Showing results by publisher "Audible studios" in Economic History

In the second decade of the 21st century, many Americans feel they are subject to economic forces beyond their control. Some critics of today's economy compare it to the rampant inequality of the late 19th century, when robber barons manipulated the economy to their own benefit. Others object to the remedies that were applied in the early 20th century, insisting that markets work best when governed least.

In 2002, the town of Galesburg, a slowly declining Rustbelt city of 33,000 in western Illinois, learned that it would soon lose its largest factory, a Maytag refrigerator plant that had anchored Galesburg's social and economic life for decades. Workers at the plant earned $15.14 an hour, had good insurance, and were assured a solid retirement. In 2004, the plant was relocated to Reynosa, Mexico, where workers sometimes spent 13-hour days assembling refrigerators for $1.10 an hour.

We Sell Drugs is a study grounded in the transnational geography and political economy of the coca-leaf and coca-derived commodities market stretching from Peru and Bolivia into the United States. More than a narrow biography of one famous plant and its equally famous derivative products - Coca-Cola and cocaine - this audiobook situates these commodities within the larger landscape of drug production and consumption. Examining efforts to control the circuits through which coca traveled, Suzanna Reiss provides a geographic and legal basis for considering the historical construction of designations of legality and illegality.

The book also argues that the legal status of any given drug is largely premised on who grew, manufactured, distributed, and consumed it and not on the qualities of the drug itself. Drug control is a powerful tool for ordering international trade, national economies, and society's habits and daily lives. In a historical landscape animated by struggles over political economy, national autonomy, hegemony, and racial equality, We Sell Drugs insists on the socio-historical underpinnings of designations of legality to explore how drug control became a major weapon in asserting control of domestic and international affairs.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crash, Daniel W. Drezner, like so many others, looked at the smoking ruins of the global economy and wondered why global economic governance structure had failed so spectacularly, and what could be done to reform them in the future. But then a funny thing happened. As he surveyed their actions in the wake of the crash, he realized that the evidence pointed to the exact opposite conclusion: global economic governance had succeeded.

In the past 30 years, China has transformed from an impoverished country where peasants comprised the largest portion of the populace to an economic power with an expanding middle class and more megacities than anywhere else on Earth. This remarkable transformation has required, and will continue to demand, massive quantities of resources. Like every other major power in modern history, China is looking outward to find them.

America is a smuggler nation. Our long history of illicit imports has ranged from West Indies molasses and Dutch gunpowder in the 18th century, to British industrial technologies and African slaves in the 19th century, to French condoms and Canadian booze in the early 20th century, to Mexican workers and Colombian cocaine in the modern era. Contraband capitalism, it turns out, has been an integral part of American capitalism.

Conceived in the early 1800s and completed in 1825, the Erie Canal was the boldest and biggest American engineering project of its century, with enduring political, social, and economic effects. It was the Erie Canal that first opened up the West to American enterprise and imagination, bringing vast riches and a far-reaching vision to a rapidly expanding nation.In this compelling narrative, author Gerard Koeppel tells the complete, sweeping story of the creation of the canal.

In The Company Town, Hardy Green, who has covered American business for over a decade, offers a compelling analysis of the emergence of these communities and their role in shaping the American economy, beginning in the country's earliest years....

Ancient China collides with newfangled America in this epic tale of opium smugglers, sea pirates, and dueling clipper ships. Brilliantly illuminating one of the least-understood areas of American history, best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin now traces our fraught relationship with China back to its roots: the unforgiving nineteenth-century seas that separated a brash, rising naval power from a battered ancient empire. It is a prescient fable for our time, one that surprisingly continues to shed light on our modern relationship with China.

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.

If the financial crisis has taught us anything, it is that Americans save too little, spend too much, and borrow excessively. What can we learn from East Asian and European countries that have fostered enduring cultures of thrift over the past two centuries? Beyond Our Means tells for the first time how other nations aggressively encouraged their citizens to save by means of special savings institutions and savings campaigns.

