In the bestselling tradition of Indecent Exposure and Final Cut, Peter Bart--a production executive at MGM in 1983 and 1984--gives an inside r's account of how the once-great movie studio was destroyed by a Las Vegas financier and the series of incompetant studio heads he hired. 8-page photo insert.

David Ricardo's On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation the implications of land rent increases along with population among other things. Ricardo argues for the acceptance of free trade and shows how it's both short and long term advantages. The arguments laid out in this book form the basis of modern trade theory and are, therefore, of interest in today's global economy.

This study begins with a brief survey of economic thought on the relationship between foreign trade and national power, from the Mercantilists on. Chapter II attempts a systematic theoretical approach to the subject. It first makes clear the fundamental basis of the possible use of foreign trade as an instrument of national power policy. Using well-known concepts of economic analysis, it proceeds to show under what conditions and by means of what policies this instrument is likely to attain its highest efficiency. The principles of power policy thus deduced theoretically are then compared with the actual practices followed by German trading methods in recent years. Toward the end of this chapter the reader will be carried into a detailed discussion of certain problems of the theory of international trade, which are touched upon earlier in the chapter. Chapter III is applied to the historical background of our problem. It gives a survey of the literature on "economic aggression" before and during World War I and brings out the importance of the Paris Economic Conference of the Allies in 1916 for the Versailles Treaty and postwar economic policies. In Chapter IV we review in the light of our theoretical and historical analyses certain safeguards or remedies which could be or have been proposed to prevent the use of foreign trade as an instrument of national power policies. Certain questions raised in Part 1 can be answered in quantitative terms. Part 2 consists, therefore, of an exposition of various trends of international trade in recent years disclosed by statistical analysis. In Chapter V we calculate an index number expressing the extent to which the trade of the large trading nations is or has been directed by preference toward the smaller trading countries. Chapter VI gives index numbers for the degree of concentration of their foreign trade on one or a few big markets or sources of supply. Finally, in Chapter VII we measure the extent to which world trade has been based primarily on an exchange of manufactures against raw materials and foodstuffs. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1945, with an expanded edition published in 1980.

The time has come to reform philosophy, says Hilary Putnam, one of America's great philosophers. He calls upon philosophers to attend to the gap between the present condition of their subject and the human aspirations that philosophy should and once did claim to represent. Putnam's goal is to embed philosophy in social life. The first part of this book is dedicated to metaphysical questions. Putnam rejects the contemporary metaphysics that insists on describing both the mind and the world from a God's-eye view. In its place he argues for pluralism, for a philosophy that is not a closed systematic method but a human practice connected to real life. Philosophy has a task, to be sure, but it is not to provide an inventory of the basic furniture of the universe or to separate reality in itself from our own projections. Putnam makes it clear that science is not in the business of describing a ready-made world, and philosophy should not be in that business either. The author moves on to show that the larger human context in which science matters is a world of values animated by ethics and aesthetic judgments. No adequate philosophy should try to explain away ethical facts. The dimension of history is added in the third part of the book. Here Putnam takes up a set of American philosophers, some firmly within and others outside the canon of analytic philosophy, such as William James and C.S. Peirce, and he explores the pragmatist contribution to philosophy from James to Quine and Goodman. This book connects issues in metaphysics with cultural and literary issues and argues that the collapse of philosophical realism does not entail a fall into the abyss of relativism and postmodern skepticism. It is aimed primarily at philosophers but should appeal to a wide range of humanists and social scientists. --taken from Amazon.com

The most powerful case against the American central bank ever written. This work begins with a mini-treatment of money and banking theory, and then plunges right in with the real history of the Federal Reserve System. Rothbard covers the struggle between competing elites and how they converged with the Fed. Rothbard provides a succinct account of the origins of money, showing how money must originate from a commodity. Banking originated from goldsmiths, who issued warehouse receipts for gold deposited with them. From this a fractional reserve system developed, inherently prone to monetary expansion and panic. In the late nineteenth century, a movement toward bank centralization arose among both "progressives" and bankers, the latter eager to increase their profits. From these plans, the Federal Reserve System developed. Rothbard shows the dominate influence of the banking House of Morgan at the Fed's inception. During the New Deal, Rockefeller interests took first place in influence, with the Morgan interests reduced to a subordinate though still potent role. The book concludes with an account of the Fed's role in causing inflation and the business cycle. Abolition of this nefarious agency must be part of any agenda for genuine financial reform.

