Showing titles in Economic History

The classical era in the history of economics is an important part of the history of ideas in general, and its implications reach beyond the bounds of the economics profession. On Classical Economics is a book from which students can learn both history and economics. It is not simply a Cook’s tour of colorful personalities of the past but a study of how certain economic concepts and tools of analysis arose, and how their implications were revealed during the controversies that followed.

Say's Law—the idea that "supply creates its own demand"—has been a basic concept in economics for almost two centuries. Thomas Sowell traces its evolution as it emerged from successive controversies, particularly two of the most bitter and long lasting in the history of the discipline, the "general glut controversy" that reached a peak in the 1820s, and the Keynesian Revolution of the 1930s.

As Europe rebuilt after the devastation of the Second World War, the former colonies of the major imperial powers sought their independence at the same time the US extended its economic and political power globally. In Turbulent Empires, Mike Mason analyzes the struggles for postcolonial sovereignty and economic domination and how these competing forces led to conflicts and shifting alliances around the postwar world.

In the twelfth-century, Pisa was a thriving metropolis, a powerhouse of global trade, and a city that stood at the centre of Mediaeval Europe. But Pisa had a problem. It was running out of coins. In the face of financial crisis, it was here that the foundations of modern banking were born. In Money and Promises, the distinguished financier, entrepreneur and historian Paolo Zannoni examines the fascinating, complex relationship between states and banks.

Visions of Inequality takes us from Quesnay and the physiocrats, for whom social classes were prescribed by law, through the classic nineteenth-century treatises of Smith, Ricardo, and Marx, who saw class as a purely economic category driven by means of production. It shows how Pareto reconceived class as a matter of elites versus the rest of the population, while Kuznets saw inequality arising from the urban-rural divide. And it explains why inequality studies were eclipsed during the Cold War, before their remarkable resurgence as a central preoccupation in economics today.

P. V. Narasimha Rao (or PV, as he was popularly known) has been widely praised for enabling the economic reforms that transformed the country in 1991. From the vantage point of his long personal and professional association with the former prime minister, best-selling author Sanjaya Baru shows how PV's impact on the nation's fortunes went way beyond the economy.

The first major history of the Crash in over a decade, Rainbow's End tells the story of the stock market collapse in a colorful, swift-moving narrative that blends a vivid portrait of the 1920s with an intensely gripping account of Wall Street's greatest catastrophe. The book offers a vibrant picture of a world full of plungers, powerful bankers, corporate titans, millionaire brokers, and buoyantly optimistic stock market bulls.

Here is a bold, new account of the lives and ideas of the great economists - Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and many others - all written by a top free-market economist and presented in an entertaining and persuasive style. Professor Mark Skousen tells a powerful story of economics with dozens of anecdotes of the great economic thinkers.

Did Wall Street cause the mess we are in? Should Washington place stronger regulations on the financial industry? Can we lower unemployment rates by controlling the free market? Answer: no. Not only is free-market capitalism good for the economy, it is our only hope for recovery. As the nation’s longest-serving CEO of one of the top 25 financial institutions, John Allison has had a unique inside view of the events leading up to the financial crisis.

Throughout time, from ancient Rome to modern Britain, the great empires built and maintained their domination through force of arms and political power. But not the United States. America has dominated the world in a new, peaceful, and pervasive way - through the continued creation of staggering wealth. In this authoritative, engrossing history, John Steele Gordon captures as never before the true source of our nation's global influence: wealth and the capacity to create more of it.

In this timely and insightful new book, Stephen J. Harper, Canada's 22nd Prime Minister, draws on a decade of experience as a G-7 leader to help leaders in business and government understand, adapt, and thrive in an age of unprecedented disruption. The world is in flux...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Clear Bright Future by Paul Mason, read by Finlay Robertson. Our world order is under pressure as never before. From new authoritarian regimes in the US, Turkey and Russia, to the imminent break-up of the European Union and a social media awash with...

The story of modern management generally looks to the factories of England and New England for its genesis. But after scouring through old accounting books, Caitlin Rosenthal discovered that Southern planter-capitalists practiced an early form of scientific management. They took meticulous notes, carefully recording daily profits and productivity, and subjected their slaves to experiments and incentive strategies comprised of rewards and brutal punishment.

Rothbard's posthumous masterpiece is the definitive book on the Progressives. It will soon be the must read study of this dreadful time in our past. (from the foreword by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano) The current relationship between the modern state and the economy has its roots in the Progressive Era. (from the introduction by Patrick Newman) In short, the Progressive Era ushered the modern American politico-economic system into being. (from the preface by Murray N. Rothbard)

When the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, the black community owned less than one percent of the United States' total wealth. More than 150 years later, that number has barely budged. The Color of Money pursues the persistence of this racial wealth gap by focusing on the generators of wealth in the black community: black banks. The catch-22 of black banking is that the very institutions needed to help communities escape the deep poverty caused by discrimination and segregation inevitably became victims of that same poverty.

Alec MacGillis’ Fulfillment is not another inside account or exposé of our most conspicuously dominant company. Rather, it is a literary investigation of the America that falls within that company’s growing shadow. As MacGillis shows, Amazon’s sprawling network of delivery hubs, data centers, and corporate campuses epitomizes a land where winner and loser cities and regions are drifting steadily apart, the civic fabric is unraveling, and work has become increasingly rudimentary and isolated.

In Great American Investments, legendary investor Charles D. Ellis reveals the fascinating stories behind the decisions that shaped America. From the Louisiana Purchase that doubled the nation's size to Land Grant Colleges that democratized education, Ellis explores how bold investments in people, land, and infrastructure transformed a young country into a land of unprecedented opportunity.

From veteran Financial Times journalist, an epic history of the debt that built the modern world. Long considered the "boring" corner of finance, bonds are anything but. They have funded everything from the Crusades to climate tech, Netflix series to AI data centers. They are now bigger than the...

Ever wondered how “factory farms” came to be, why chicken nuggets were invented, or where the idea of feeding hormones and antibiotics to livestock came from in the first place? The Price of Plenty offers answers that may surprise you, in a compulsively listenable and distinctly American tale of abundance, invention, and exceptionalism. Historian Maureen Ogle unfolds the good, the bad, and the ugly behind the nation’s meat-making infrastructure, from colonial cattle wars to the rise of Swift, Armour, and Tyson to today’s alt-cuisine.

What if everything you hate about the economy could be traced back to one simple flaw? Not inflation. Not wages. Not productivity. Land. For centuries, owning land has meant owning leverage. Not because of what you build on it — but because of where it sits. And while society creates the value of that location, only landlords reap the reward. This book is about the fix.