Trading Empires

From the bestselling author of Leviathan comes this sweeping narrative of one of America’s most historically rich industries. Beginning his epic history in the early 1600s, Eric Jay Dolin traces the dramatic rise and fall of the American fur trade industry, from the first Dutch encounters with the Indians to the rise of the conservation movement in the late nineteenth century.

You’re stuck. More educated and capable than any generation before, yet somehow poorer, tighter on time, and watching others build wealth while you optimize routines. The 9-to-5 is already dead—but nobody told you what’s replacing it. ChatGPT Cash Machine reveals the exact blueprint creating financial freedom for complete beginners. No coding or technical skills—just frameworks that turn AI from productivity tool to profit engine.

Orphaned and six and sent to an orphanage, Jericho Rolland discovers an interstellar sim when he’s eight. Soon realizing actual trading like this will be the focus of his life. He applies his massive intellect and drive toward preparing himself for that goal. Knowing he can go to space at twelve, Jericho starts setting things up six months before his birthday. The only resistance he runs into is with the interstellar bank. The bank officials really don’t know who they are tangling with, but they find out much to their regret. At Twelve, when many of his almost always brilliant ancestors...

The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes investigates the trade routes between Rome and the powerful empires of inner Asia, including the Parthian regime which ruled ancient Persia (Iran). It explores Roman dealings with the Kushan Empire which seized power in Bactria (Afghanistan) and laid claim to the Indus Kingdoms. Further chapters examine the development of Palmyra as a leading caravan city on the edge of Roman Syria and consider trade ventures through the Tarim territories that led Roman merchants to Han China.

Jericho Rolland has completed his first interstellar trading voyage on the family trader Mattin with a seemingly impossible level of success. He has also seen to every problem he can think of for the orphanage he was forced to grow up in. Now, feeling much more confidant in the future he can provide for himself, Jericho finally feels he can handle going to see the home he started to grow up in, the one his trust is required to return to his possession when he turns eighteen in a little over five years. The Randle family gives him a ride to his once and future home. Instead of finding the ...

The Roman Empire did not rise on marble, glory, or the genius of a few emperors—it rose on roads, coins, grain, taxes, and the invisible arithmetic of everyday life. Understanding the Economy of the Roman Empire in 10 Days pulls back the curtain on the world’s first large-scale economic engine and shows how a backwater kingdom became the most organized, industrialized, and interconnected civilization of the ancient world. Through immersive 1,000-word historical vignettes and clear, accessible explanations, this book brings you inside the forges of Noricum, the wheat fleets of Alexandria...

“The Supply Chain Empire: Why Every Product on Earth Begins and Ends in China” unravels one of the most astonishing transformations in human history—the rise of China from a poor agrarian nation to the manufacturing powerhouse of the planet. With vivid storytelling and hard economic truths, Joseph Ejike Ojih (Ph.D.) exposes how the everyday products we use—from smartphones and solar panels to sneakers and cars—are all tied to an invisible web of Chinese factories, ports, and trade networks. From Deng Xiaoping’s bold reforms in 1978 to China’s dominance in rare earth minerals, ...

A revelatory history of enslaved people's resistance and self-emancipation, across the Atlantic world and beyond. In the 1720s, the West African chief Tomba was abducted for organizing the local resistance against slave raiders and imprisoned on a British ship, where he promptly led a revolt...

A caravan leaves the grasslands at dawn and months later a Venetian ledger records its cargo sold for silver. Between those moments lies a revolutionary system built by horsemen of the steppe. Relay posts, passports, merchant partnerships, and guarded ports stitched Asia, the Middle East, and Europe into a single communicative world. This sweeping history reveals how speed and security created the first connected age, moving ideas and faiths alongside silk and silver, and carrying a microscopic killer that would become the Black Death. Drawing on Persian, Arabic, Chinese, and Latin ...

“Invisible Empires: How Decentralized Drug Networks Are Outsmarting Global Law Enforcement” is a gripping, real-world thriller about a war humanity is losing in plain sight. From the passion-fruit pulp shipment in Peru that concealed nine tons of cocaine to the rise of invisible financiers who move billions through crypto and mirror transactions, Joseph Ejike Ojih (Ph.D.) exposes how the cocaine trade has evolved beyond cartels into a decentralized, digital empire. Through vivid storytelling and meticulous research, Dr. Ojih shows how traffickers have embraced technology, innovation, ...

