World Economics

Buffalo, Barrels, & Bourbon tells the fascinating tale of the Buffalo Trace Distillery, from the time of the earliest explorations of Kentucky to the present day. Author and award-winning spirits expert F. Paul Pacult takes listeners on a journey through history that covers the American Revolutionary War, US Civil War, two World Wars, Prohibition, and the Great Depression.

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 news is full of accounts of the rise and fall of economies around the world, but you may not know how these changes can affect your life. 101 Things Everyone Needs to Know about the Global Economy takes the basics of global economics and breaks them into 10 straightforward chapters. From the organizations involved and trade imbalances to global risk and foreign investment, Dr. Michael Taillard describes the world markets in terms that you can recognize. You'll also learn how these matters affect the United States and your own financial future.

Pack your cutlass and blunderbuss--it's time to go a-pirating! The Invisible Hook takes readers inside the wily world of late 17th- and early 18th-century pirates. With swashbuckling irreverence and devilish wit, Peter Leeson uncovers the hidden economics behind pirates' notorious, entertaining, and sometimes downright shocking behavior.

Coffee is an indispensable part of daily life for billions of people around the world - one of the most valuable commodities in the history of global capitalism, the leading source of the world's most popular drug, and perhaps the most widespread word on the planet. Augustine Sedgewick's Coffeeland tells the hidden and surprising story of how this came to be, tracing coffee's 500-year transformation from a mysterious Muslim ritual into an everyday necessity.

Leveraging the fresh insights of behavioral economics, Brian Portnoy demystifies the opaque world of elite hedge funds, addresses the limits of mass market mutual funds, and discards the false dichotomy between " traditional" and " alternative" investments. He also explores why hedge funds have recently become such a controversial and disruptive force. It' s not the splashy headlines but something much more fundamental.

In "Black Africa: The Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State," Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop boldly calls for the unification of Black African nations. He argues that colonial borders fractured regions with shared cultures and economies, hindering progress. Diop proposes a unified state for greater global influence, emphasizing cultural revival and a common African language.

In The Euro, Nobel Prize-winning economist and best-selling author Joseph E. Stiglitz dismantles the prevailing consensus around what ails Europe, demolishing the champions of austerity while offering a series of plans that can rescue the continent - and the world - from further devastation. Hailed by its architects as a lever that would bring Europe together and promote prosperity, the euro has done the opposite. As Stiglitz persuasively argues, the crises revealed the shortcomings of the euro.

Our world seems to be experiencing stagnant economic growth, climatic deterioration, dwindling natural resources, and an unsustainable level of population growth. The world is doomed, they argue, and there are just too many problems to overcome. But is this really the case? In Fewer, Richer, Greener, author Laurence B. Siegel reveals that the world has improved - and will continue to improve - in almost every dimension imaginable.

Every minute, someone buys an Art Deco-inspired, amber-hued bottle of Chanel No. 5. Considering that nearly ninety years have passed since No. 5’s creation, this statistic alone makes a compelling case for the perfume’s stature as the world’s most famous. However, its cultural impact might be even more staggering than its business success....

The industrial age made possible by fossil fuels will surely decline as these fuels run out. In The Ecotechnic Future John Michael Greer alerts the listener to possible changes future generations may face as these dwindling fuel supplies lead first to a deindustrial age, then to a society which salvages the remnants of our current plenty, and eventually to a time in which people may learn to live in balance with the environment: an ecotechnic society.

In a world full of pressure to be more, do more and consume more, this practical guidebook will help you find your own version of enough. Enough is a springboard for self-belief, a healthy work pace and sustainable living, so you can move from striving to thriving.

New York Times best-selling author Ted C. Fishman reveals the stunning challenges of a world awash with seasoned citizens. By 2030, those over 50 will outnumber people under 17 for the first time in history. Fishman explores the resulting impact on families, businesses, nations, and medical care.

Did Wall Street cause the mess we are in? Should Washington place stronger regulations on the financial industry? Can we lower unemployment rates by controlling the free market? Answer: no. Not only is free-market capitalism good for the economy, it is our only hope for recovery. As the nation’s longest-serving CEO of one of the top 25 financial institutions, John Allison has had a unique inside view of the events leading up to the financial crisis.

From the bestselling author of The Roaring 2000s and The Great Depression Ahead comes a work that looks forward, showing listeners how to weather the storm in this new economy that is going to get much worse in the years ahead.

In his most recent New York Times best-selling work, The Great Depression Ahead, Harry S. Dent predicted the debt crisis that would ensue in the wake of the government’s failed stimulus plan. Dent’s investment advice sees no place to hide....

In the 1630s, visitors to the prosperous trading cities of the Netherlands couldn't help but notice that thousands of normally sober, hardworking Dutch citizens were caught up in an extraordinary frenzy of buying and selling. The object of this unprecedented speculation was the tulip, a delicate and exotic Eastern import that had bewitched horticulturists, noblemen, and tavern owners alike. For almost a year, rare bulbs changed hands for incredible and ever-increasing sums, until single flowers were being sold for more than the cost of a house. Historians would come to call it tulipomania.

Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In Fault Lines, Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed.

In The Great Lockdown: Lessons Learned During the Pandemic from Organizations Around the Globe, expert strategists Shivaji Das, Aroop Zutshi, and Janesh Janardhanan deliver an insightful exploration of this once-in-a-lifetime event to unearth invaluable learnings for the future. Told through the experiences of CXOs at billion-dollar companies, star start-ups, and nonprofits from around the world, the book chronicles the ups and downs of sophisticated organizations as they navigated the COVID-19 crisis through initiatives impacting people, processes, and technology.

In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in US monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance.

Like F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises moved beyond economics in his later years to address questions regarding the foundation of all social science. But unlike Hayek's attempts, Mises' writings on these matters have received less attention than they deserve. Theory and History, writes Rothbard in his introduction, "remains by far the most neglected masterwork of Mises". Here Mises defends his all-important idea of methodological dualism: one approach to the hard sciences and another for the social sciences.