An unsparing, incisive, yet ultimately hopeful look at how we can shed the American obsession with self-reliance that has made us less healthy, less secure, and less fulfilled The promise that you can "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is central to the story of the American Dream. It's the belief that if you work hard and rely on your own resources, you will eventually succeed. However, time and again we have seen how this foundational myth, with its emphasis on individual determination, brittle self-sufficiency, and personal accomplishment, does not help us. Instead, as income inequality rises around us, we are left with shame and self-blame for our condition. Acclaimed journalist Alissa Quart argues that at the heart of our suffering is a do-it-yourself ethos, the misplaced belief in our own independence and the conviction that we must rely on ourselves alone. Looking at a range of delusions and half solutions--from "grit" to the false Horatio Alger story to the rise of GoFundMe--Quart reveals how we have been steered away from robust social programs that would address the root causes of our problems. Meanwhile, the responsibility for survival has been shifted onto the backs of ordinary people, burdening generations with debt instead of providing the social safety net we so desperately need. Insightful, sharply argued, and characterized by Quart's lively writing and deep reporting, and for fans of Evicted and Nickel and Dimed, Bootstrapped is a powerful examination of what ails us at a societal level and a plan for how we can free ourselves from these self-defeating narratives.

Now a major motion picture starring Drew Barrymore, Ted Danson, Kristen Bell, Tim Blake Nelson, John Krasinski, and Vinessa Shaw—an account of the dramatic rescue of three gray whales trapped under the ice in Alaska in 1988. Set in Cold War–era 1988, Freeing the Whales tells the real story behind the remarkable, bizarre, and oftentimes uproarious event that mesmerized the world for weeks. On October 7, an Inuit hunter near Barrow, Alaska, found three California Gray whales imprisoned in the Arctic ice. In the past, as was nature's way, trapped whales always died. Not this time. Tom Rose, who was covering the event for a Japanese TV station, compellingly describes how oil company executives, environmental activists, Inupiat people, small business people, and the U.S. military boldly worked together to rescue the whales. He also tells the stories of some of the more than 150 international journalists who brought the story to the world's attention. The rescue was followed by millions of people around the world as Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev joined the forces of their two nations to help free the whales.

“ Blood Feud rivals A Civil Action for best non-fiction book of the past twenty years.” — John Lescroart, New York Times bestselling author of Damage Procrit seemed like a biotech miracle, promising a golden age in medical care. Developed in the 1980s by Amgen and licensed to the pharmaceutical giant, Johnson & Johnson, the drug (AKA Epogen and Aranesp) soon generated billions in annual revenue—and still does. In 2012, world famous cyclist, Olympian, and Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong was banned from professional cycling on doping charges for using EPO (the blanket name for the drugs Procrit and Epogen), resulting in a global controversy about abuse, big pharmaceutical companies, and the lies and inaccuracies concerning performance-enhancing drugs. Mark Duxbury was a J&J salesman who once believed in the blood-booster, setting record sales and winning company awards. Then Duxbury started to learn unsavory truths about Procrit and J&J’s business practices. He was fired and filed a whistleblower suit to warn the public. When Jan Schlichtman ( A Civil Action ) learned of Duxbury’s crusade, he signed on. Now, he’s fighting on behalf of cancer patients and for every American who trusts Big Pharma with his life.

From an award-winning New York Times reporter comes the full, mind-boggling true story of the lies, crimes, and ineptitude behind the Enron scandal that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever. It was the corporate collapse that appeared to come out of nowhere. In late 2001, the Enron Corporation—a darling of the financial world, a company whose executives were friends of presidents and the powerful—imploded virtually overnight, leaving vast wreckage in its wake and sparking a criminal investigation that would last for years. Kurt Eichenwald transforms the unbelievable story of the Enron scandal into a rip-roaring narrative of epic proportions, taking readers behind every closed door—from the Oval Office to the executive suites, from the highest reaches of the Justice Department to the homes and bedrooms of the top officers. It is a tale of global reach—from Houston to Washington, from Bombay to London, from Munich to Sao Paolo—laying out the unbelievable scenes that twisted together to create this shocking true story. Eichenwald reveals never-disclosed details of a story that features a cast including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul O’Neill, Harvey Pitt, Colin Powell, Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Alan Greenspan, Ken Lay, Andy Fastow, Jeff Skilling, Bill Clinton, Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone. With its you-are-there glimpse into the secretive worlds of corporate power, Conspiracy of Fools is an all-true financial and political thriller of cinematic proportions.