The Horn’s First Master is the gripping true story of a man who took on the deadliest sea on Earth. In 1834, Croatian-born Captain Pietro Giacomo Leva steered an Austro-Hungarian brigantine through the world’s most feared waters and into legend. With towering waves, freezing winds, and brutal conditions, Cape Horn was the ultimate test of skill, courage, and command. Leva passed that test — and carved his name into the history of both his island and his empire. Blending vivid maritime history with sharp-eyed narrative, The Horn’s First Master charts Austria’s unlikely bid for ...

Uncover the Lost Kingdom That Nearly Conquered the Ancient World Deep in the mountains of western Turkey lie the ruins of a civilization that time forgot—until now. In Ghosts of Arzawa, archaeologist R. Jay Driskill resurrects one of the Bronze Age's most fascinating and overlooked kingdoms, revealing a sophisticated empire that dared to challenge the mighty Hittites and corresponded as equals with the pharaohs of Egypt. The Kingdom History Almost Lost For over 3,000 years, Arzawa remained buried beneath layers of history, known only through fragmentary mentions in enemy archives. But ...

Charles Stross builds a new series with Empire Games. Expanding on the world he created in the Family Trade series, a new generation of paratime travellers walk between parallel universes. The year is 2020. It's seventeen years since the Revolution overthrew the last king of the New British...

The internationally acclaimed author team of William Bonner and Addison Wiggin return to reveal how the epic financial bubble that is plaguing the United States will soon bring an end to this once great empire. They offer a frightening look at the United States' precarious position and discuss how government control of the economy and financial system - combined with unfettered deficit spending and gluttonous consumption - has ravaged the business environment.

In the grand scheme of things, very little is known of Mansa Musa’s life. We know that he was one of the greatest emperors of the Mali Empire. And we know that he was actually one of the richest men of all time due to the enormous gold deposits in West Africa that were under his dominion, but large parts of Mansa Musa’s life remain a mystery.

An expansive history of the Sahara from prehistory to the present that shows how Saharans have, over time, built complex and cosmopolitan lives despite scarcity, conquest, and the relentless challenges of the desert environment What comes to mind when we think about the Sahara? Rippling sand...

Captain Nathan Daniels had the best lifestyle in the modern galaxy. As an independent trader he set his own schedule, selected his own cargo, and had the freedom to visit any of the kingdoms, empires and fiefdoms in known space. He even had the best pick-up line of all time: "Want to go for a ride on my space ship?" After leaving a small mining colony on the moon of Droshai, just outside of Kalifet space, he receives a summons from the Empress of the Kalifet Empire. The fact that the summons is delivered by two military cruisers both ensures his compliance, and piques his curiosity. Little ...

From the battlefield to the blank page, I write with the same grit that got me through war. I’m a combat vet. A mom. On the streets of L.A. with my baby girl and a busted iPhone full of stories. PTSD rides shotgun. Survival isn’t theory - it’s every damn day. And yeah, I write about Wall Street. Because Sam - my friend, my street family, my daughter’s guardian angel - taught me everything I know. He used to run numbers for suits before the needle took over. This isn’t just fiction. This is how power works. New York moves fast. If you want to survive, you move faster. Grayson ...

An exciting, hugely revealing account of China’s burgeoning presence in Africa - a developing empire already shaping, and reshaping, the future of millions of people. A prizewinning foreign correspondent and former New York Times bureau chief in Shanghai and in West and Central Africa, Howard French is uniquely positioned to tell the story of China in Africa. Through meticulous on-the-ground reporting, French crafts a layered investigation of astonishing depth and breadth.

Hugo Award-winning author Charlie Stross dives deep into the underbelly of paratime espionage, nuclear warfare, and state surveillance in this provocative techno-thriller audiobook set in The Merchant Princes multi-verse Dark State ups the ante on the already volatile situations laid out in the...