A century ago, the idea of 'the economy' didn't exist. Now economics is the supreme ideology of our time, with its own rules and language. The trouble is most of us can't speak it. This is damaging democracy. Dangerous agendas are hidden inside mathematical wrappers; controversial policies are presented as 'proven' by the models of economic 'science'. Government is being turned over to a publicly unaccountable technocratic elite. The Econocracy reveals that economics is too important to be left to the economists

Inflation is back, and its impact can be felt everywhere, from the grocery store to the mortgage market to the results of elections around the world. Yet the conventional wisdom about inflation is stuck in the past. Since the 1970s, there has only really been one playbook for fighting inflation: raise interest rates, thereby creating unemployment and a recession, which will lower prices. But this simple story hides a multitude of beliefs about why prices go up and how policymakers can wrestle them back down, beliefs that are often wrong, damaging, and have little empirical basis.

Fully updated chapters continue to address how technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Over the past several years, the rise of populism and conspiracy theories have taken this to new levels. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism.

In this compelling dialogue, two of the world’s most influential thinkers reflect on the value of equality and debate what citizens and governments should do to narrow the gaps that separate us. Ranging across economics, philosophy, history, and current affairs, Thomas Piketty and Michael Sandel consider how far we have come in achieving greater equality. At the same time, they confront head-on the extreme divides that remain in wealth, income, power, and status nationally and globally.

Known for providing incisive progressive political analysis without being dogmatic, popular radio and podcast host David Pakman delves into the vicious cycle of reactionary political ideology. It's no secret how the right-wing has benefited and capitalized off disinformation and polarization of US politics. Critical thinking and media literacy are on a rapid decline, and our republic is unable to agree upon a shared set of facts. Pakman challenges the right-wing head-on and encourages listeners to understand how the status quo became the status quo.

In Moral Ambition, internationally bestselling author Rutger Bregman reveals how our conventional definitions of success are harming us and the planet, and shows how we can shift the focus from personal gain to societal benefit. In the process, he explains, we will join a growing movement of pioneers who are already living out this ethos. They're the builders, the problem-solvers, the doers who have chosen a path less traveled.

How Are You Going to Pay for That? is filled with engaging discussions and detailed strategies that policymakers and citizens alike can use to assail even the most entrenched lines of neoliberal logic and start to undo these long-held misconceptions. Equal parts economic theory, history, and political polemic, this is an essential roadmap for winning the key battles to come.

Why have so many Americans turned against democracy? In this deeply reported book, Katherine Stewart takes us to conferences of conspiracy-mongers, backroom strategy gatherings, and services at extremist churches, and profiles the people who want to tear it all down.

In this exhilarating tale by New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor, a disabled Nigerian American woman pens a wildly successful Sci-Fi novel, but as her fame rises, she loses control of the narrative—a surprisingly cutting, yet heartfelt drama about art and love, identity and connection, and, ultimately, what makes us human. This is a story unlike anything you’ve seen before.

America was once a country that did big things—we built the world’s greatest rail network, a vast electrical grid, interstate highways, abundant housing, the Social Security system, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and more. But today, even while facing a host of pressing challenges—a housing shortage, a climate crisis, a dilapidated infrastructure—we feel stuck, unable to move the needle. Why?

From social psychologist Dr. Devon Price, a conversational, stirring call to “a better, more human way to live” (Cal Newport, New York Times best-selling author) that examines the “laziness lie” - which falsely tells us we are not working or learning hard enough.

The New York Times bestselling author brings his trademark legal acumen and passionate snark to offer a brilliant takedown of ten shocking pieces of legislation that continue to perpetuate hate, racial bias, injustice, and inequality today—an urgent yet hopeful story for our current political climate

Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Author James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not - and cannot - be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge.

In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with 'big government' and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor.

"Copaganda" is a special kind of propaganda employed by police, prosecutors, and news media. It stokes fear of police-recorded crime and distorts society’s responses to it. As the United States incarcerates five times more people per capita than it did in 1970—despite record low crime rates—a sprawling and profitable punishment bureaucracy spends a lot of time and money to manipulate what we think that bureaucracy does and why.

A century ago, the idea of 'the economy' didn't exist. Now economics is the supreme ideology of our time, with its own rules and language. The trouble is most of us can't speak it. This is damaging democracy. Dangerous agendas are hidden inside mathematical wrappers; controversial policies are presented as 'proven' by the models of economic 'science'. Government is being turned over to a publicly unaccountable technocratic elite. The Econocracy reveals that economics is too important to be left to the economists

Prophecies that the dollar will lose its status as the world's dominant currency have echoed for decades—and are increasing in volume. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts claim that Bitcoin or other blockchain-based monetary units will replace the dollar. Foreign policy hawks warn that China's renminbi poses a lethal threat to the greenback. And sound money zealots predict that mounting US debt and inflation will surely erode the dollar's value to the point of irrelevancy.