This collection of Peter F. Drucker's essays explores the intersection between society, politics, and economics. Despite this lofty goal, however, the essays themselves remain down to earth, highly readable, and full of stories and ideas that make us think differently about the business world around us. The majority of these essays were written in the 1960s, and in them Drucker specifically examines that turbulent decade, yielding conclusions that are as timeless as they are fresh. He places the merger mania of the decade in the context of business history of the twentieth century, and arrives at fundamental questions about mass market economies. He questions the personal and political values of 1960s adolescents, and ends up relating them to the concurrent rise of big complex modern institutions. He examines with equal vigor Japan's management successes, the role of politics and economics in American identity, and the "real" Kirkegaard.

"Growing up in Beverly Hills, Diller was neglected by his parents, abused by his brother, and overwhelmed by insecurity. Diller began his career in the mailroom of the William Morris Agency and had one of the most extraordinary ascents in show business history, inventing the TV Movie of the Week for ABC at age twenty-seven, becoming CEO of Paramount Pictures at age thirty-two, and launching the Fox TV network at age forty-four. . . . Diller shares his provocative and at times counterintuitive insights about advancing in a company; becoming a manager and a leader; and the value of confrontation. He describes his relentless quest for good ideas along with what he learned from the bad ones. For the first time, Diller also tells the story of his unconventional and very private personal life, describing relationships with men and the woman he calls his 'unique and complete love,' designer Diane von Furstenberg. Diller writes, 'I would have secrets, but I would tell no lies'"--

"A fascinating history."-- Time Out New York The acclaimed producer of such classic films as Chariots of Fire and The Killing Fields , and the only European ever to head a major Hollywood studio, former Columbia Pictures chief David Puttnam has written a fascinating behind-the-scenes history of the movie business and of the unique and frequently unholy alliance between commerce and art that underpins it. Puttnam's story moves from the early days of cinema and the rivalry between Edison and the Lumiere brothers, through the rise of the studio system, and up to the present day, with European filmmakers and politicians struggling to protect their industry and even their cultural identity from a triumphant and all-devouring Hollywood. In the process he introduces a host of colorful characters: from Goldwyn and Zanuck to Eisner and Ovitz. Movies and Money is a groundbreaking book that will change our understanding of the movie business. "Excellent.... A book so well written that it can easily be read at a single sitting."-- San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner "Puttnam has a dry sense of humor, and most of his book is jammed with astonishing anecdotes and seething portraits of the personalities of film history."-- Newsday

One of the most important original documents about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to be published on the 50th anniversary of the event. The never before published diary of Edward Jay Epstein's investigation into the assassination reveals startling new details. Epstein, one of America's most acclaimed investigative journalists and widely acknowledged as the premier expert on the assassination, while still an undergraduate at Cornell, interviewed the members of the Warren Commission and its staff of investigators, and obtained their key files. He was the only journalist, ever, to have gained this access. His full findings are disclosed here for the first time. In his investigation, Epstein also interviewed the top officials of the CIA, including at length the legendary chief of counter-intelligence James Jesus Angleton. He was the only journalist to interview Yuri Nosenko, the KGB officer who claimed to be Oswald's KGB case officer. Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney, who attempted to reopen the case, confided his methods and sources in Epstein. Epstein was, moreover, the last person to see George De Mohrenschildt, Oswald's mysterious White Russian friend, who he interviewed for hours until the moment when he took his secrets with him in death. The JFK Assassination Diary is the true story at last of the incredible answers Epstein unearthed in pursuit of the greatest crime of the 20th century. Praise for Edward Jay Epstein "A grand figure of modern journalism...Show Epstein a juicy crime and he will show you how it has been subverted by unseen powers for their own agenda, by the inevitable incompetence of investigative authorities and by the media because it likes a simple story line." -Michael Wolff, USA Today "Epstein believes that conspiracies are more common than most journalists credit; for much of his career, he has reveled in the kind of tantalizing clues that could lead somewhere, or nowhere." -Joe Nocera, The New York Times "Epstein is a bulldog researcher." -Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post "A brilliant investigator." - Lou Dobbs Praise For Agency of Fear "Epstein tells all." -John Leonard, New York Times " Part detective story, part farce, part exposé, and part textbook on investigative reporting. It is ingenious, perverse, hilarious, and shocking." -Victor Navasky "Exciting research, impressive thesis." -Norman Mailer Praise For Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald A fascinating, alarming, and enormously significant book on the mystery of Lee Harvey Oswald-- The New York Times Book Review ABOUT THE AUTHOR Edward Jay Epstein is the author of fifteen books. He studied government at Cornell and Harvard and received a Ph.D from Harvard in 1973. His thesis on the search for political truth became a best-selling book, Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth. His doctoral dissertation on television news was published as News From Nowhere. He is the recipient of numerous foundation grants and awards, including the prestigious Financial Times/Booz Allen & Hamilton Global Business Book Award for both best biography and best business book for Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer. He has written for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. He lives in New York City.

