A brilliantly reported true-life thriller that goes behind the scenes of the financial crisis on Wall Street and in Washington. In one of the most gripping financial narratives in decades, Andrew Ross Sorkin-a New York Times columnist and one of the country's most respected financial reporters-delivers the first definitive blow- by-blow account of the epochal economic crisis that brought the world to the brink. Through unprecedented access to the players involved, he re-creates all the drama and turmoil of these turbulent days, revealing never-before-disclosed details and recounting how, motivated as often by ego and greed as by fear and self-preservation, the most powerful men and women in finance and politics decided the fate of the world's economy.

“Step aside Tom Friedman, Sam Huntington, and Amy Chua. Franklin Foer’s dark and witty tale of the soccer world reveals the meaning of globalization in all its joys and horrors.”—Robert Kagan Just in time for the 2026 World Cup in North America—a reissue of the bestselling sports classic, featuring a new preface from the author. With the 2026 World Cup in all three nations of North America, the power and scope of soccer has truly become global. In this remarkably insightful, wide-ranging work, Franklin Foer argues that soccer is much more than a game, or even a way of life. It is a unique window into the crosscurrents of modern globalization, with all of its benefits and pitfalls. Soccer clubs don’t represent geographic areas; they stand for social classes and political ideologies. Unlike baseball or tennis, soccer is freighted with ancient hatreds and history. It’s a sport with real stakes—a catalyst capable of ruining regimes and launching liberation movements. Foer takes us on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shattering myths and dire predictions. Instead of destroying local cultures, as the left warned, globalization has revived tribalism. Far from the triumph of capitalism that the right anticipated, it has entrenched corruption. From Brazil to Bosnia, Italy to Iraq, How Soccer Explains the World is an eye-opening chronicle of how a beautiful sport and its fanatical followers can illuminate the fault lines of a society, whether it’s terrorism, poverty, anti-Semitism, authoritarianism, or radical Islam—issues that continue to affect all of us. At a time when globalization is under attack and many Americans yearn for retrenchment and retreat from the world, this remarkable book—filled with blazing intelligence, colorful characters, wry humor, and an equal passion for soccer and humanity—continues to make sense of our troubled times.

"From a Nobel Prize-winning pioneer in environmental economics, an innovative account of how and why "green thinking" could cure many of the world's most serious problems-from global warming to pandemics Solving the world's biggest problems-from climate catastrophe and pandemics to wildfires and corporate malfeasance-requires, more than anything else, coming up with new ways to manage the powerful interactions that surround us. For carbon emissions and other environmental damage, this means ensuring that those responsible pay their full costs rather than continuing to pass them along to others, including future generations. In The Spirit of Green, Nobel Prize-winning economist William Nordhaus describes a new way of green thinking that would help us overcome our biggest challenges without sacrificing economic prosperity, in large part by accounting for the spillover costs of economic collisions. In a discussion that ranges from the history of the environmental movement to the Green New Deal, Nordhaus explains how the spirit of green thinking provides a compelling and hopeful new perspective on modern life. At the heart of green thinking is a recognition that the globalized world is shaped not by isolated individuals but rather by innumerable interactions inside and outside the economy. He shows how rethinking economic efficiency, sustainability, politics, profits, taxes, individual ethics, corporate social responsibility, finance, and more would improve the effectiveness and equity of our society. And he offers specific solutions-on how to price carbon, how to pursue low-carbon technologies, how to design an efficient tax system, and how to foster international cooperation through climate clubs. The result is a groundbreaking new vision of how we can have our environment and our economy too"--

A powerful portrayal of Jeffrey Sachs's ambitious quest to end extreme global poverty, now a Signal paperback. "The poor you will always have with you," according to Matthew 26:11. But Jeffrey Sachs, economics superstar, special advisor to the Secretary General of the UN and the author of The End of Poverty , vehemently disagrees. In his view, poverty -- especially the extreme deprivation of sub-Saharan Africa -- can easily be eradicated. The vast sums spent in foreign aid over the decades has not come close to alleviating the dire subsistence problems of Africans. Sachs believed he knew the reason: the developed world simply hadn't spent enough. In 2006, Sachs, backed by tens of millions of donor dollars, launched the five-year Millennium Villages Project. Sachs would test his theories in villages in different African countries, then, with each success, scale up until until the program was continent-wide. His first village "make-over" was a small community in Sauri, Kenya, and the immediate effect was encouraging. With that first inkling of success achieved, Sachs rolled out a dozen model Millennium villages in ten countries. For the past six years, Nina Munk has reported deeply on the Project, following Sachs on official trips and listening in on conversations with heads of states, rival organisations and potential donors. And she has immersed herself in the lives of people in two of the remote villages: Ruhiira, in southwest Uganda, and Dertu, in the arid borderland between Kenya and Somalia. Accepting hospitality from these camel herders and smallhold farmers, and sharing in their struggles, Munk came to understand the on-the-ground issues challenging Sachs' one-size-fits-all approach to global poverty. The Idealist is the profound and moving story of what happened when the abstract theories of a brilliant, driven man met messy human reality.

