Showing titles in Economic History

What makes the dream of self-employment so alluring, so pervasive in today's world? Benjamin C. Waterhouse offers a provocative argument: the modern cult of the hustle is a direct consequence of economic failures—bad jobs, stagnant wages, and inequality—since the 1970s. With original research, Waterhouse traces a new narrative history of business in America, populated with vivid characters—from the activists, academics, and work-from-home gurus who hailed business ownership as our economic salvation to the upstarts who took the plunge. Some flourish; some squeak by. Some fail.

This audiobook examines the question of the so-called neoliberal period in American economic history that is said to have begun in America in the late 1970s. It was actually different from what has been considered a more governmentally regulated economic period from 1946 to 1975.

The premise of this book is that where we are headed economically is predictable. Economic cycles and money cycles have existed for 2,500 years. I have concluded from my study of economic history that where we are today economically speaking and where we go from here is as predictable as the sun rising and setting each day.

The US racial wealth gap is large, and it's compounding. It's time to close it. Minding the Wealth Gap shines a light on people doing this important work and explores how you can get involved too. Generations of public and private practices have left Black households $15 trillion and 400 years behind white households. Minding the Wealth Gap is both a powerful catalyst and a call to arms, urging America's entrepreneurs, executives, government officials, and other leaders to join these efforts and take meaningful steps toward a more equitable future for all.

The son of a Protestant missionary and small-town pastor with secrets of his own to keep, Ferdinand Ward came to New York at 21 and in less than a decade made himself the business partner of a former president of the United States and was widely hailed as the "Young Napoleon of Finance". In truth, he turned out to be a complete fraud, his entire life marked by dishonesty, cowardice, and contempt for anything but his own interests. This is a great story about a classic American con artist, told with boundless charm and dry wit by one of our finest historians.

As far back as we can trace human history, there have been entrepreneurs. Almost five millennia ago, copper tool manufacturers set up a factory in what today is southwest Spain, profiting for hundreds of years from trade around the Mediterranean. Papyri document the diverse investments of an ancient Egyptian businessperson, from grain-yielding land to flax for linen cloth. What do these figures have in common with renowned modern entrepreneurs, and how do their similarities help us achieve a deeper understanding of entrepreneurship?

There are many theories as to why the United States and then much of the world entered into a long period of price deflation, high unemployment, and an overall significant economic downturn, which we now call the Great Depression. People always wonder why this horrendous event occurred and there is no simple answer to this question. It was a perfect storm of events that came together and brought about an inevitable plummet in the lives of millions.

In the history of the Moody Bible Institute, founded in 1886 by shoe salesman turned revivalist Dwight Lyman Moody, Timothy Gloege finds an answer to why Christian ethics seem to go hand in hand with free-market capitalism.

The Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region became the "arsenal of democracy" - the greatest manufacturing center in the world-in the years during and after World War II, thanks to natural advantages and a welcoming culture. Decades of unprecedented prosperity followed, memorably punctuated by riots, strikes, burning rivers, and oil embargoes. A vibrant, quintessentially American character bloomed in the region's cities, suburbs, and backwaters.

New York Times best-selling author Ted C. Fishman reveals the stunning challenges of a world awash with seasoned citizens. By 2030, those over 50 will outnumber people under 17 for the first time in history. Fishman explores the resulting impact on families, businesses, nations, and medical care.

To most people, the word economics sounds like homework. In Visible Hand, Wall Street Journal op-ed editor Matthew Hennessey brings basic economic principles vividly to life in plain English, without resorting to numbers, graphs, or jargon. This isn’t Fed policy or the stock market. This is the essential stuff: supply and demand, incentives and tradeoffs, scarcity and innovation, work and leisure.

Tan concienzudo como alarmante, "Los planes del Club Bilderberg para España" es un ensayo de investigación de la autora Cristina Martín en el que repasa la historia más reciente y turbulenta de nuestro país desde el punto de vista de una de las sociedades secretas que maneja la geopolítica y el juego de poderes desde las sombras: el Club Bilderberg.

Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man. This quote, by a popular former US President, reflects the suffering of millions of innocent victims of runaway inflation and hyperinflation throughout history.

La llegada del coronavirus ha sido tan solo el acelerador de un proceso inevitable en la evolución del Sistema Capitalista. Así lo explica en este audiolibro el profesor Santiago Niño-Becerra. Con la claridad y contundencia que le caracterizan, sitúa la actual incertidumbre económica en la larga historia del Capitalismo. Y también anuncia lo que está por venir: una nueva forma de Capitalismo más deshumanizado.

In this classic account, historian Philip Foner traces the radical history of black workers’ contribution to the American labor movement.

With the rising global demand for cotton - and thus, slaves - in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete - for jobs or living wages - with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socioeconomic consequences as a result of living in a slave society.

There have been numerous books examining the 2008 financial crisis from either a US or European perspective. Tamim Bayoumi is the first to explain how the Euro crisis and US housing crash were, in fact, parasitically intertwined. Starting in the 1980s, Bayoumi outlines the cumulative policy errors that undermined the stability of both the European and US financial sectors, highlighting the catalytic role played by European mega banks that exploited lax regulation to expand into the US market and financed unsustainable bubbles on both continents.

Mark Twain's lifetime spans America's era of greatest economic growth. And Twain was an active, even giddy, participant in all the great booms and busts of his time, launching himself into one harebrained get-rich-quick scheme after another. But far from striking it rich, the man who coined the term "Gilded Age" failed with comical regularity to join the ranks of plutocrats who made this period in America notorious for its wealth and excess.

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.

A Crisis of Beliefs makes us rethink the financial crisis and the nature of economic risk. In this authoritative and comprehensive book, two of today's most insightful economists reveal how our beliefs shape financial markets, lead to expansions of credit and leverage, and expose the economy to major risks.