Economic Empire

Throughout time, from ancient Rome to modern Britain, the great empires built and maintained their domination through force of arms and political power. But not the United States. America has dominated the world in a new, peaceful, and pervasive way - through the continued creation of staggering wealth. In this authoritative, engrossing history, John Steele Gordon captures as never before the true source of our nation's global influence: wealth and the capacity to create more of it.

This edition of Super Imperialism is the finalized version of the analysis that Michael Hudson first published in the wake of President Nixon severing the dollar's link to gold in August 1971. Closing the gold window had been imminent since the London Gold Pool was disbanded in 1968 in response to the U.S. overseas military spending that had pushed the balance of payments into steadily deepening deficit since the Korean War (1950-51).

The largest empire in history was not destroyed by a sword, but by a printer. In the 13th century, the Mongol Empire ruled over the largest contiguous landmass the world had ever seen. Under the leadership of Genghis Khan and his successors, they revolutionized global commerce, creating the Pax Mongolica and transforming the Silk Road into a superhighway of trade. But "How Money Printing Destroyed the Mongol Empire" reveals that their greatest innovation—and their ultimate fatal flaw—was not military, but financial. This gripping work of economic history explores the reign of Kublai ...

Why do civilizations rise, flourish, weaken, and fall? Centuries before sociology had a name, before modern economics became a discipline, and before historians spoke of systems theory, one fourteenth-century Muslim thinker looked at the rise and fall of nations and saw a hidden pattern. His name was Ibn Khaldun. In his masterpiece, the Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun transformed history from a record of kings and battles into a science of civilization itself. He asked questions that still haunt the modern world: What holds a society together? Why do ruling classes decay? How does wealth weaken the...

A revelatory history of expansion, influence and the making of American power. Historian Daniel Immerwahr exposes a forgotten truth: the United States has always been an empire. From Puerto Rico to Guam, the Philippines to a network of global military bases, How to Hide an Empire uncovers how U...

Hobsbawm discusses the evolution of European economics, politics, arts, sciences, and cultural life from the height of the industrial revolution to the First World War. Hobsbawm combines vast erudition with a graceful prose style to re-create the epoch that laid the basis for the 20th century. 

In his stunning memoir, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins detailed his former role as an "economic hit man" in the international corporate skulduggery of a de facto American Empire. Now Perkins zeroes in on hot spots around the world, drawing on interviews to examine the current...

An urgent rethinking of the Western approach to mental health, which treats the symptoms rather than the exploitative systems causing our distress—by a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Medical School physician-anthropologist—offering lessons from the rest of the world. What if the mainstay of...

The Echo of Ancient Civilizations, a Book by Bo Carson, is an indispensable guide for anyone seeking to walk in the path of the ancient world. With a masterful combination of scholarship and readability, retrace the rise and fall of civilizations from the earliest times to the Roman Empire. This book is a must-read for students of history, anthropology, and archaeology, as well as anyone with a passion for the rich tapestry of human culture. Whether you're looking to deepen your knowledge or explore a new area of study, "The Echo of Ancient Civilizations" is a great read. Dive into the ...

From the creator of the award-winning podcast series The History of Rome and Revolutions comes the fascinating history of the bloody battles, political machinations, and human drama that set the stage for the fall of the Roman Republic. "Remarkably engaging." —Washington Post The Roman...

The inspiring story of how two female entrepreneurs turned a newsletter called Bulletin into a venture-backed, industry-disrupting brand Filled with heart and humor, How to Build a Goddamn Empire shares the real-world, hard-earned business wisdom of one female entrepreneur who transformed...

Conceived in the early 1800s and completed in 1825, the Erie Canal was the boldest and biggest American engineering project of its century, with enduring political, social, and economic effects. It was the Erie Canal that first opened up the West to American enterprise and imagination, bringing vast riches and a far-reaching vision to a rapidly expanding nation.In this compelling narrative, author Gerard Koeppel tells the complete, sweeping story of the creation of the canal.

In the summer of 1914, the City of London was the financial capital of the world. By 1917, it was weeks away from bankruptcy. How Britain Pawned an Empire to Buy Victory reveals the untold economic history of World War I—a conflict that was fought not just with soldiers and shells, but with gold bullion and credit lines. While history books focus on the trenches of the Western Front, a far more decisive battle was raging in the boardrooms of Wall Street and the vaults of the Bank of England. This gripping narrative explores how the cost of modern industrial warfare forced the British ...

Discover the untold story of the richest man in history and the day his generosity broke an entire economy. In the 14th century, while Europe struggled through the Middle Ages, the Mali Empire flourished as a beacon of unparalleled wealth and stability. At its helm was Mansa Musa, a ruler whose fortune was so vast that modern economists struggle to calculate it. Controlling the legendary gold mines of Bambuk and Bure, Musa possessed nearly half of the Old World’s gold supply. But in 1324, his devout desire to perform the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca would lead to an event unique in human ...

Bloomsbury presents The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan, read by Mike Grady. The No. 1 Sunday Times and international bestseller – a major reassessment of world history in light of the economic and political renaissance in the re-emerging east For centuries, fame and fortune was to be found in...

This book presents a comprehensive history of the existential war waged between the Anglo-Dutch imperial system and what became known as the American System of political economy ever since the creation of the predatory British and Dutch East India Companies. On that basis, the book presents a counterintuitive solution to the crisis confronting humanity today, arguing that only a combination of the Four Powers, the USA, Russia, China and India, has the power to finally dismantle the Anglo-Dutch imperial system as it emerged from the British and Dutch East India Companies. The book documents ...

In the first intellectual history of neoliberal globalism, author Quinn Slobodian follows a group of thinkers from the ashes of the Habsburg Empire to the creation of the World Trade Organization to show that neoliberalism emerged less to shrink government and abolish regulations than to redeploy them at a global level.

Discover the hidden financial architecture of one of history's longest-lasting superpowers in How the Ottomans Financed an Empire: Turning Points of the Modern World. While traditional histories focus on sultans and sieges, this book reveals that the primary determinant of imperial survival is fiscal health. Learn how the Ottomans rejected the standard European model of heavy borrowing and instead built a system where military expansion served as a generator of revenue rather than a drain on the treasury. The narrative explores the brilliant Timar system, a decentralized military land grant...

A rollicking, eye-opening history of the Star Wars franchise: an unrivaled force in popular culture that changed the way Hollywood makes movies—and that is now imperiled by many of the industry forces it set in motion From the premiere of the first film in 1977, the Star Wars franchise not...

A spectacular generational saga of the making (and undoing) of a family dynasty: the riveting untold story of the gilded Jewish Bagdadi Sassoons, who built a vast empire through global finance and trade—cotton, opium, shipping, banking—that reached across three continents and ultimately...