Modern Finance

The transcontinental railroads of the late 19th century were the first corporate behemoths. Their attempts to generate profits from proliferating debt sparked devastating panics in the US economy. Their dependence on public largess drew them into the corridors of power, initiating new forms of corruption. Their operations rearranged space and time, and remade the landscape of the West. As wheel and rail, car and coal, they opened new worlds of work and ways of life.

As America struggles with an economic debacle akin to the Great Depression, nothing could be timelier than an authoritative account of the New Deal, masterfully written by Michael Hiltzik, author of the acclaimed history of the Hoover Dam, Colossus.

In this richly peopled, vividly rendered narrative, Hiltzik describes how the urgent short-term relief measures of Franklin Roosevelt’s Hundred Days evolved into a transformative concept of the federal role in American life.

A gripping history of banking and the booms and busts that shaped the world on both sides of the Atlantic, The House of Morgan traces the trajectory of the J. P.Morgan empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the crash of 1987. Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the private saga of the Morgans and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved. Based on extensive interviews and access to the family and business archives, The House of Morgan is an investigative masterpiece.

**UPDATED FOR 2022!** In this book, you’ll learn how to use No-Spend Challenges to reach your financial goals faster and transform your spending habits to finally be able to stick to a budget. Budgeting and money management are some of the hardest concepts for people to nail down. You can have all the knowledge available and suck at executing it. Jen Smith, co-host of the #1 frugal living podcast, Frugal Friends Podcast, went from not being able to stick to a budget longer than two weeks to paying off $78,000 of debt in less than two years. She shares her experiences and strategies using ...

The Making of Modern Economics presents a bold and engaging history of economics—the dramatic story of how the great economic thinkers built today’s rigorous social science. This comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the major economic philosophers begins with Adam Smith and continues through to the present day. It examines the contributions each one made to our understanding of the role of the economist, the science of economics and economic theory.

As the stock market crash of 1929 plunged the world into turmoil, two men emerged with competing claims on how to restore the balance to economies gone awry. John Maynard Keynes, the mercurial Cambridge economist, believed that government had a duty to spend when others would not. He met his opposite in a little-known Austrian economics professor, Friedrich Hayek, who considered attempts to intervene both pointless and potentially dangerous.

Andrew Lambert, author of The Challenge - winner of the prestigious Anderson Medal - turns his attention to Athens, Carthage, Venice, the Dutch Republic, and Britain, examining how their identities as "seapowers" informed their actions and enabled them to achieve success disproportionate to their size. Lambert demonstrates how creating maritime identities made these states more dynamic, open, and inclusive than their lumbering continental rivals. Only when they forgot this aspect of their identity did these nations begin to decline.

A radically revised new edition of this highly readable, popular guide aimed at everyone from students to statesmen who want to make sense of the modern economy and grasp how economic theory works in practice. It starts with the basics, and from the underlying theory it moves to the specifics of the world economy, including an analysis of the recent recession. The closing part puts the usefulness and the failings of economics under the spotlight, and looks at the innovative approaches being developed to address these failings.

Vividly written, The Infidel and the Professor is a compelling account of a great friendship of two towering Enlightenment thinkers that had great consequences for modern thought. David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime, he was attacked as "the Great Infidel" for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism.

This audiobook provides a synopsis of the original 1937 text of Hill’s masterpiece, Think and Grow Rich. It extracts the key principles, instructions, and examples so that the modern professional, regardless of how busy he or she is, can benefit from the timeless wisdom found in Hill’s book. Regardless of your approach, when you commit yourself to practicing the steps outlined in this audiobook, you will surely open yourself up to great personal growth and momentum toward achieving your dreams.

Inflation: What It Is, Why It’s Bad, and How to Fix It explains what’s behind the worst inflationary storm in more than forty years—one that is dominating the headlines and shaking Americans by their pocketbooks. The cost-of-living explosion since the COVID pandemic has raised alarms about a possible return of a 1970’s-style “Great Inflation.” Some observers even fear a descent into the kind of Weimar-style hyperinflation that has torn apart so many nations. Is this true? If so, what should be done? How should we prepare for the future?

Stephanie Kelton's brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure. Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country.

What accounts for the rise of the state, the creation of the first global system, and the dominance of the West? The conventional answer asserts that superior technology, tactics, and institutions forged by Darwinian military competition gave Europeans a decisive advantage in war from 1500 onward. Empires of the Weak argues that Europeans had no general military superiority in the early modern era. Sharman shows instead that European expansion is better explained by deference to strong Asian and African polities, disease in the Americas, and maritime supremacy earned by default.

What do Google, Snapchat, Tinder, Amazon, and Uber have in common, besides soaring market share? They're platforms - a new business model that has quietly become the only game in town. A platform, by definition, creates value by facilitating an exchange between two or more interdependent groups. So, rather than making things, they simply connect people. The advent of mobile computing and its ubiquitous connectivity have forever altered how we interact with each other. Yet, few people truly grasp the radical structural shifts of the last 10 years.

Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy paints an epic picture of change in an intimate way by telling the stories of the tools, people, and ideas that had far-reaching consequences for all of us. From the plough to artificial intelligence, from Gillette's disposable razor to IKEA's Billy bookcase, best-selling author and Financial Times columnist Tim Harford recounts each invention's own curious, surprising, and memorable story.

From the richest Romans to the robber barons to today's bankers and tech billionaires, Sam Wilkin offers Freakonomics-esque insights into what it really takes to make a fortune. These stories of larger-than-life characters, strategies, and sacrifices reveal how the wealthiest did it, usually by a passion for finding loopholes, working around bureaucratic systems, and creating obstacles to competitors.

Discover how the ancient wisdom of King Solomon can transform your financial life with the book "The 10 Secrets to Becoming Rich According to the Bible: Biblical Advice from the Proverbs of King Solomon for Financial Success, Living in Abundance, and Making Your Money Prosper in Modern Life." Based on the valuable Proverbs of King Solomon, this book will guide you through ten key teachings that will help you live in abundance and make your money prosper in the modern world. Over the centuries, King Solomon has been revered as one of the wisest and richest monarchs in history. His divine ...

Machine learning (ML) is changing virtually every aspect of our lives. Today ML algorithms accomplish tasks that until recently only expert humans could perform. As it relates to finance, this is the most exciting time to adopt a disruptive technology that will transform how everyone invests for generations. The book addresses real-life problems faced by practitioners on a daily basis and explains scientifically sound solutions using math, supported by code and examples.

America has been through the biggest financial crisis since the great Depression, unemployment numbers are frightening, median wages have been flat since the 1970s, and it is common to expect that things will get worse before they get better. Certainly, the multidecade stagnation is not yet over. How will we get out of this mess?

The Richest Man in Babylon is the most important and valuable personal finance book ever written. This book profoundly influenced successful entrepreneurs like Tony Robbins, Dave Ramsey, Suze Orman, and thousands of others.