Economic History

A century of expanding government has distorted financial markets, stoked massive inequality, and soaked America in debt. 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.

Titan is the first full-length biography based on unrestricted access to Rockefeller’s exceptionally rich trove of papers. A landmark publication full of startling revelations, the book indelibly alters our image of this most enigmatic capitalist....

Michael Lewis intelligently - and humorously - explains the current economic crisis in The Big Short....

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries.....

The definitive volume on Enron's amazing rise and scandalous fall, from an award-winning team of Fortune investigative reporters....

An explosive, deeply reported exposé of McKinsey & Company, the international consulting firm that advises corporations and governments, that highlights the often drastic impact of its work on employees and citizens around the world....

If you asked most people what forces led to today’s unprecedented income inequality and financial crashes, no one would say the Federal Reserve. For most of its history, the Fed has enjoyed the fawning adoration of the press....

In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from 20 countries, ranging as far back as the 18th century, to uncover key economic and social patterns....

Called by H.L. Mencken, "one of the few economists in history who could really write," Henry Hazlitt achieved lasting fame for this brilliant but concise work....

Life is getting better at an accelerating rate. The pessimists insist that we will reach a turning point and things will get worse. But they have been saying this for 200 years....

The bestselling author of No Logo shows how the global "free market" has exploited crises and shock for three decades, from Chile to Iraq....

Milton Friedman was, alongside John Maynard Keynes, the most influential economist of the twentieth century. In Milton Friedman, historian Jennifer Burns tells Friedman’s extraordinary story with the nuance it deserves....

In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried 58 shipping containers from Newark to Houston....

A real-life thriller about the most tumultuous period in America's financial history by an acclaimed New York Times reporter....

The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist behind The New York Times’s “The Morning” newsletter provides a clear-eyed, definitive history of the modern American economy and the death of the American Dream....

Richard H. Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans - predictable, error-prone individuals....

A razor-sharp thinker offers a new understanding of our post-truth world and explains the American instinct to believe in make-believe, from the Pilgrims to P. T. Barnum to Disneyland....

More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed radically different suites of plants and animals....

Universal basic income. A 15-hour workweek. Open borders. Does it sound too good to be true? One of Europe's leading young thinkers shows how we can build an ideal world today....

Innovation is the main event of the modern age, the reason we experience both dramatic improvements in our living standards and unsettling changes in our society....

Palo Alto’s weather is temperate, its people are educated and enterprising, its corporations are spiritually and materially ambitious and demonstrably world-changing....

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are the four most influential companies on the planet. Just about everyone thinks they know how they got there. They're wrong....

Through the last 150 years of American history, Ijeoma Oluo exposes the devastating consequences of white male supremacy on women, people of color, and white men themselves....

It’s easy to look at the state of the world around us and feel hopeless. We live in an era marked by war, climate crisis, political polarization, and acute inequality—and yet many of us feel powerless to do anything about these profound issues....

As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began....

The Money Game by Adam Smith is a timeless classic that provides an insider’s account of the intricacies of money and how the stock market impacts every area of our lives. The book takes readers to Wall Street to learn about the role of intuition and the psychology of guilt in making wise, lucrative investments. Smith’s Irregular Rules shatter common myths and misconceptions, revealing why nothing works all the time and illustrating how greed and fear fuel the market.

Discover everything you need to know about economics. With clear, jargon-free language, How Economics Works is a comprehensive and user-friendly guide to all aspects of economics. Covering everything from economic theories to economies in action, the audiobook presents the groundbreaking ideas of key economists - from Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes to Joseph Schumpter and Milton Friedman - in a uniquely easy-to-understand way.

Alexander Hamilton has become a global celebrity. Millions know his name and imagine knowing the man. But what did he really want for the country? What risks did he run in pursuing those vaulting ambitions? Who tried to stop him? How did they fight? It's ironic that the Hamilton revival has obscured the man's most dramatic battles and hardest-won achievements—as well as downplaying unsettling aspects of his legacy.

