Money Finance History

In Putinomics, Chris Miller examines the making of Russian economic policy since Vladimir Putin took power in 1999. Miller argues that Putin's economic strategy has functioned far more effectively than most Westerners realize. While acknowledging that part of Putin's successes - above all, quadrupling per capita GDP in just a decade and a half - can be attributed to cashing in on high oil prices, Miller details the government policies that have also been fundamental to Russia's growth.

At a time when artificial intelligence, climate change, and inequality are raising fundamental questions about the economic system, Capitalism and Its Critics provides a kaleidoscopic history of global capitalism, from the East India Company to Apple. But here John Cassidy, a staff writer at The New Yorker and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, adopts a bold new approach: he tells the story through the eyes of the system’s critics.

Financial crises happen time and again in post-industrial economies - and they are extraordinarily damaging. Building on insights gleaned from many years of work in the banking industry and drawing on a vast trove of data, Richard Vague argues that such crises follow a pattern that makes them both predictable and avoidable. A Brief History of Doom examines a series of major crises over the past 200 years in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan, and China - including the Great Depression and the economic meltdown of 2008.

This myth shattering book reveals the methods Nouriel Roubini used to foretell the current crisis before other economists saw it coming and shows how those methods can help us make sense of the present and prepare for the future. Renowned economist Nouriel Roubini electrified his profession and the larger financial community by predicting the current crisis well in advance of anyone else.

From the invention of interest in Mesopotamia and the origin of paper money in China, to the creation of mutual funds, inflation-indexed bonds, and global financial securities, here is a sweeping survey of financial innovations that have changed the world. Written by a distinguished group of experts - including Robert Shiller, Niall Ferguson, Valerie Hansen, and many others - The Origins of Value traces the evolution of finance through 4,000 years of history.

In her acclaimed AOL.com, Kara Swisher chronicled the unlikely ascent of a group of underdog entrepreneurs and their influence on American net culture. This book picks up where the previous one left off, investigating AOL's merger with Time Warner and its aftermath. Journalists Swisher and Dickey have an ear for the comic and an appreciation for the larger-than-life personalities that propel the drama. After the merger, a troubled journey lies ahead both for AOL Time Warner and for its competitors.

Crack explains why, in a de-industrializing America in which market forces ruled and entrepreneurial risk-taking was celebrated, the crack industry was a lucrative enterprise for the "Horatio Alger boys" of their place and time. These young, predominately African American entrepreneurs were profit-sharing partners in a deviant, criminal form of economic globalization. Hip Hop artists often celebrated their exploits but overwhelmingly, Americans - across racial lines - did not. Crack takes a hard look at the dark side of late 20th-century capitalism.

Beginning in the 1950s, America entered a period of unprecedented social reform. This remarkable book demonstrates how the social programs of the 1960s and ’70s had the unintended and perverse effect of slowing and even reversing earlier progress in reducing poverty, crime, ignorance, and discrimination. Using widely understood and accepted data, it conclusively demonstrates that the amalgam of reforms from 1965 to 1970 actually made matters worse.

Ein Bullshit-Job ist eine Beschäftigungsform, die so völlig sinnlos, unnötig oder schädlich ist, dass selbst der Arbeitnehmer ihre Existenz nicht rechtfertigen kann. Es geht also gerade nicht um Jobs, die niemand machen will, sondern um solche, die eigentlich niemand braucht.

Why are cellphone plans so much more expensive in the United States than in Europe? It seems a simple question. But the search for an answer took Thomas Philippon on an unexpected journey through some of the most complex and hotly debated issues in modern economics. Ultimately, he reached a surprising conclusion: American markets, once a model for the world, are giving up on healthy competition.

Before Columbus's fateful voyage in 1492, no European had ever seen, much less tasted, tobacco or chocolate. Initially dismissed as dry leaves and an odd Indian drink, these two commodities came to conquer Europe on a scale unsurpassed by any other American resource or product. A fascinating story of contact, exploration, and exchange in the Atlantic world, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures traces the ways in which these two goods of the Americas both changed and were changed by Europe.

Based upon the premise that mankind experienced virtually zero economic growth from the dawn of time until 1820, this provocative, big-picture book identifies the four conditions necessary for sustained economic progress - property rights, scientific rationalism, capital markets, and communications and transportation technology - and then analyzes their gradual appearance and impact throughout every corner of the globe.

The best-selling author of Perfectly Legal returns with a powerful new expose.

When they met in Philadelphia in 1787, everyone understood real money as Spanish gold doubloons and silver pieces of eight. The Founders hid a clause in the Constitution that allowed states to use pirate money as legal tender. Adding current technology, their secret can be used to stop the threats of inflation, federal overreach, and the Great Reset while preserving personal liberty and privacy.

With investors more eager than ever to protect their investments, The Empire of Debt is an essential guide to the future of finance, harnessing history to accurately plot where we are and where we're going.

The Story of Money is a look at the past, present, and future of money. Sharing his expertise, Sean Cover shows us that many of today’s major political issues can be traced back to how our system of money works, including the rise in income inequality over the last 50 years and the skyrocketing cost of healthcare and college tuition.

It was Adam Smith (1723 - 1790) who first established economics as a separate branch of knowledge, and many would say his work has never been surpassed. The Wealth of Nations, which appeared in 1776, is the definitive text for all who believe that economic decisions are best left to markets, not governments. At the heart of Smith’s doctrine is an optimistic view of the effects of self-interest.

A candid, colorful, and comprehensive oral history that reveals the secrets of Silicon Valley - from the origins of Apple and Atari to the present day clashes of Google and Facebook, and all the start-ups and disruptions that happened along the way. Drawing on over 200 in-depth interviews, Valley of Genius takes listeners from the dawn of the personal computer and the Internet, through the heyday of the web, up to the very moment when our current technological reality was invented.

America emerged from Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal with strong democratic values and broadly shared prosperity. But for the past 30 years, American politics has been dominated by a conservative movement determined to undermine the New Deal's achievements. Now, the tide may be turning, and in The Conscience of a Liberal Paul Krugman, the world's most widely read economist and one of its most influential political commentators, charts the way to reform.

In December 2008, the world watched as master financier Bernard L. Madoff was taken away from his posh Manhattan apartment in handcuffs, accused of swindling thousands of innocent victims - including friends and family - out of billions of dollars in the world's largest Ponzi scheme. Madoff went to jail; he will spend the rest of his life there. But what happened to his devoted wife and sons?