While factories across the Midwest shutter their doors, Cleveland-based manufacturer Lincoln Electric has thrived for more than a century. In addition to being profitable and technologically innovative, through good times and bad, the company has fulfilled its unique promise of "guaranteed continuous employment." Workers are viewed as assets—not liabilities.

Financial economist George G. Szpiro here tells the fascinating stories of the pioneers of mathematical finance who conducted the search for the elusive options pricing formula. From the broker's assistant who published the first mathematical explanation of financial markets to Albert Einstein and other scientists, Pricing the Future retraces the historical and intellectual developments that ultimately led to the widespread use of mathematical models to drive investment strategies on Wall Street.

What is the GDP, and what does it mean? Why does the stock market go down when interest rates go up? What causes a dreaded recession? Economics impacts everyone's life, but most people take on faith what they read in the newspaper. Now, for anyone who doesn't know much about economics, noted economist Todd Buchholz explains it all simply and clearly. With refreshing wit and irreverence, Buchholz takes listeners by the hand and reveals the basic rules behind everything from food prices to trade deficits.

Che cos'è l'Europa? La definizione più azzeccata ce l'ha data Jacques Delors: l'Europa è un "oggetto politico non identificato". Un Ufo. Perché l'Europa non è né uno stato né una vera e propria organizzazione internazionale. Partendo dai suoi padri fondatori e madri fondatrici, Virginia Volpi traccia una breve, felice storia della nascita della Ue. Ci spiega quali sono le sue istituzioni più importanti e come funzionano, i cambiamenti che ha portato a livello politico ed economico negli stati aderenti. Ci racconta i valori su cui si fonda ma anche i problemi.

Dalle prime iniziative solidaristiche del '700 ai grandi gruppi cooperativi del mondo contemporaneo: storia, caratteristiche, diffusione di una forma di impresa che opera nel mercato, ma persegue fini mutualistici. I punti di forza e di debolezza rispetto all'impresa capitalistica, la governance, le vicende italiane.

Quali sono e come funzionano gli strumenti di pagamento? Quale strada percorrono i nostri soldi quando compriamo un bene? Quali prospettive si aprono con la trasformazione digitale? Nel rispondere a questi interrogativi gli autori tengono conto degli aspetti istituzionali e regolamentari, senza trascurare le origini e l'evoluzione nel tempo della moneta, la nascita delle banche centrali, l'area unica dell'euro, fino all'introduzione di strumenti di pagamento elettronici. Proprio alle innovazioni più recenti viene riservata un'attenzione particolare.

Nel suo percorso millenario il nostro paese ha conosciuto fasi alterne di prosperità e di declino. Dopo i successi del Novecento, da anni sembra arenato nelle secche di una lunga stagnazione, che non trova paragoni nel resto dell'Occidente. Come è stato possibile passare da una realtà economica tra le più floride all'attuale declino? Alla luce delle più aggiornate ricerche sul reddito e sulla disuguaglianza, sul divario Nord-Sud e sulla performance delle imprese, l'audiolibro mostra come l'origine dei successi e dei fallimenti italiani sia da ricercarsi nell'assetto politico.

Una storia di mutevoli rapporti di forza tra uomini della moneta, della spada, del lavoro, dei libri, fra élite economiche ed élite politiche. Questi capitoli descrivono una parabola che attraverso il feudalesimo, il nazionalismo, l'imperialismo, il socialismo, la democrazia e la finanziarizzazione dell'economia, giunge al tempo nuovo dell'information technology. Grazie agli algoritmi dopo secoli di subalternità dell'economia al potere politico, si è passati al conflitto per la guida della società, che vede prevalere gli "uomini della moneta" con una vittoria.

Roberto Napoletano racconta gli anni della grande crisi che ha colpito al cuore l'Italia e l'Europa, vissuti da direttore del "Messaggero" e del "Sole 24 Ore". Colloqui riservati a tutti i livelli, italiani e internazionali, segreti, rivelazioni scottanti, protagonisti e comparse che si intrecciano come in un thriller, in cui la posta in palio è altissima e molto reale. Una storia che inizia nel novembre del 2011, quando si abbatte sull'Italia il Cigno nero - la tempesta perfetta dei mercati - e arriva fino ad oggi.