Economic History

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...

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....

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....

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....

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.

In March 2006, the world’s richest men sipped champagne in an opulent New York hotel. They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with ­million-dollar stakes. At the card table that night was Peter Muller, who managed a fabulously successful hedge fund called PDT. With him was Ken...

Now in audio, the updated and expanded edition: David Graeber's "fresh...fascinating...thought-provoking...and exceedingly timely" (Financial Times) history of debt. Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money...

THE FIRST THOROUGH ACCOUNT OF A FORMATIVE AND LITTLE UNDERSTOOD CHAPTER IN CHINESE HISTORY Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian chronicle how an impoverished and terrorized China experienced radical political changes in the long 1970s and how ordinary people broke free from the beliefs that had shaped...

Rajan shows how the individual choices that collectively brought about the economic meltdown were rational responses to a flawed global financial order....

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...

A lively, inviting account of the history of economics, told through events from ancient to modern times and the ideas of great thinkers in the field....

From Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, to Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes, to the top economic thought leaders of today, The Economics Book is the essential audio reference for students and anyone else with an interest in how economies work. An easy-to-follow style, succinct quotations, and...

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....

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....

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

The Wealth of Nations, first published in 1776, is the first book of modern political economy and still provides the foundation for the study of that discipline. An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, to give it is full title, was an immediate best seller and has since...

In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. This book provides an in-depth account of this era....

An absorbing and original narrative history of American capitalism NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE ECONOMIST From the days of the Mayflower and the Virginia Company, America has been a place for people to dream, invent, build, tinker, and bet the farm in pursuit of a better life. Americana...

The bigger picture of the ongoing financial crisis has now started to evolve. Easy Money captures this big picture. The history of money and the financial system as it has evolved over the centuries stand at the heart of this endeavor....

What happens when the bottlenecks that stand between supply and demand in our culture go away and everything becomes available to everyone? "The Long Tail" is a powerful new force in our economy: the rise of the niche. As the cost of reaching consumers drops dramatically, our markets are...

China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know is a concise introduction to the most astonishing economic growth story of the last three decades. In the 1980s, China was an impoverished backwater. Today it is the world's second biggest economy....

Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme—but in...

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...

This is the third book in the Easy Money trilogy which discusses how what the world now calls the global financial crisis evolved in the aftermath of the real estate bubble bursting in the United States and other parts of the world....