Economic History

Most Americans — and people worldwide — understand that despite our remarkable technological advances, something is deeply wrong with the direction of our country and world.

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries.....

With narration by Anu Anand, who tells the story of how Enlightenment culture sparked the Industrial Revolution....

If you asked most people what forces led to today’s unprecedented income inequality and financial crashes, no one would say the Federal Reserve. For most of its history, the Fed has enjoyed the fawning adoration of the press....

In the first intellectual history of neoliberal globalism, Quinn Slobodian follows a group of thinkers from the ashes of the Habsburg Empire to the creation of the World Trade Organization....

Titan is the first full-length biography based on unrestricted access to Rockefeller’s exceptionally rich trove of papers. A landmark publication full of startling revelations, the book indelibly alters our image of this most enigmatic capitalist....

In this unique exploration of the role of risk in our society, Peter Bernstein argues that the notion of bringing risk under control is one of the central ideas that distinguishes modern times from the distant past.

Alfani argues that the position of the rich and super-rich in Western society has always been intrinsically fragile; their very presence has inspired social unease. In the Middle Ages, an excessive accumulation of wealth was considered sinful; the rich were expected not to appear to be wealthy....

Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt....

With high stock and bond prices and the rising cost of housing, the post-subprime boom may well turn out to be another illustration of Shiller's influential argument that psychologically driven volatility is an inherent characteristic of all asset markets....

The "rich and gripping" true story of the first time machines came for human jobs—and how the Luddite uprising explains the power, threat, and toll of big tech and AI today (Naomi Klein)....

An acclaimed economist’s observations on four years of events that have shaped the world.

With incomparable wisdom, skill, and wit, world-renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith traces the history of the major speculative episodes in our economy over the last three centuries....

Since the Wall Street Crash in 1929, financial meltdowns have repeatedly sent shockwaves through our world. The Great Crashes tells the stories of ten historic events. They serve as a series of cautionary tales, each with their own set of lessons to be learnt....

The gripping story of how the end of the Roman Empire was the beginning of the modern world....

In this exposé, former Wall Street insider Nomi Prins shows how the 2007-2008 financial crisis turbo-boosted the influence of central bankers and triggered a massive shift in the world order. Collusion will change the way we understand the new world of international finance....

The definitive biography of the most important economic statesman of our time, from the best-selling author of The Power Law and More Money Than God. Sebastian Mallaby's magisterial biography of Alan Greenspan, the product of over five years of research....

Andrew Lambert, author of The Challenge, turns his attention to Athens, Carthage, Venice, the Dutch Republic, and Britain, examining how their identities as "seapowers" informed their actions and enabled them to achieve success disproportionate to their size....

Vividly written, The Infidel and the Professor is a compelling account of a great friendship of two towering Enlightenment thinkers that had great consequences for modern thought....

Called by H.L. Mencken, "one of the few economists in history who could really write," Henry Hazlitt achieved lasting fame for this brilliant but concise work....

As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began....

Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes....

The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes investigates the trade routes between Rome and the powerful empires of inner Asia, including the Parthian regime which ruled ancient Persia (Iran)....

Simply Electrifying brings to life the 250-year history of electricity through the stories of the men and women who used it to transform our world....

In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from 20 countries, ranging as far back as the 18th century, to uncover key economic and social patterns....

In How Progress Ends, Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even today progress and prosperity in the world's largest, most advanced economies—the United States and China—have fallen short of expectations. To appreciate why we cannot depend on any AI-fueled great leap forward, Frey offers a remarkable and fascinating journey across the globe, spanning the past 1,000 years, to explain why some societies flourish and others fail in the wake of rapid technological change

Kann eine mächtige Nation wie die USA pleite gehen? Bedrohen hohe Schulden weltweit unser kollektives Wohlergehen? Ray Dalio, New-York-Times-Bestsellerautor und einer der größten Investoren unserer Zeit, erläutert die Gründe für seine Befürchtungen und liefert eine Blaupause, um die aktuelle Situation besser verstehen und entsprechend handeln zu können. Dalio wurde zum führenden Global-Macro-Investor, indem er die Muster der Geschichte studierte und unkonventionelle Perspektiven auf das entwickelte, was heute an den Märkten passiert.

Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world.

An acclaimed economist’s observations on four years of events that have shaped the world.

Bestselling author Howard Green profiles former Scotiabank CEO Rick Waugh and sketches an unprecedented and up-close picture of what it is like to run a global bank, often during financial chaos, while leading more than 80,000 employees in more than fifty countries.