A riveting retelling of diplomatic history with praise from Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Bertie Ahern (Ireland), Tony Blair (UK), Ehud Olmert (Israel), and more. “A magisterial tome on the international negotiations that shaped modern American history.... Grand in scope and grounded in decades of experience, The Art of Diplomacy is a compelling work of political history aimed at the diplomatic negotiators of tomorrow.” -Foreword Reviews Commended by Kirkus Reviews , which says Eizenstat writes with "authority and clarity of experience." Inside the greatest diplomatic negotiations of the past 50 years In one readable volume, diplomat and negotiator Stuart E. Eizenstat covers every major contemporary international agreement, from the treaty to end the Vietnam War to the Kyoto Protocols and the Iranian Nuclear Accord. Written from the perspective that only a participant in top level negotiations can bring, Eizenstat recounts the events that led up to the negotiation, the drama that took place around the table, and draws lessons from successful and unsuccessful strategies and tactics. Based on interviews with over 60 key figures in American diplomacy, including former presidents and secretaries of state, and major political figures abroad, Eizenstat provides an intimate view of diplomacy as today's history. The Art of Diplomacy will be an indispensable volume to understand American foreign policy and provide invaluable insights on the art of negotiation for anyone involved in government or business negotiations. The paperback edition adds a substantive afterword that presents the challenges and opportunities for the second Trump administration.

THE VIVID, SCANDAL-FILLED STORY OF A SHREWD, RAGS-TO-RICHES MILLIONAIRESS AND THE RUTHLESS POLITICIAN WHO PURSUED HER, TOLD AGAINST THE EFFERVESCENT BACKDROP OF AMERICA’S GOLDEN CITY—SAN FRANCISCO. San Francisco, until the mid-1940s, was a city that lived by its own rules, fast and loose. Formed by the gold rush and destroyed by the 1906 earthquake, it served as a pleasure palace for the legions of men who sought their fortunes in the California foothills. For the women who followed, their only choice was to support, serve, or submit. Inez Burns was different. She put everyone to shame with her dazzling, calculated, stone-cold ambition. Born in the slums of San Francisco to a cigar-rolling alcoholic, Inez transformed herself into one of California’s richest women, becoming a notorious powerbroker, grand dame, and iconoclast. A stunning beauty with perfumed charm, she rose from manicurist to murderess to millionaire, seducing one man after another, bearing children out of wedlock, and bribing politicians and cops along the way to secure her place in the San Francisco firmament. Inez ruled with incandescent flair. She owned five hundred hats and a closet full of furs, had two small toes surgically removed to fit into stylish high heels, and had two ribs excised to accentuate her hourglass figure. Her presence was defined by couture dresses from Paris, red-carpet strutting at the San Francisco Opera, and a black Pierce-Arrow that delivered her everywhere. She threw outrageous parties on her sprawling, eight-hundred-acre horse ranch, a compound with servants, cooks, horse groomers, and trainers, where politicians, judges, attorneys, Hollywood moguls, and entertainers gamboled over silver fizzes. Inez was adored by the desperate women who sought her out—and loathed by the power-hungry men who plotted to destroy her. During a time when women risked their lives with predatory practitioners lurking in back alleys, Inez and her team of women, clad in crisp, white nurse’s uniforms, worked night and day in her elegantly appointed clinic, performing fifty thousand of the safest, most hygienic abortions available during a time when even the richest wives, Hollywood stars, and mistresses had few options when they found themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. Inez’s illegal business bestowed upon her power and influence—until a determined politician by the name of Edmund G. (Pat) Brown—the father of current California Governor Jerry Brown—used Inez to catapult his nascent career to national prominence. In The Audacity of Inez Burns , Stephen G. Bloom, the author of the bestselling Postville, reveals a jagged slice of lost American history. From Inez’s riveting tale of glamour and tragedy, he has created a brilliant, compulsively readable portrait of an unforgettable woman during a moment when America’s pendulum swung from compassion to criminality by punishing those who permitted women to control their own destinies.

