International Economics

From Annie Jacobsen, the author of the bestselling Nuclear War: A Scenario, a book on a subject that has long orbited her reporting: biological warfare. A lab accident, a bio-attack, a global pandemic, and the collapse of human society. In this essential new book, based on dozens of new...

In a rare attempt to understand the Indianness of Indians - among the most intelligent people in the world, but also, to a dispassionate eye, perhaps the most baffling - V. Raghunathan uses the props of game theory and behavioral economics to provide an insight into the difficult conundrum of why we are the way we are. He puts under the scanner our attitudes towards rationality and irrationality, selflessness and selfishness, competition and cooperation, and collaboration and deception.

We Sell Drugs is a study grounded in the transnational geography and political economy of the coca-leaf and coca-derived commodities market stretching from Peru and Bolivia into the United States. More than a narrow biography of one famous plant and its equally famous derivative products - Coca-Cola and cocaine - this audiobook situates these commodities within the larger landscape of drug production and consumption. Examining efforts to control the circuits through which coca traveled, Suzanna Reiss provides a geographic and legal basis for considering the historical construction of designations of legality and illegality.

The book also argues that the legal status of any given drug is largely premised on who grew, manufactured, distributed, and consumed it and not on the qualities of the drug itself. Drug control is a powerful tool for ordering international trade, national economies, and society's habits and daily lives. In a historical landscape animated by struggles over political economy, national autonomy, hegemony, and racial equality, We Sell Drugs insists on the socio-historical underpinnings of designations of legality to explore how drug control became a major weapon in asserting control of domestic and international affairs.

Winner Take All is about the commodity dynamics that the world will face over the next several decades. In particular, it is about the implications of China’s rush for resources across all regions of the world. The scale of China’s resource campaign for hard commodities (metals and minerals) and soft commodities (timber and food) is among the largest in history.

In retelling the story of the radical Alexander Hamilton, Parenti rewrites the history of early America and global economic history writ large. For much of the 20th century, Hamilton - sometimes seen as the bad boy of the founding fathers or portrayed as the patron saint of bankers - was out of fashion. In contrast his rival Thomas Jefferson, the patrician democrat and slave owner who feared government overreach, was claimed by all. But more recently, Hamilton has become a subject of serious interest again.

Penguin Audio presents Has the West Lost It? by Kishore Mahbubani, read by Jonathan Keeble. The West's centuries-old status as the centre of global wealth and power is coming to an end. As the new powers - China and India from Asia and others from Africa and Latin America - rise to the top of the world's pecking order, how should the West react?

Over the past two centuries or so, capitalism has undergone profound changes - economic cycles that veer from boom to bust - from which it has always emerged transformed and strengthened. Surveying this turbulent history, Paul Mason's Postcapitalism argues that we are on the brink of a change so big and so profound that this time capitalism itself, the immensely complex system within which entire societies function, will mutate into something wholly new.

The world is a better place than it used to be. People are healthier, wealthier, and live longer. Yet the escapes from destitution by so many has left gaping inequalities between people and nations. In The Great Escape, Angus Deaton - one of the foremost experts on economic development and on poverty - tells the remarkable story of how, beginning 250 years ago, some parts of the world experienced sustained progress, opening up gaps and setting the stage for today's disproportionately unequal world.

The intensified globalization that ensued after the end of the Cold War has resulted in an unprecedented level of interconnectedness between the economies of all rising and established powers. Economic interdependence makes today's world a much more complex place than when balance of power theory was initially developed. International relations literature has overlooked the fact that great powers have been using institutions to soft balance each other's power and aggressive behavior. Restraining Great Powers places the evolution of balancing behavior in historical perspective.

Issues of human rights and freedoms always inflame passions, and John Rawls's A Theory of Justice will do the same. Published in 1971, it links the idea of social justice to a basic sense of fairness that recognizes human rights and freedoms. Controversially, though, it also accepts differences in the distribution of goods and services - as long as they benefit the worst off in society.

Economist and syndicated journalist Loretta Napoleoni argues that the world is undergoing rapid and unexpected great transformations fueled by what she calls rogue economics. Eagerly awaited around the world (translation rights have already been sold throughout Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia), Napoleoni's account is based on top-to-bottom primary-source interviews from banking executives in New York to Russian prostitutes to London morgue workers.

The industrial age made possible by fossil fuels will surely decline as these fuels run out. In The Ecotechnic Future John Michael Greer alerts the listener to possible changes future generations may face as these dwindling fuel supplies lead first to a deindustrial age, then to a society which salvages the remnants of our current plenty, and eventually to a time in which people may learn to live in balance with the environment: an ecotechnic society.

One of the most ambitious legacies of the 20th century was the universal commitment to ensure freedom from want as a human right. But to what extent are countries across the world living up to this commitment? This path-breaking book develops an innovative, evidence-based index for comparing performance on education, food, health, work, and housing across very differently situated countries and over time. It explores the factors influencing performance and provides empirical evidence to resolve some long standing controversies over the principle of "progressive realization".

Authors Barry Eichengreen, Asmaa El-Ganainy, Rui Esteves, and Kris James Mitchener argue that the ability of governments to issue debt has played a critical role in addressing emergencies—from wars and pandemics to economic and financial crises, as well as in funding essential public goods and services such as transportation, education, and healthcare. None of this is to deny that debt problems, debt crises, and debt defaults occur. But these dramatic events, which attract much attention, are not the entire story. In Defense of Public Debt redresses the balance.

The End of Copycat China helps business executives and investors understand how China's economy is shifting from one based on heavy investment to one based on services and consumption by providing insight that helps shape effective strategy.

Global economic power is shifting, liberal market-oriented democracies face growing domestic turmoil, and international trade and financial integration is crumbling. How did we get here? In The Doom Loop, economist Eswar Prasad argues that the very forces that we long believed could stabilize the world order are fueling its destabilization. Rather than promoting shared prosperity, globalization has instead deepened economic inequality, stoked political backlash, and prompted escalating trade wars.

Since the 19th century, people have claimed that the prosperity enjoyed by the First World was the result of its devotion to unconstrained economic freedoms. In his 2003 book Kicking Away the Ladder, South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang claims this was not the case and that, in fact, First World economic success was due to exactly the kinds of state intervention that traditional economic thinking consistently opposes today.

Around the world, populist movements are gaining traction among the white working class. Meanwhile, members of the professional elite - journalists, managers, and establishment politicians - are on the outside looking in, left to argue over the reasons. Williams explains that many people have conflated "working class" with "poor" - but the working class is, in fact, the elusive, purportedly disappearing middle class. They often resent the poor and the professionals alike. But they don't resent the truly rich.

Entrepreneurial ventures often fail in the developing world because of the lack of something taken for granted in the developed world: trust. Over centuries the developed world has built up customs and institutions like enforceable contracts. This is not the case in the developing world. Using vivid examples from Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and elsewhere, scholar and entrepreneur Tarun Khanna shows how entrepreneurs can build on existing customs and practices instead of trying to push against them.

Blending economic analysis with political drama, EuroTragedy is a groundbreaking account of the euro's history and tragic consequences. In this vivid and compelling chronicle, Ashoka Mody describes how the euro improbably emerged through a narrow historical window as a flawed compromise wrapped in a false pro-European rhetoric of peace and unity.