Alan S. Blinder - esteemed Princeton professor, Wall Street Journal columnist, and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board under Alan Greenspan - is one of our wisest and most clear-eyed economic thinkers. In After the Music Stopped, he delivers a masterful narrative of how the worst economic crisis in postwar American history happened, what the government did to fight it, and what we must do to recover from it.

Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance. Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, it's the sinews of war. To revolutionaries, it's the chains of labor. Niall Ferguson shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress.

In 1971, President Nixon imposed national price controls and took the United States off the gold standard, an extreme measure intended to end an ongoing currency war that had destroyed faith in the U.S. dollar. Today we are engaged in a new currency war, and this time the consequences will be far worse than those that confronted Nixon. Currency wars are one of the most destructive and feared outcomes in international economics.

Since 2014, international monetary agencies have been issuing warnings to a small group of finance ministers, banks, and private equity funds: The US government's cowardly choices not to prosecute J.P. Morgan and its ilk and to bloat the economy with a $4 trillion injection of easy credit are driving us headlong toward a cliff. As Rickards shows in this frightening, meticulously researched book, governments around the world have no compunction about conspiring against their citizens.

This is an updated version of the book that accurately predicted the global stock market crash of 2008, the bursting of the real estate bubble, and Ben Bernanke's unprecedented overreaction via quantitative easing programs. First published in 2008, the book quickly became a best seller not just for its timely insight into precious metals investment but for its amazingly accurate prediction of a "roller-coaster crash"—the manipulated whipsaw between inflation, deflation, and back again.

The dramatic story behind the most audacious power grab in American history. The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue. The stunning rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street in the bubble-and-bailout era was the coming-out party for the network of looters who sit at the nexus of American political and economic power. The grifter class - made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding - has been growing in power for a generation, transferring wealth upward through increasingly complex financial mechanisms.

In The Real Crash, New York Times best-selling author Peter D. Schiff argues that America is enjoying a government-inflated bubble, one that reality will explode... with disastrous consequences for the economy and for each of us. Schiff demonstrates how the infusion of billions of dollars of stimulus money has only dug a deeper hole: The United States government simply spends too much and does not collect enough money to pay its debts, and in the end, Americans from all walks of life will face a crushing consequence.

Over 4,000 students gathered at the University of Michigan to hear Republican Party candidate Ron Paul speak. As he began to address the topics of monetary policy and the coming depression, a chant rose from the crowd, "End the Fed! End the Fed!" As dollar bills were lit on fire and thrown into the night skies, it became clear that the real problem, one that nobody in the media was talking about, was the central bank-an unconstitutional entity and a political, economic, and moral disaster.

The international monetary system has collapsed three times in the past hundred years, in 1914, 1939, and 1971. Each collapse was followed by a period of tumult: War, civil unrest, or significant damage to the stability of the global economy. Now James Rickards, the acclaimed author of Currency Wars, shows why another collapse is rapidly approaching - and why this time, nothing less than the institution of money itself is at risk.

In the early 2000s, as a Wall Street escapee writing a financial column for the Dallas Morning News, Booth attracted attention for her bold criticism of the Fed's low interest rate policies and her cautionary warnings about the bubbly housing market. Nobody was more surprised than she when the folks at the Dallas Federal Reserve invited her aboard. Figuring she could have more of an impact on Fed policies from the inside, she accepted the call to duty and rose to be one of Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher's closest advisors.

In 2008 the US Treasury put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into a life-support state known as "conservatorship" to prevent their failure - and worldwide economic chaos. The two companies, which were always controversial, have become a battleground. Today, Fannie and Freddie are profitable again but still in conservatorship. Their profits are being redirected toward reducing the federal deficit, which leaves them with no buffer should they suffer losses again.

A book that is certain to spark controversy within the financial media and throughout the halls of government, The Coming Bond Market Collapse sounds a clarion call to investors, business leaders, and policymakers. Author Michael Pento, a noted adherent of the Austrian school of economics theories, compellingly argues that the United States is fast approaching the end stage of the biggest asset bubble in history.

William D. Cohan is no knee-jerk advocate for Wall Street and the big banks. He's one of America's most respected financial journalists and the progressive best-selling author of House of Cards. He has long been critical of the bad behavior that plagued much of Wall Street in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, and because he spent 17 years as an investment banker on Wall Street, he is an expert on its inner workings as well.

Consider the $20 bill. It has no more value, as a simple slip of paper, than Monopoly money. Yet even children recognize that tearing one into small pieces is an act of inconceivable stupidity. What makes a $20 bill actually worth $20? In the third volume of his best-selling Naked series, Charles Wheelan uses this seemingly simple question to open the door to the surprisingly colorful world of money and banking.

After the global financial panic and recession of 2007–2009, you don’t have to be president or a hedge fund manager to know that “It’s the economy, stupid.” Yet while the economy dominates the headlines, how it works and who influences it remain a mystery to most people. In The Little Book of Economics, Greg Ip, an award-winning journalist renowned for making complex economics easy to understand, walks you through how the economy really works.