The glorious tradition of the Broadway musical from Irving Berlin to Jerome Kern and Rodgers and Hammerstein to Stephen Sondheim. And then . . . Cats and Les Miz. Mark Steyn's Broadway Babies Say Goodnight is a sharp-eyed view of the whole span of Broadway musical history, seven decades of brilliant achievements the best of which are among the finest works American artists have made. Show Boat, Oklahoma!, Carousel, Gypsy, and more. In an energetic blend of musical history, analysis, and backstage chat, Mark Steyn shows us the genius behind the 'simple' musical, and asks hard questions about the British invasion of Broadway and the future of the form. In this delicious book he gives us geniuses and monsters, hits and atomic bombs, and the wonderful stories that prove show business is a business which -- as the song goes --there's no business like.

Cat Bowman Smith and Sonia Levitin have teamed up again to bring the history of America's westward expansion to life in this fun, colorful picture book. Bored by cabin life in the sparse settlement, Amanada figures out how to bake a gooseberry pie in the family's crude wood stove. Soon prospectors are paying for her pies, and her business success spills over to the other folks who've decided to settle there.

A unique, revealing and entertaining insight into the political dramas of recent times. Rachel Johnson was born into what has been described by some as the UK's most famous political family , and by others as 'Poundshop Kennedys'. She was always keen to avoid the family business at all costs and plough her own furrow as a broadcaster, novelist and journalist. But, after the referendum to leave the EU in 2016, she felt the heavy hand of fate. When an insurgent centre party burst onto the scene in 2019, she felt compelled to stand for something rather than nothing - which happened to be just as her own older brother, Boris , was making his final assault on Downing Street . As some joked, she went into politics to spend more time with her family. Rake's Progress tells the extraordinary story of what happened next. From long silences on the radio when asked tricky policy questions to loud curses from David Cameron during tennis matches, Rachel reveals all about her brief political career. Taking on Ann Widdecombe and the Brexit Party , would she and her party make history - or become a forgotten footnote in the rolling omnishambles of British politics? Beyond her own story, Rake's Progress highlights the importance of standing up for your beliefs and the challenges of life in the public eye, and takes the reader behind the scenes, from the campaign trail to the 'Westminster bubble' and the carpeted corridors of power. Written with great honesty and self-deprecating humour, this is a book that reveals the very human side of politics.

With her characteristic brilliance, Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer follows the inner lives of characters confronted by unforeseen circumstances. An earthquake offers tragedy and opportunity in the title story, exposing both an ocean bed strewn with treasure and the avarice of the town's survivors. ?Mission Statement? is the story of a bureaucrat's idealism, the ghosts of colonial history, and a love affair with a government minister that ends astoundingly. And in ?Karma, ? Gordimer's inventiveness knows no bounds: in five returns to earthly life, a disembodied narrator, taking on different ages and genders, testifies to unfinished business and questions the nature of existence. Revelatory and powerful, these are stories that challenge our deepest convictions even as they dazzle us with their artful lyricism.

Mendelssohn wrote "Jerusalem" in Prussia on the eve of the French Revolution. When he published "Jerusalem", he risked a lot, not only in front of the Prussian authority, but also in front of religious authorities - including Orthodox Rabbis. Because it deals with social contract and political theory (especially concerning the question of the separation between religion and state). The "Jerusalem" is still underestimated as a contribution to philosophy - probably because it was directly connected with the historical situation and the social conditions of the author's life. On the other hand, a lot of historians concerned about Haskalah criticized the heroic image about Moses Mendelssohn in which he appears as the starting point of Jewish enlightenment without any respect to earlier attempts around the beginning of the 18th century. The "Jerusalem" consisted of two parts and each one was paged separately and the first one treated clearly the contemporary conflicts of the state and the second those of religion. In the first the author developed his political theory towards a utopia of a just and tolerant democracy, which he identified with the political attempt of the Mosaic Law: therefore the title "Jerusalem". In the second part he worked out a new pedagogic charge which every religion has to fulfill in the private sector. It was reduced to it, because the tolerant state should be separated from any religion. Hence the Mosaic law and the traditional practice of jurisdiction was no longer the business of Judaism, if there would be a tolerant state. Instead the new charge of religion would be the education of just and tolerant citizens. The book as a whole summarizes Moses Mendelssohn's critic concerning the contemporary conditions of the Prussian Monarchy and the legal status of the different religions, which finally means the civil status of its inhabitants according to their faith. Jew refusing both proselytism and the abandonment of his own religious beliefs, Moses Mendelssohn opens the way for a dialogue of ideas between the Occident and jusaisme. According to the French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, "The work of Mendelssohn is in actuality and stimulates Judaism today. In effect, it heralds a new era in Jewish history. It demonstrates that a Judaism's longing to make a symblotic relationship with non-Jewish human world beyond the mythical universalism of being-for-others, which has always been familiar to him."