Historians and economists commonly cite natural disasters and foreign invasions to explain cultural collapses. The problem is, human families have been suffering and overcoming disasters for thousands of years. Humans cover most of the earth; they have learned to live on polar ice and in arid deserts. They have adapted to tropical islands and rain forests. Humans live literally everywhere. And wherever humans wander, they create cultures and civilizations. Civilizations fall apart when human economies and cultures collapse. The question is--what forces, over long, long time periods, divide ...

We live under an ideology that preys on every aspect of our lives: our education and our jobs; our healthcare and our leisure; our relationships and our mental wellbeing; even the planet we inhabit – the very air we breathe. So pervasive has it become that, for most people, it has no name. It seems unavoidable, like a natural law. But trace it back to its roots, and we discover that it is neither inevitable nor immutable. It was conceived, propagated, and then concealed by the powerful few. It is time to bring it into the light - and, in doing so, to find an alternative worth fighting for.

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.

Default is the riveting story of Argentina's sovereign debt drama, which reveals the obscure inner workings of sovereign debt restructuring. This detailed case study describes the intense fight over the role of the IMF in Argentina's 2005 debt restructuring and the ensuing bitter decade of litigation with holdout creditors, demonstrating that outcomes for sovereign debt are determined by a complex interplay between financial markets, governments, the IMF, the press, and the courts.

Another fine and extremely well researched work by Antony C. Sutton. An expose' of the people and forces behind the takeover of the US economy by the Federal Reserve system, on behalf of the oligarchs. A must for anyone interested in the inner workings of US politics and economics, and the concealed reasons for current events. This is the first book that details hour by hour the events that led up to passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 - and the many decades of work and secret planning that private bankers had invested to obtain their money monopoly.

In explaining how economic thinking is indispensable to tackling these huge problems, this book is a sure-footed guide, spanning Aristotle’s ideas about restraining consumption, Adam Smith’s thinking about the importance of moral character for sustained economic development, and Esther Duflo’s ongoing work to help the world’s poorest communities lift themselves out of poverty.

With unparalleled access, and having interviewed hundreds of people – from Amazon executives to competitors to small businesses who rely on its marketplace to survive – Dana Mattioli exposes how Amazon was driven by a competitive edge to dominate every industry it entered, bulldozed all who stood in its way, reshaped the retail landscape, transformed how Wall Street evaluates companies, and altered the very nature of the global economy.

Prepare to delve into the dynamic universe of economics as you've never seen it before. "China's Economic Ascendance" presents an enthralling and comprehensive in-depth examination of China's extraordinary economic journey. This is no mere textbook but a vibrant and exciting exploration that will captivate anyone with an interest in China, economics, or the intriguing interplay between them. In this detailed tome, you'll traverse the terrain from the foundations of Mao's era to the present day, covering a broad spectrum of topics from China's integration into the global economy, the entry ...

Are you ready for a journey back in time to the thrilling era of the Gold Rush? Get ready to step into the shoes of gold miners who risked it all to strike it rich. Life in the Gold Rush is an insightful and captivating eBook that delves into the realities of life as a gold miner. With 20 diverse and fascinating chapters, this eBook offers an in-depth look at the lure of gold, the daily routine of a gold miner, and the tools of the trade. We explore how technology has transformed modern mining and the economic impact of gold mining. But this eBook is not just a lesson in history: we also ...

Dive into the fascinating realm of "Economic Curiosities," a riveting eBook that offers an extraordinary tour of the economic world, unveiling the unseen forces that shape our financial landscape. Discover an enthralling tapestry of topics, where each chapter turns the page on conventional wisdom to illuminate the hidden dimensions and intriguing intersections of modern economics. Embark on a journey through the nuanced layers of Behavioral Economics, gaining insight into how cognitive biases and emotions sway financial decisions and markets. Uncover the complexities of high-tech economies ...

Discover the fascinating world of commercial trucking in this comprehensive guide that delves into the rich history, current challenges, and future trends of one of the most vital industries in the global economy. From the early days of horse-drawn wagons to the cutting-edge technologies of autonomous vehicles, "The Road Ahead" provides a captivating journey through the evolution of commercial trucking. Explore the pioneering spirit of truck drivers, the growth of interstate highways, and the impact of deregulation on industry dynamics.

An eye-opening account of the failures of our financial system, the sources of its staying power, and the path to meaningful economic reform.