Economic History

Richard H. Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans - predictable, error-prone individuals....

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....

NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER From two winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, “who have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity” “A wildly ambitious work that hopscotches through history and around the world...

The New York Times bestseller from business journalist Christopher Leonard infiltrates one of America’s most mysterious institutions—the Federal Reserve—to show how its policies spearheaded by Chairman Jerome Powell over the past ten years have accelerated income inequality and put our...

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....

Tower of Basel is the first investigative history of the world's most secretive global financial institution. Based on extensive archival research in Switzerland, Britain, and the United States, and in-depth interviews with key decision-makers -- including Paul Volcker, the former chairman of...

Max Weber's best-known and most controversial work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published in 1904, remains to this day powerful and fascinating....

An insider's guide to our broken economy and how it fails to serve us. ‘A fascinating examination of the failures of modern economics, and how these failures are harming us all' Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism ‘Easily one of the most compelling economics communicators of our...

How pathogenic microbes have been an intimate part of human history from the beginning - and how our deadliest germs and biggest pandemics are the product of our success as a species. Plagues upon the Earth is a monumental history of humans and their germs. Weaving together a grand narrative of...

Can you imagine even the poorest country in the world achieving the prosperity and quality of life of today's Switzerland—by 2100? Seems crazy, doesn't it? After all, we live in uncertain times. But we have pulled off marvels before. Human advances over the past 100 years have been unprecedented.

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

In the space of a few months, across Asia, a miracle became a nightmare. This was the Asian financial crisis of 1995-98. In this economic crisis, hundreds of people died in rioting, political strongmen were removed, and hundreds of billions of dollars were lost by investors....

This edition of Super Imperialism is the finalized version of the analysis that Michael Hudson first published in the wake of President Nixon severing the dollar's link to gold in August 1971.

Manias, Panics, and Crashes is a scholarly and entertaining account of the way that mismanagement of money and credit has led to financial explosions over the centuries. Covering such topics as the history and anatomy of crises, speculative manias, and the lender of last resort, this book has...

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....

The epic successor to one of the most important books of the century: at once a retelling of global history, a scathing critique of contemporary politics, and a bold proposal for a new and fairer economic system....

In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried 58 shipping containers from Newark to Houston....

The dark horse of the New World Order was never Communism, Socialism or Fascism: It has always been Technocracy!

Crisis seems to follow crisis. Inequality is rising, growth is stagnant, the environment is suffering, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed every crack in the system. We hear more calls for radical change, even the overthrow of capitalism. But the answer to our problems is not revolution. The...

A provocative look at how today's trade conflicts are caused by governments promoting the interests of elites at the expense of workers. Trade disputes are usually understood as conflicts between countries with competing national interests, but as Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis show in this...

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.

The New York Times bestseller hailed as "the best business book of 2010" (Huffington Post). As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began. Should the blame fall on Wall Street, Main Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue? On greedy traders, misguided regulators, sleazy subprime...

From the Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author of Mao's Great Famine comes a timely and compelling account of China in the wake of Chairman Mao....

Atif Mian and Amir Sufi reveal in House of Debt how the Great Recession and Great Depression were caused by a large run-up in household debt....

The gripping, definitive account of the private family behind one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world. “Pulls the curtain back on one of the country's most powerful and mysterious financial institutions … It’s a must read.” ―William D. Cohan , New York Times...

The world's leading Marxist geographer and economist guides general listeners through major concepts in capitalism and Marx's masterwork For decades, David Harvey has been teaching Marx's work, particularly Capital, to great acclaim. He has analyzed chapter by chapter—sometimes...

Have you ever wondered why some nations rise to immense wealth while others remain stagnant? The Wealth of Nations is the most influential book on economics ever written. Adam Smith, the "father of modern economics," changed history by challenging 18th-century mercantile systems. He proposed a revolutionary idea: a nation's wealth is measured not by hoarded gold, but by the trade, production, and commerce generated by its people.

Today, a vast majority of us live under the economic system called capitalism―it touches almost every aspect of our lives, and most people alive have never known another. Yet, a cursory look at the world around us reveals that things can't stay this way forever: an economy built on infinite...

Across thousands of years of human history, most cultures have placed explicit social and moral restrictions on economic growth, with charging interest scorned as benefiting from another's hardship and profit-making as divisive. So how did interest rates, monetary gains, and return on investment come to rule our modern world?

En Una breve historia de la humanidad en 50 objetos, el economista superventas Tim Harford nos sorprende con una nueva recopilación de innovaciones e ideas extraordinarias -memorables, curiosas y, a menudo, inesperadas- que nos enseñan profundas lecciones sobre la compleja economía global en la que vivimos. Desde el ladrillo, el blockchain y la bicicleta, hasta el fuego, la fábrica y la recaudación de impuestos, pasando por la energía solar, el lápiz o el sello postal, esta brillante y reveladora selección fascina, inspira y estimula la mente.