great booms and busts of his time, launching himself into one harebrained get-rich-quick scheme after another. But far from striking it rich, the man who coined the term "Gilded Age" failed with comical regularity to join the ranks of plutocrats who made this period in America notorious for its wealth and excess.

From five-time #1 New York Times bestselling author, radio host, and “one of the conservative moment’s most influential voices” (The Washington Times) Mark R. Levin comes a searing plea for a return to America’s most sacred values. In Rediscovering Americanism, Mark R. Levin revisits the...

One father, 3 years, and thousands of rides Poverty, By America meets Maid in this dad’s darkly humorous yet humanizing story of working long hours and late nights behind the wheel as a rideshare driver Jonathan Rigsby spends his days as a crime intelligence analyst and his nights as an Uber...

Are you tired of watching your bank account drain and credit card balances rise? All while wondering where the heck your money is going? Living without money worries isn’t a fantasy, but if you know the feeling of staring at tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt - it sure feels like it. By following the proven steps inside...you can properly pay-off your debt...and pay for your life...without relying on credit cards.

This book examines fifteen judgments that have influenced the financial destiny of India. With significant macroeconomic dimensions, these judgments, when explored, show a long-term impact on the economy. In doing so, judgments from different times of history have been examined to give the...

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...

Transformational technologies are a rare occurrence. In the last 40 years we have seen a marked shift in the way that the global economy functions thanks to the widespread adoption of the Internet. This technology revolutionized the way that information could be spread around the world. Today we are on the precipice of another great technology, the blockchain.