Money Finance History

This engrossing piece of undercover reportage has been a fixture on the New York Times best seller list since its publication. With nearly a million copies in print, Nickel and Dimed is a modern classic that deftly portrays the plight of America's working-class poor.

Through the last 150 years of American history—from the post-reconstruction South and the mythic stories of cowboys in the West, to the present-day controversy over NFL protests and the backlash against the rise of women in politics—Ijeoma Oluo exposes the devastating consequences of white male supremacy on women, people of color, and white men themselves. Mediocre investigates the real costs of this phenomenon in order to imagine a new white male identity, one free from racism and sexism.

How can poor and weak societies escape poverty traps? Political economists have traditionally offered three answers: "stimulate growth first," "build good institutions first," or "some fortunate nations inherited good institutions that led to growth." Yuen Yuen Ang rejects all three schools of thought and their underlying assumptions: linear causation, a mechanistic worldview, and historical determinism. Instead, she launches a new paradigm grounded in complex adaptive systems, which embraces the reality of interdependence and humanity's capacity to innovate.

Alfani argues that the position of the rich and super-rich in Western society has always been intrinsically fragile; their very presence has inspired social unease. In the Middle Ages, an excessive accumulation of wealth was considered sinful; the rich were expected not to appear to be wealthy. Eventually, the rich were deemed useful when they used their wealth to help their communities in times of crisis. Yet in the twenty-first century, the rich and the super-rich have been exceptionally reluctant to contribute to the common good in times of crisis.

Chris Hedges examines the failure of the liberal class to confront the rise of the corporate state and the consequences of a liberalism that has become profoundly bankrupted. Hedges argues that there are five pillars of the liberal establishment and that each of these institutions has sold out the constituents it represented. In doing so, the liberal class has become irrelevant to society at large and ultimately the corporate power elite they once served.

Economics has the capacity to offer us deep insights into some of the most formidable problems of life and offer solutions to them, too. Combining a global approach with examples from everyday life, Partha Dasgupta describes the lives of two children who live very different lives in different parts of the world: the Midwest USA and in Ethiopia. He compares the obstacles facing them and the processes that shape their lives, their families, and their futures. He shows how economics uncovers these processes, finds explanations for them, and how it forms policies and solutions.

The appearance of the famous (and massive) volumes of Rothbard's Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought in a new edition is cause for great celebration. Every paragraph bursts with intellectual energy and the author's fiery passion to tell the listener the remarkable story of economics. Many reviewers have remarked that Rothbard's accomplishment seems superhuman. He seems to have read everything. His originality is overwhelming. His passion for liberty and integrity in science is evident.

Capitalism didn’t fail, it was ruined. What went wrong with capitalism? Ruchir Sharma’s account is not like any you will have heard before. He says progressives are right, in part, when they mock modern capitalism as “socialism for the rich.” For a century, governments have expanded in just about every measurable dimension, from spending to regulation and the scale of financial rescues when the economy wobbles. The result is expensive state guarantees for everyone—bailouts for the rich, entitlements for the middle class, welfare for the poor.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the price of gold has skyrocketed - in three years, it has more than doubled from $800 an ounce to $1,900. This massive spike kicked off an unprecedented global gold-mining and exploration boom, much bigger than the Gold Rush of the 1800s. In Gold, acclaimed author Matthew Hart takes you on an unforgettable journey around the world and through history to tell the incredible story of how gold became the world's most precious commodity.

The Wealth of Nations, first published in 1776, is the first book of modern political economy and still provides the foundation for the study of that discipline. Along with important discussions of economics and political theory, Smith mixed plain common sense with large measures of history, philosophy, psychology, sociology and much else. Few texts remind us so clearly that the Enlightenment was very much a lived experience, a concern with improving them human condition in practical ways for real people.

A candid, colorful, and comprehensive oral history that reveals the secrets of Silicon Valley - from the origins of Apple and Atari to the present day clashes of Google and Facebook, and all the start-ups and disruptions that happened along the way. Drawing on over 200 in-depth interviews, Valley of Genius takes listeners from the dawn of the personal computer and the Internet, through the heyday of the web, up to the very moment when our current technological reality was invented.

Global demand for power is doubling every two decades, but electricity remains one of the most difficult forms of energy to supply and do so reliably. Today, some three billion people live in places where per-capita electricity use is less than what's used by an average American refrigerator. How we close the colossal gap between the electricity rich and the electricity poor will determine our success in addressing issues like women's rights, inequality, and climate change.

In the space of a few months, across Asia, a miracle became a nightmare. This was the Asian financial crisis of 1995-98. In this economic crisis, hundreds of people died in rioting, political strongmen were removed, and hundreds of billions of dollars were lost by investors. This crisis saw the US dollar value of some Asian stock markets decline by 90 percent. Why did almost no one see it coming? The Asian Financial Crisis 1995–98 charts Russell Napier’s personal journey during that crisis as he wrote daily for institutional investors about an increasingly uncertain future.

Discretion, secrecy, and subtle strategy were the weapons of choice at Wall Street investment bank Lazard Frères & Co. For more than a century, the mystique and reputation of the "Great Men" who worked there allowed the firm to garner unimaginable profits, social cachet, and outsized influence in the halls of power. But in the mid-1980s, their titanic egos started getting in the way, and the Great Men of Lazard jeopardized all they had built.

Since its founding in 1892, GE has been more than just a corporation. For generations, it was job security, a solidly safe investment, and an elite business education for top managers. GE electrified America, powering everything from lightbulbs to turbines, and became fully integrated into the American societal mindset as few companies ever had. And after two decades of leadership under legendary CEO Jack Welch, GE entered the twenty-first century as America's most valuable corporation. Yet, fewer than two decades later, the GE of old was gone.

Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin dive into the many theories of why modern economic growth happened when and where it did. They discuss recently advanced theories rooted in geography, politics, culture, demography, and colonialism. Pieces of each of these theories help explain key events on the path to modern riches. Why did the Industrial Revolution begin in eighteenth-century Britain? Why did some European countries, the United States, and Japan catch up in the nineteenth century? Why did it take until the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries for other countries?

Whether you’re looking to deepen your knowledge of complex banking practices, better understand the history of international finance, or simply learn more about central banking as it relates to your everyday life, this book will give you a comprehensive introduction and solid foundation for future study.

Americans have long been skeptical of corporations, and that skepticism has only grown more intense in recent years. Meanwhile, corporations continue to amass wealth and power at a dizzying rate, recklessly pursuing profit while leaving society to sort out the costs. In For Profit, law professor William Magnuson argues that the story of the corporation didn’t have to come to this. Throughout history, he finds, corporations have been purpose-built to benefit the societies that surrounded them.

As Desmond Shum was growing up impoverished in China, he vowed his life would be different. Through hard work and sheer tenacity he earned an American college degree and returned to his native country to establish himself in business. There, he met his future wife, the highly intelligent and equally ambitious Whitney Duan who was determined to make her mark within China’s male-dominated society. Whitney and Desmond formed an effective team and, aided by relationships they formed with top members of China’s Communist Party, the so-called red aristocracy.

Yet prosperity has come at a price: environmental destruction, desolation of local cultures, the rise of vast inequalities, and destabilizing technologies. Faced with such damage, many now claim that the only way forward is through "degrowth," deliberately shrinking our economic footprint. Instead, Daniel Susskind argues, we must keep growth but redirect it, making it better reflect what we truly value.