The epic history of consumption, and the goods that have transformed our lives over the past 600 yearsWhat we consume has become the defining feature of our lives: our economies live or die by spending, we are treated more as consumers than workers, and even public services are presented to us as products in a supermarket.
A definitive reframing of the economic, institutional, and intellectual history of the managerial eraThe twentieth century was the managerial century in the United States.
Adam Smith turned economic theory on its head in 1776 when he declared that the pursuit of self-interest mediated by the market itself--not by government--led, via an invisible hand, to the greatest possible welfare for society as a whole.
The forgotten history of the liberal radicals, socialist internationalists, feminists, and Christians who envisioned free trade as the necessary prerequisite for anti-imperialism and peaceToday, free trade is often associated with right-wing free marketeers.
How differences in national financial regulatory systems emerged from divergent beliefs about economic order and prosperityThe global financial crisis of the late 2000s was marked by the failure of regulators to rein in risk-taking by banks.
RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK Economic thinking - about globalisation, climate change, immigration, austerity, automation and much more - in its most digestible formFor decades, a single free market philosophy has dominated global economics.
WINNER OF THE 2015 BANCROFT PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2015 PHILIP TAFT PRIZEFINALIST FOR THE 2015 PULITZER PRIZE FOR HISTORYSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 CUNDHILL PRIZE IN HISTORICAL LITERATUREEconomist BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015'A masterpiece of the historian's craft' The NationFor about 900 years, from 1000 to 1900, cotton was the world's most important manufacturing industry.
The Cash Nexus is the controversial history of money's central place in the world, from Niall Ferguson, bestselling author of Empire and CivilizationGenerations of historians have shied away from the truth behind the cliche: money makes the world go around.
The definitive guide to the history of economic thought, fully revised twenty years after first publicationRoger Backhouse's definitive guide takes the story of economic thinking from the ancient world to the present day, with a brand-new chapter on the twenty-first century and updates throughout to reflect the latest scholarship.
In the current financial crisis Keynes has been taken out of his cupboard, dusted down, consulted, cited, invoked and appealed to about why events have taken the course they have and how a rescue operation can be effected.
How the United States became an imperial power by bowing to pressure to defend its citizens' overseas investmentsThroughout the twentieth century, the U.
How the West was Lost charts how over the last 50 years the most advanced and advantaged countries of the world have squandered their dominant position through a sustained catalogue of fundamentally flawed economic policies.
What happens in the City has never affected us moreIn this excellent guide, now fully revised and updated, leading financial journalist Philip Coggan cuts through the headlines, the scandals and the jargon to explain the nuts and bolts of the financial system.
How American colonists laid the foundations of American capitalism with an economy built on creditEven before the United States became a country, laws prioritizing access to credit set colonial America apart from the rest of the world.
This book analyzes the Central Asian economies of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, from their buffeting by the commodity boom of the early 2000s to its collapse in 2014.
How an antisemitic legend gave voice to widespread fears surrounding the expansion of private credit in Western capitalismThe Promise and Peril of Credit takes an incisive look at pivotal episodes in the West's centuries-long struggle to define the place of private finance in the social and political order.
A comprehensive analysis of European craft guilds through eight centuries of economic historyGuilds ruled many crafts and trades from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, and have always attracted debate and controversy.
The unlikely story of how Americans canonized Adam Smith as the patron saint of free marketsOriginally published in 1776, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was lauded by America's founders as a landmark work of Enlightenment thinking about national wealth, statecraft, and moral virtue.
How technological advances and colonial fears inspired utopian geoengineering projects during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries From the 1870s to the mid-twentieth century, European explorers, climatologists, colonial officials, and planners were avidly interested in large-scale projects that might actively alter the climate.
A powerful new understanding of global currency trends, including the rise of the Chinese yuanAt first glance, the modern history of the global economic system seems to support the long-held view that the leading world power's currency-the British pound, the U.
A sweeping global history of entrepreneurial innovationWhether hailed as heroes or cast as threats to social order, entrepreneursand their innovationshave had an enormous influence on the growth and prosperity of nations.
Before the advent of synthetic fibers and cargo containers, jute sacks were the preferred packaging material of global trade, transporting the world's grain, cotton, sugar, tobacco, coffee, wool, guano, and bacon.
The story of the greatest of all philosophical friendships-and how it influenced modern thoughtDavid Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime he was attacked as "e;the Great Infidel"e; for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young.
A major new history of classical Greece-how it rose, how it fell, and what we can learn from itLord Byron described Greece as great, fallen, and immortal, a characterization more apt than he knew.
Friedman and Schwartz's A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, published in 1963, stands as one of the most influential economics books of the twentieth century.
A book that rewrites the history of American prosperity and inequalityUnequal Gains offers a radically new understanding of the economic evolution of the United States, providing a complete picture of the uneven progress of America from colonial times to today.
A Nobel Prizewinning economist makes a new argument about the real roots of prosperityand why they are under threat todayIn this book, Nobel Prize-winning economist Edmund Phelps draws on a lifetime of thinking to make a sweeping new argument about what makes nations prosperand why the sources of that prosperity are under threat today.
A pioneering history that transforms our understanding of the colonial era and China's place in itChina has conventionally been considered a land empire whose lack of maritime and colonial reach contributed to its economic decline after the mid-eighteenth century.
The unknown history of economic conservatism in India after independenceNeoliberalism is routinely characterized as an antidemocratic, expert-driven project aimed at insulating markets from politics, devised in the North Atlantic and projected on the rest of the world.
A sweeping look at the evolution of commercial banks over the past two centuriesCommercial banks are among the oldest and most familiar financial institutions.
An examination of coined money and its significance to rulers, aristocrats and peasants in early medieval EuropeBetween the end of the Roman Empire in the fifth century and the economic transformations of the twelfth, coined money in western Europe was scarce and high in value, difficult for the majority of the population to make use of.
A timely account of the Euro crisis that challenges our assumptions about debt and economic recoveryOriginally conceived as part of a unifying vision for Europe, the euro is now viewed as a millstone around the neck of a continent crippled by vast debts, sluggish economies, and growing populist dissent.
A groundbreaking intellectual biography of one of the twentieth century's most influential economistsThe First Serious Optimist is an intellectual biography of the British economist A.
From Nobel Prizewinning economist Joel Mokyr, a revealing look at why Enlightenment culture sparked the Industrial RevolutionDuring the late eighteenth century, innovations in Europe triggered the Industrial Revolution and the sustained economic progress that spread across the globe.
How American industries rose to dominate the economic landscape in the twentieth centuryFor much of the twentieth century, American corporations led the world in terms of technological progress.
