Showing titles in Economic History

For the past 50 years, the business world has been dominated by the Milton Friedman financial capitalism economic model, which preaches that it is the "sole social responsibility of business to maximize profit for distribution to shareholders". This one-dimensional focus represents a grossly incomplete view of reality - there are many other factors businesses need to pay attention to if they are to thrive and endure.

In the midst of one of the most serious financial upheavals since the Great Depression, George Soros writes about the origins of the crisis and proposes a set of policies that should be adopted to confront it. Soros places the current crisis in the context of his decades of study of how individuals and institutions handle the boom and bust cycles that now dominate global economic activity.

Soros makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the great credit crisis and its implications for our nation and the world.

For centuries, the developed Western world has exploited the less-developed “Rest” in the name of progress, conquering the Americas, driving the Atlantic slave trade, and colonizing Africa and Asia. Throughout, the West has justified this global conquest by the alleged material gains it brought to the conquered. But the colonial experiment unintentionally revealed how much of a demand there was for self-determination, and not just for relief from poverty. In Violent Saviors, economist William Easterly examines how the demand for agency has always been at the heart of debates on development.

This introduction to the economic history of the global economy and the process of globalization since 1850 tracks and explains changes in international trade, migration, and capital flows. All key indicators of globalization rose between 1850 and 1914 during the first wave of globalization. Between 1918 and 1939 the global economy stagnated, suffering a momentous collapse during the Great Depression. After World War II, the global economy re-emerged and integration deepened.

Spanning nine countries, filled with heroic tales of bold decisions and self-sacrifice, and probing vast historical undercurrents, "The Miracle" takes readers inside private boardroom meetings, heated business negotiations, factory floors, and presidential cabinet sessions for a behind-the-scenes look at the events that shaped Asia's economic ascent - and will shape the world in the century to come.

From the best-selling authors of The Right Nation, a visionary argument that our current crisis in government is nothing less than the fourth radical transition in the history of the nation-state. Dysfunctional government: It' s become a cliché, and most of us are resigned to the fact that nothing is ever going to change. As John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge show us, that is a seriously limited view of things. In fact, there have been three great revolutions in government in the history of the modern world.

The Shadow Market, reveals that an enormous reshuffling of global fiscal power is taking place - and that Americans are powerless to stop it. Highly informative and sometimes startling, The Shadow Market is an urgent warning to the worldwide community and a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of the global economy, America's position in the world, or how and where to invest money.

Viola MacMillan had it all: success, money, and respect. Influence, even. But in 1964, after three decades in the mining industry, one of the most fascinating women in Canadian business history was the central character in one of the country's most famous stock scandals. MacMillan, who started out as a prospector in the '30s, had developed lucrative mines and put together big deals. But she still wanted "a major discovery." Early in July 1964, shares in Windfall Oil and Mines, a company she and her husband controlled, traded for around 56 cents. Then one day, the stock took off.

The legendary investor and bestselling author shares his unique template for how debt crises work and principles for dealing with them well. This template allowed his firm, Bridgewater Associates, to antic­ipate 2008’s events and navigate them well while others struggled badly. As he explained in his international best­seller Principles, Ray Dalio believes that almost everything happens over and over again through time, so that by studying patterns one can understand the cause-effect relationships behind events and develop principles for dealing with them well.

This classic statement of economic liberalism or the policy of laissez-faire was first published in 1776. It is an engrossing analysis of the economic facts of life. Several fundamental principles, many of which are now referred to as axioms, were introduced in this work, the division of labor, supply-and-demand, and free market capitalism being among the most obvious.

In The Futures, Emily Lambert, senior writer at Forbes magazine, tells us the rich and dramatic history of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, which together comprised the original, most bustling futures market in the world. She details the emergence of the futures business as a kind of meeting place for gamblers and farmers and its subsequent transformation into a sophisticated electronic market where contracts are traded at lightning-fast speeds.

After the 2008 financial crisis, investment banks and other professional investors had the edge when it came to bailouts and stock trading. The crisis also ushered in a wave of new small-scale retail investors who were hell-bent on crushing the big guys by using social media channels to connect, share ideas, promote stocks, and reap the rewards—Robin Hood-style. But did the meme short squeeze stand a chance in a rigged playing field? This concise, definitive account of a daring Wall Street heist exposes a fight to the death against a fraudulent system.

Digital technology is transforming every corner of the economy, fundamentally altering the way things are done, who does them, and what they earn for their efforts. In The Wealth of Humans, Economist editor Ryan Avent brings up-to-the-minute research and reporting to bear on the major economic question of our time: can the modern world manage technological changes every bit as disruptive as those that shook the socioeconomic landscape of the 19th century? Find out.

Fortune favours the bold. All great leaders of history have known this, and were successful because of the risks they dared to take. But today, so many of us are paralysed by fear. Drawing on ancient Stoic wisdom and examples across history and around the world, Ryan Holiday shows why courage is so important, and how to cultivate it in our own lives. Courage is not simply physical bravery but also doing the right thing and standing up for what you believe; it's creativity, generosity and perseverance. And it is the only way to live an extraordinary, fulfilled and effective life.

The years since the Great Crisis of 2008 have seen slow growth, high unemployment, falling home values, chronic deficits, a deepening disaster in Europe - and a stale argument between two false solutions, “austerity” on one side and “stimulus” on the other. Both sides and practically all analyses of the crisis so far take for granted that the economic growth from the early 1950s until 2000 - interrupted only by the troubled 1970s - represented a normal performance.

John Maynard Keynes died in 1946, but his name is still prominent in economics and politics worldwide. Although his contributions to economic theory established and maintain his fame, he also - particularly at the time in his life when he wrote the present book, Economic Consequences of the Peace - showed a flair for practical political work. At the end of World War I he was appointed as the British Treasury's representative to the Versailles Peace Conference. His experiences at the Conference formed the basis of this book.

In 1966, two columnists joined Newsweek magazine. Their assignment: Debate the world of business and economics. Paul Samuelson was a towering figure in Keynesian economics. Milton Friedman championed "monetarism" and insisted the Federal Reserve maintain tight control over the amount of money circulating in the economy.

What accounts for the rise of the state, the creation of the first global system, and the dominance of the West? The conventional answer asserts that superior technology, tactics, and institutions forged by Darwinian military competition gave Europeans a decisive advantage in war from 1500 onward. Empires of the Weak argues that Europeans had no general military superiority in the early modern era. Sharman shows instead that European expansion is better explained by deference to strong Asian and African polities, disease in the Americas, and maritime supremacy earned by default.

A lyrical work of narrative nonfiction that portrays how the largest domestic oil discovery in half a century transformed a forgotten corner of the American West into a crucible of breakneck capitalism. As North Dakota became the nation's second-largest oil producer, Maya Rao set out in steel-toe boots to join a wave of drifters, dreamers, entrepreneurs, and criminals. With an eye for the dark, absurd, and humorous, Rao fearlessly immersed herself in their world to chronicle this modern-day gold rush, from its heady beginnings to OPEC's price war against the US oil industry.

From investors and monetary authorities to governments and policy makers, almost everyone had assumed inflation was dead and buried. But now people the world over are confronting a poisonous new economic reality and, with it, the prospect of vast and increasing wealth inequality. How have we arrived in this situation? And what, if anything, can we do about it? Celebrated economist Stephen D. King—one of the few to warn ahead of time about the latest inflationary upheaval—identifies key lessons from the history of inflation that policy makers chose not to heed.