Global Economic History

Edited by three of the policymakers who led the government's response to the crisis, with chapters written by the teams tasked with finding policy solutions, this book provides a comprehensive accounting of the internal debates and controversies surrounding the measures that were taken to stabilize the financial system and the economy. Offering previously untold insight into the key choices (including rejected options) and a frank evaluation of successes and failures, this volume is both an important historical document and an indispensable guide for confronting future financial calamities.

Weak, corrupt, and politically unstable, the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are dismissed as isolated and irrelevant to the outside world. But are they? This hard-hitting book argues that Central Asia is in reality a globalization leader with more extensive involvement in economics, politics, and security dynamics beyond its borders than any other world region. Yet Central Asia's international activities are mostly hidden from view, with disturbing implications for world security.

The second volume of William T. Vollmann's epic book about the factors and human actions that have led to global warming begins in the coal fields of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. Over the course of four years, Vollmann finds hollowed out towns with coal-polluted streams and acidified drinking water; makes covert visits to mountaintop removal mines; and offers documented accounts of unpaid fines for federal health and safety violations and of miners who died because their bosses cut corners to make more money.

There is no single theory of what caused the Great Depression and never will be, Morris argues. Macreconomics is a social science, and such a massive event always takes its shape from a terrible confluence of factors. The mismanagement of the gold standard, the growth in consumer credit, the insistence on deflation, and the inability of the major European belligerents of World War I to agree on a reconstruction agenda are just a few of the shocks that pushed the world into an economic Armageddon.

Climate change is the world’s biggest problem. It affects every human being on Earth, and it’s going to fundamentally alter every human institution and way of life, from business and economics to politics to spirituality, religion, culture, and identity. But, as big as it is, climate change is not “the end of history.” In fact, it’s just the beginning of a new phase of the history of humanity, one that presents opportunities as well as challenges. Being ready to ride this wave of change is the true calling of our times.

Who is the richest person in the world, ever? Does where you were born affect how much money you'll earn over a lifetime? How would we know? Why, beyond the idle curiosity, do these questions even matter? In The Haves and the Have-Nots, Branko Milanovic, one of the world's leading experts on wealth, poverty, and the gap that separates them, explains these and other mysteries of how wealth is unevenly spread throughout our world, now and through time.

Most global citizens are well aware of the explosive growth of the Chinese economy. Indeed, China has famously become the "workshop of the world." Yet, while China watchers have shed much light on the country's internal dynamics - China's politics, its vast social changes, and its economic development - few have focused on how this increasingly powerful nation has become more active and assertive throughout the world.

The intensified globalization that ensued after the end of the Cold War has resulted in an unprecedented level of interconnectedness between the economies of all rising and established powers. Economic interdependence makes today's world a much more complex place than when balance of power theory was initially developed. International relations literature has overlooked the fact that great powers have been using institutions to soft balance each other's power and aggressive behavior. Restraining Great Powers places the evolution of balancing behavior in historical perspective.

As Europe rebuilt after the devastation of the Second World War, the former colonies of the major imperial powers sought their independence at the same time the US extended its economic and political power globally. In Turbulent Empires, Mike Mason analyzes the struggles for postcolonial sovereignty and economic domination and how these competing forces led to conflicts and shifting alliances around the postwar world.

Foreign aid organizations collectively spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually, with mixed results. Part of the problem in these endeavors lies in their execution. Dan Honig argues that high-quality implementation of foreign aid programs often requires contextual information that cannot be seen by those in distant headquarters. Drawing on a novel database of over 14,000 discrete development projects, Honig concludes that aid agencies will often benefit from giving field agents the authority to use their own judgments to guide aid delivery.

A thrilling and vivid work of history, Class War weaves together literature and politics to chart the making and unmaking of social class through revolutionary combat. In a narrative that spans the globe and more than two centuries of history, Mark Steven traces the history of class war from the Haitian Revolution to Black Lives Matter.

This is the third book in the Easy Money trilogy which discusses how what the world now calls the global financial crisis evolved in the aftermath of the real estate bubble bursting in the United States and other parts of the world. In this book, we will try to understand the various reasons behind the financial crisis, and also identify the different villains behind it.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

The second book in the Easy Money trilogy discusses how the global financial system evolved in the aftermath of the First World War and how that finally led to the dot-com crash in the United States, in the early 2000s. It gives an overview of how in the aftermath of the First World War, Europe was in major trouble. The book also analyzes how the United Kingdom of Great Britain, which was once the premier nation of the world, lost out to its former colony, the United States of America.

This book brings unique perspectives to this key debate by exploring the history of green entrepreneurship since the nineteenth century, and its spread globally in industries including renewable energy, organic food, natural beauty, ecotourism, recycling, architecture, and finance. The book uses the lens of the extraordinary and often eccentric men and women who defied convention and imagined that business could help save the planet, rather than consume it. The social and religious beliefs that drove many of these individuals are explored.

Dr. Henry Kaufman is the most famous economist Wall Street has ever seen, renowned well beyond the financial industry. He was the subject of New Yorker cartoons, had cameos in drama productions and two seminal literary works of the 1980s, was subject to death threats, and enjoyed the nickname "Dr. Doom." His pinnacle of influence arrived on August 17, 1982. That single day turned out to be the beginning of the world that we now live in.

In Light of Yesterday takes the listener on a journey to better understand the events that have shaped the global economy. In Light of Yesterday is a must listen for anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of today’s global economic landscape, and provides insight into the question, “What can be done today, in light of yesterday, to prepare for tomorrow”?

In Sovereign Soldiers, Grant Madsen tells the story of how this cast of characters assumed an unfamiliar and often untold policymaking role. Seeking to avoid the harsh punishments meted out after World War I, military leaders believed they had to rebuild and rehabilitate their former enemies; if they failed they might cause an even deadlier World War III.