Economic History

Rob Copeland draws on hundreds of interviews with those inside and around the firm to reveal what really goes on with billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates Ray Dalio and his cohorts behind closed doors....

See the history of human civilization from a new perspective - our ambitions and glory, innovations and appetites - literally from the ground up....

After years on the financial world's margins, crypto went mainstream in early 2021. Zeke Faux set out on a quest to pull back the curtain on the wizards behind this new financial machinery....

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries.....

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....

In Edible Economics, Chang makes challenging economic ideas more palatable by plating them alongside stories about food from around the world....

Edward Chancellor traces the history of interest from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia, through debates about usury in Restoration Britain and John Law's ill-fated Mississippi scheme, to the global credit booms of the twenty-first century....

Fortune favours the bold. All great leaders of history have known this, and were successful because of the risks they dared to take. But today, so many of us are paralysed by fear....

If you asked most people what forces led to today’s unprecedented income inequality and financial crashes, no one would say the Federal Reserve. For most of its history, the Fed has enjoyed the fawning adoration of the press....

Sebastian Mallaby turns his unprecedented access to the industry's central players into a riveting, character-driven account of venture capital and the world it has made....

Whether you’re looking to deepen your knowledge of complex banking practices or simply learn more about central banking as it relates to your everyday life, this book will give you a comprehensive introduction and solid foundation for future study....

As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began....

At the dawn of World War I, a young academic named John Maynard Keynes hastily folded his long legs into the sidecar of his brother-in-law’s motorcycle for an odd, frantic journey that would change the course of history....

It may be as important for investors to know what not to do in investing as to know what to do....

Since the Wall Street Crash in 1929, financial meltdowns have repeatedly sent shockwaves through our world. The Great Crashes tells the stories of ten historic events. They serve as a series of cautionary tales, each with their own set of lessons to be learnt....

Harris gives us a portrait of what it means to be young in America today that will wake you up and piss you off....

The abridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Niall Ferguson's epic history, The Ascent of Money. Behind each great historical phenomenon there lies a financial secret....

When Money Dies is the classic history of what happens when a nations currency depreciates beyond recovery....

In Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy, the revolutionary, acclaimed book, radio series and podcast, best-selling economist Tim Harford introduced us to a selection of 50 radical inventions that changed the world....

Why is there so much inequality? In this short book, world-famous economist Yanis Varoufakis sets out to answer his 11-year-old daughter Xenia's deceptively simple question....

Ray Dalio, the legendary investor and international bestselling author shares his unique template for how debt crises work and principles for dealing with them well....

Currency wars are one of the most destructive and feared outcomes in international economics. Author James Rickards concludes that currency wars are as problematic now as they were in 1971 when President Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard....

The first and best major treatment of the crucial years 1848-1875 - a penetrating analysis of the rise of capitalism throughout the world....

In September 2008 the Great Financial Crisis, triggered by the collapse of Lehman brothers, shook the world. A decade later its spectre still haunts us.... 

Arguing that the slave trade was at the heart of Britain's economic progress, Eric Williams' landmark 1944 study revealed the connections between capitalism and racism and has influenced generations of historians ever since....

At the start of 1932, the nation's worst economic crisis has left one-in-four workers without a job, countless families facing eviction, banks shutting down as desperate depositors withdraw their savings, and growing social and political unrest. Amid this turmoil, a political decision looms that will determine the course of the nation. It's a choice between two men with very different visions of America: Incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover and New York's Democratic Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

When Ray Dalio, billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, announced in October 2022 that he was stepping down from the company he founded 47 years ago, the news made headlines around the world. Dalio achieved worldwide fame thanks to a mystique of success cultivated in frequent media appearances, celebrity hobnobbing, and his bestselling book, Principles. In The Fund, Rob Copeland draws on hundreds of interviews with those inside and around the firm to reveal what really goes on with Dalio and his cohorts behind closed doors.

In Doomed to Fail, Paul Shotton explains why liberal democracy is the least bad political framework, and why every other political system will inevitably lead to war. Likewise, capitalism, which emerged naturally from the industrial revolution, is the least bad way for a polity to organize economically. Every attempt to improve upon or replace capitalism, however well intentioned, has led to economic disaster. That democracy and capitalism are symbiotic and aligned with the best interests of humanity stems from an underlying mechanism they share with the development of life on earth itself.

When they met in Philadelphia in 1787, everyone understood real money as Spanish gold doubloons and silver pieces of eight. The Founders hid a clause in the Constitution that allowed states to use pirate money as legal tender. Adding current technology, their secret can be used to stop the threats of inflation, federal overreach, and the Great Reset while preserving personal liberty and privacy.

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic made it painfully clear that governments across the world could not adequately protect their citizens. Millions of people suffered and died in just two years, while administrations around the globe blundered; prize-winning economists overlooked devastating trade-offs from the collapse of trade; and elites escaped to isolated retreats. In this compelling economic, political and financial history, veteran journalists Bethany McClean and Joseph Nocera analyse the American response to the pandemic as a case study, to offer fresh and provocative answers.

Amidst the wreckage of financial ruin, people are left puzzling about how it happened. Where did all the problems begin? For the answer, Jack Cashill, a journalist as shrewd as he is seasoned, looks past the headlines and deep into pages of history and comes back with the goods. From Plato to payday loans, from Aristotle to AIG, from Shakespeare to the Salomon Brothers, from the Medici to Bernie Madoff—in Popes and Bankers Jack Cashill unfurls a fascinating story of credit and debt, usury and “the sordid love of gain.”

When economist Angus Deaton immigrated to the United States from Britain in the early 1980s, he was awed by America’s strengths and shocked by the extraordinary gaps he witnessed between people. Economics in America explains in clear terms how the field of economics addresses the most pressing issues of our times—from poverty, retirement, and the minimum wage to the ravages of the nation’s uniquely disastrous health care system—and narrates Deaton’s own account of his experiences as a naturalized US citizen and academic economist.

The Great American Bank Robbery maps out in detail exactly how Washington social engineers and their accomplices reshaped banking regulations and housing policies and gutted time-tested underwriting standards that led to the worst financial calamity since the 1930s, one that has robbed American households of $14 trillion in net worth.

The most urgent story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley but two hundred years ago in rural England, when workers known as the Luddites rose up rather than starve at the hands of factory owners who were using automated machines to erase their livelihoods. The Luddites organized guerrilla raids to smash those machines—on punishment of death—and won the support of Lord Byron, enraged the Prince Regent, and inspired the birth of science fiction. This all-but-forgotten class struggle brought nineteenth-century England to its knees.

After years on the financial world's margins, crypto went mainstream in early 2021. Everybody was talking about it: giant investment funds were buying it, celebrities like Tom Brady and Justin Bieber endorsed it, and Washington bigwigs debated new regulations, as if it would be a permanent part of our financial system. It seemed like everyone knew someone who was bragging about their returns from Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin and other bizarrely named "digital assets." Observing this mania, Zeke Faux set out on a quest to pull back the curtain on the wizards behind this new financial machinery.