â Today, Mr. Minsky's view [of economics] is more relevant than ever.â - The New York Times â Indeed, the Minsky moment has become a fashionable catch phrase on Wall Street.â -The Wall Street Journal John Maynard Keynes offers a timely reconsideration of the work of the revered economics icon. Hyman Minsky argues that what most economists consider Keynesian economics is at odds with the major points of Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Keynes and Minsky refuse to ignore pervasive uncertainty. Once uncertainty is given center stage, recurring episodes of financial system crises are all but inescapable. As Robert Barbera notes in a new preface, â Benign economic circumstancesâ ¦invite increasingly aggressive financial market wagers. Innovation in finance is a signature development in a capitalist economy. Once leveraged wagers are in place, small disappointments can have exaggerated consequences.â Thus for Minsky economic calm on Main Street engenders financial system fragility which, in turn, ensures a perpetuation of boom and bust cycles. Minsky colleagues Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and L. Randall Wray write in a new introduction, â We offer this new edition, in the hope that it will contribute to the reformation of economic theory so that it can address the world in which we actually live-the world that was always the topic of Minsky's analysis.â

Publisher's description: Robert Rubin was sworn in as the seventieth U.S. Secretary of the Treasury in January 1995 in a brisk ceremony attended only by his wife and a few colleagues. As soon as the ceremony was over, he began an emergency meeting with President Bill Clinton on the financial crisis in Mexico. This was not only a harbinger of things to come during what would prove to be a rocky period in the global economy; it also captured the essence of Rubin himself--short on formality, quick to get into the nitty-gritty. From his early years in the storied arbitrage department at Goldman Sachs to his current position as chairman of the executive committee of Citigroup, Robert Rubin has been a major figure at the center of the American financial system. He was a key player in the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.

An examination of the development of the non-Zionist Jewish socialist Bund in Russia, Labour Zionism, and the American Jewish Labour movement, portraying their often bitter struggles with each other and with non-Jewish socialist movements, especially in Russia.

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 name Boeing evokes vivid images, from the B-17 Flying Fortresses of World War II to the 707 and 747 jet transports that revolutionized air travel. Less well known: The Boeing Company built the first stage of the Saturn rocket that started men on the way to the moon, developed the Minuteman missile system, and is now designing America's space station. Boeing jets, in service around the globe, carry 675 million passengers annually--the equivalent of twelve percent of the world's population. Behind the statistics and the awe-inspiring aircraft is a company of paradoxes, a vast organization nimble enough to take daring market risks that have kept it at the top of its industry. Robert J. Serling, forty-five years an award-winning aviation writer, takes the reader behind the scenes with humor, objectivity, and abundant anecdotes: Boeing once went seventeen months without seeing a single domestic jetliner and came close to bankruptcy. One of its legendary test pilots unexpectedly barrel-rolled a prototype jetliner, into which the company had sunk one-quarter of its net worth, because he thought the stunt would help sell the airplane. Legend and Legacy, Robert J. Serling's most ambitious work to date, reads like a novel, complete with memorable characters who, despite occasional stumbles, helped win the war and conquer the commercial skies: The salesman who almost traded a used 727 for $12 million worth of underwear. The vice president who worked in a darkened office illuminated by a single, low-wattage light bulb. The gifted, driven engineers who did the impossible, by yesterday. Never in its seventy-five years has Boeing been so revealingly profiled. This book is must-reading for anyone fascinated by the history of aviation.