Joseph E. Stiglitz has had a remarkable career. What brought him to economics were his concerns about the inequality and discrimination he saw growing up. Wanting to understand what drives it and what can be done about it has been his lifelong passion. This book gathers together and extends to new frontiers this lifelong work, drawing upon the challenges and insights of each of these phases of his career.

America was once a country that did big things—we built the world’s greatest rail network, a vast electrical grid, interstate highways, abundant housing, the Social Security system, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and more. But today, even while facing a host of pressing challenges—a housing shortage, a climate crisis, a dilapidated infrastructure—we feel stuck, unable to move the needle. Why?

How will the United States and China evolve militarily in the years ahead? Many experts believe the answer to this question is largely unknowable. But Zack Cooper argues that the American and Chinese militaries are following a well-trodden path. For centuries, the world's most powerful militaries have adhered to a remarkably consistent pattern of behavior, determined largely by their leaders' perceptions of relative power shifts. By uncovering these trends, this book places the evolving military competition between the United States and China in historical context.

A leading national security expert, who publicly predicted Vladimir Putin's intention to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine months before it took place, lays out the case for why China's Xi Jinping is preparing to conquer Taiwan in the coming years and the dire stakes for America and the whole world if he is not deterred.

Inflation is back, and its impact can be felt everywhere, from the grocery store to the mortgage market to the results of elections around the world. Yet the conventional wisdom about inflation is stuck in the past. Since the 1970s, there has only really been one playbook for fighting inflation: raise interest rates, thereby creating unemployment and a recession, which will lower prices. But this simple story hides a multitude of beliefs about why prices go up and how policymakers can wrestle them back down, beliefs that are often wrong, damaging, and have little empirical basis.

In 2020, Emma Holten read an article stating that women were a net ‘deficit’ to society. Women apparently took more than they gave: they took more parental leave, frequently worked part-time, and typically worked lower paying jobs in the public sector. How did we get here? How are the contributions of half the population seen as a loss? In Deficit, Emma Holten traces how economic thinkers – from the Enlightenment onwards – created a value framework that left out ‘women’s work’ and acts of care.

Dasha Kennedy grew up in a family where finances were not discussed. At fifteen, she already had bad money habits that would follow her into adulthood. At nineteen, she realized that the Fortune 500 executives who promote financial literacy did not look or sound anything like her. And she knew she couldn’t be the only person who felt as lost and overlooked as she did when it came to money management. So, she started the website The Broke Black Girl and discovered an entire community of people who were desperate for money advice and understanding.

Andrew Mellon, one of the most accomplished businessmen of his era, is almost unknown today. To this shy, diffident (but brilliant) man fell the daunting task of collecting the war debts from European governments still devastated by WWI and struggling to recover economically. Dealing with the US Congress and the heads of foreign governments on the world stage became one of the great adventures of his life. Mellon vs. Churchill presents Winston Churchill through a different lens, focusing on his service as Chancellor of the Exchequer when Great Britain was the largest debtor to the US.

Look at a map of the world and you’ll see a colorful checkerboard of nation-states. But this is not where power actually resides. Over the last decade, globalization has shattered the map into different legal spaces: free ports, tax havens, special economic zones. With the new spaces, ultracapitalists have started to believe that it is possible to escape the bonds of democratic government and oversight altogether. Crack-Up Capitalism follows the most notorious radical libertarians around the globe as they search for the perfect space for capitalism.

We can all agree—birds are terrible. They're stupid and won't shut up. Featuring fifty of the absolute worst birds to fly the earth, Kracht identifies each of their most terrible qualities, details exactly why they suck, and shows you why. Including all-new, all-worst fowl, such as: the absolute waste of feathers Cruddy Turdstone (Ruddy Turnstone), the utter a-hole Blank Staring-Eyes Flycrapper (Black Paradise Flycatcher), the outright loser Dowdy Woodfucker (Downy Woodpecker), and many more!

From Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Hiltzik, a definitive new history of California—from the Spanish conquistadors to the Gold Rush to the state’s meteoric rise as a tech powerhouse and bulwark of progressivism—and of its indelible mark on the United States and the world.

Most Americans — and people worldwide — understand that despite our remarkable technological advances, something is deeply wrong with the direction of our country and world. There are a variety of causes but Mr. Lepard believes, and wrote this book because, too many are missing the one, principal underlying cause: The Money Is Broken.

Credit Suisse was a 166-year-old bastion of global banking. But a veneer of high-class service disguised a darker, much dirtier reality. From its sterile Zurich headquarters, Credit Suisse banked dictators and drug dealers, hid stolen Nazi gold, and helped corrupt bankers fleece the firm's own clients of billions of dollars. Its top executives oversaw a global operation that laundered money for autocrats; they hired spies to track one another through the cobbled streets of the Swiss financial capital; and they helped clients hide their money from the world's tax authorities.