Global Finance

In this landmark work, acclaimed historian Joshua Freeman has created an epic portrait of a nation both galvanized by change and driven by conflict. Beginning in 1945, the economic juggernaut awakened by World War II transformed a country once defined by its regional character into a uniform and cohesive power and set the stage for the United States’ rise to global dominance. Meanwhile, Freeman locates the profound tragedy that has shaped the path of American civic life.

The Bottomless Cloud challenges the scarcity-driven mindset by taking a hard look at how industrial-age business models are failing us by regarding data as a commodity and a cost that needs to be constrained, rather than a near-infinite resource that can be mined to build entirely new sources of value and insight. From Uber to Nike to Netflix, The Bottomless Cloud is defining the tenets of success in the 21st century by changing the way we view data, from being a byproduct of business to a foundational driver of radically new business models.

Who holds the purse strings to the majority of the world's wealth? There is a new global elite at the controls of our economic future, and here former Project Censored director and media monitoring sociologist Peter Phillips unveils for the general listener just who these players are. The book includes such power players as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, and Warren Buffett.

The subprime mortgage crisis has already wreaked havoc on the lives of millions of people, and now it threatens to derail the U.S. economy and economies around the world. In this trenchant book, best-selling economist Robert Shiller reveals the origins of this crisis and puts forward bold measures to solve it.

In Connectography, visionary strategist Parag Khanna travels from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, Pakistan to Nigeria, and across the Arctic Circle to explain the unprecedented changes affecting every part of the planet. He shows how militaries are deployed to protect supply chains as much as borders, and how nations are less at war over territory than engaged in tugs-of-war over pipelines, railways, shipping lanes, and Internet cables. The new arms race is to connect to the most markets.

Globalization means that we need to be prepared to interact with people from a wide range of cultures. But it's impossible to learn the particular customs and traits of every culture you might regularly come into contact with. Cultural Intelligence teaches techniques that will allow you to function effectively in any culture. Instead of providing a laundry list of culturally specific dos and don'ts, Thomas and Inkson show how to pay attention in a mindful and creative way to cues in cross-cultural situations.

From a long-time Alibaba executive and former special assistant to Jack Ma, this is the first book to articulate how Alibaba's unique culture and “tai chi” management principles are providing a business and economic development model for the rest of the world.

Since the Wall Street Crash in 1929, financial meltdowns have repeatedly sent shockwaves through our world. From the currency crises of the 1980s and 1990s, to Japan's housing crash, the dot com boom and bust, the global financial meltdown, the euro crisis and the COVID pandemic, The Great Crashes tells the stories of ten of these historic events. They serve as a series of cautionary tales, each with their own set of lessons to be learnt. Renowned economist Dr Linda Yueh extracts a three-step framework to help recognise the early signs of a crash and mitigate the effects.

On March 14, 2012, more than three million people read Greg Smith's bombshell op-ed in the New York Times titled Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs. The column immediately went viral, became a worldwide trending topic on Twitter, and drew passionate responses from former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, legendary General Electric CEO Jack Welch, and New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg.

Cyber-risk, climate change, and terrorism are all man-made risks. Daniel Wagner and Dante Disparte, two leading authorities in global risk management, make a compelling case for the need to bring traditional approaches to risk management and decision-making into the 21st century.

Digital platforms are changing the rules of competition in the global economy. Until recently, it took Fortune 500 companies an average of 20 years to reach billion-dollar market valuations. Successful platforms now reach that milestone in an average of four years. In The Platform Paradox, Wharton professor Mauro F. Guillén highlights a key incongruity in this new world. Most platforms considered to be successful have triumphed in only some, rather than all, parts of the world. There are very few truly global digital platforms.

It is imperative that investors have a good understanding of market conditions when trading these assets as they can be volatile, sometimes considered overbought. With this in mind, knowledge of technical analysis and risk management strategies will help ensure informed decisions are made on when it is best to buy or sell. Having good relationships with software engineers is also invaluable for those hoping to trade electronically, as they will often have the resources and expertise necessary for managing complex transactions safely and efficiently.

For centuries, oceans were the chessboard on which empires battled for supremacy. But in the nuclear age, air power and missile systems dominated our worries about security, and for the United States, the economy was largely driven by domestic production, with trucking and railways that crisscrossed the continent serving as the primary modes of commercial transit.

With millions of people who exchange dollars in the online trading market, any investor should understand that there is a huge potential worth taking advantage of in trading. One important question that new traders should ask themselves is whether trading is the right activity for them. Before you engage in trading, you should have the right reasons why you need to trade. In this case, it could be that you want to grow your capital and open a thriving business. Also, you might be willing to trade for the benefit of gaining experience out of it.

Global trade is of vital interest to citizens as well as policymakers, yet it is widely misunderstood. This compact exposition of the market forces underlying international commerce addresses both of these concerned groups, as well as the needs of students and scholars. Although it contains no equations, it is almost mathematical in its elegance, precision, and power of expression. Understanding Global Trade provides a thorough explanation of what shapes the international organization of production and distribution and the resulting trade flows.

The rising unhappiness that leaders didn’t see. That’s because while leaders pay close attention to measures like GDP or unemployment, almost none of them track their citizens’ well-being. The implications of this blind spot are significant and far-reaching—leaders missed the citizen unhappiness that triggered events ranging from the Arab uprisings to Brexit to the election of Donald Trump. What are they going to miss next?

What do a barracks for British troops in the Falklands War, a floating jail off the Bronx, and temporary housing for VW factory workers in Germany have in common? The Balder Scapa: a single barge that served all three roles. Though the name would eventually change to Finnboda 12. And then to Safe Esperia. And later on, to the Bibby Resolution. And after that . . . in short, a vessel with so many names, and so many fates, that to keep it in our sights—as the protagonist of this fascinating economic parable—Ian Kumekawa has no choice but to call it, simply, the Vessel.

Our world is constantly buffeted by new and dramatic changes we can't fully grasp. No one is fully prepared for the challenges, crises, and risks that lie ahead. The Extreme Future is a blueprint for what's next and how to navigate these changes.

The ongoing tumult in financial markets and the global economy began when some of our most esteemed financial institutions, our government, and even average citizens abdicated their collective responsibilities, eventually selling out investors and selling off the American Dream itself.

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.