In For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Rothbard proposes a once-and-for-all escape from the two major political parties, the ideologies they embrace, and their central plans for using state power against people. Libertarianism is Rothbard's radical alternative that says state power is unworkable and immoral and ought to be curbed and finally overthrown.To make his case, Rothbard deploys his entire system of thought: natural law, natural rights, Austrian economics, American history, the theory of the state, and more.It is relentless, scientific, analytical, and morally energetic — a book that makes an overwhelming case. Indeed, it gave an entire movement its intellectual consciousness and earned Rothbard the titles "Mr. Libertarian" and "The State's Greatest Living Enemy."Society without the nation-state? Rothbard shows that this is the way for peace, prosperity, security, and freedom for all. In the entire history of libertarian ideas, no book has more successfully combined ideological rigor, theoretical exposition, political rhetoric, historical illustration, and strategic acumen. Rothbard poured a lifetime of research and all his intellectual energy into this project and he succeeded in writing a classic.The book is the result of the only contract Rothbard ever received from a mainstream commercial publisher. He was asked to sum up the whole of the libertarian creed. Looking at the original manuscript, which was nearly complete after its first draft, it seems that it was a nearly effortless joy for him to write. It is seamless, unrelenting, and full of life.He cut no corners and pulled no punches. It appeared in 1973 and created a whole movement that set out to crush the political monopoly.In subject after subject, this book is informative, bracing, and challenging. It also features the characteristically clear writing style for which Rothbard is famous, which stemmed from his organized thinking and passionate drive to teach and change the world.The book begins with American history to show that the revolution of 1776 was the most libertarian of any in history. The pastors, pamphleteers, and statesmen who led it held that the state has no rights that the people themselves do not possess. They demanded full liberty, not some truncated version that existed in the old world. In this discussion, the reader comes to appreciate the founders of the United States of America as never before.Rothbard then sets out to rekindle that fire, first through a discussion of the philosophy and ethics of freedom. The central axiom: no man or group of men may aggress against the person and property of anyone else. He justifies the axiom on the basis of natural rights. It is an axiom that has few opponents, until Rothbard spells out its implications: taxation is theft, conscription is slavery, and war is mass murder, among many other points.Bracing indeed! But the state is the primary violator of this simple axiom. It presumes the right to rob and kill while purporting to protect us from robbing and killing. Thus follows a full theory of the state, how it gains and maintains controls over the population (but not through a "social contract"!), the various failed methods for keeping it in check (not even constitutions work!), its operations and tendencies to work its evil (it never has enough power), and how intellectuals become co-opted by the forces of state power.The book is still regarded as "dangerous" precisely because, once the exposure to Rothbardianism takes place, no other book on politics, economics, history, or sociology can be read the same way again.

Defining craftsmanship far more broadly than "skilled manual labor," Richard Sennett maintains that the computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen engage in a craftsman's work. Craftsmanship names the basic human impulse to do a job well for its own sake, says the author, and good craftsmanship involves developing skills and focusing on the work rather than ourselves. In this thought-provoking book, one of our most distinguished public intellectuals explores the work of craftsmen past and present, identifies deep connections between material consciousness and ethical values, and challenges received ideas about what constitutes good work in today's world. The Craftsman engages the many dimensions of skill--from the technical demands to the obsessive energy required to do good work. Craftsmanship leads Sennett across time and space, from ancient Roman brickmakers to Renaissance goldsmiths to the printing presses of Enlightenment Paris and the factories of industrial London; in the modern world he explores what experiences of good work are shared by computer programmers, nurses and doctors, musicians, glassblowers, and cooks. Unique in the scope of his thinking, Sennett expands previous notions of crafts and craftsmen and apprises us of the surprising extent to which we can learn about ourselves through the labor of making physical things --

The all-encompassing embrace of world capitalism at the beginning of the twenty-first century was generally attributed to the superiority of competitive markets. Globalization had appeared to be the natural outcome of this unstoppable process. But today, with global markets roiling and increasingly reliant on state intervention to stay afloat, it has become clear that markets and states aren’t straightforwardly opposing forces. In this groundbreaking work, Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin demonstrate the intimate relationship between modern capitalism and the American state, including its role as an “informal empire” promoting free trade and capital movements. Through a powerful historical survey, they show how the US has superintended the restructuring of other states in favor of competitive markets and coordinated the management of increasingly frequent financial crises. The Making of Global Capitalism , through its highly original analysis of the first great economic crisis of the twenty-first century, identifies the centrality of the social conflicts that occur within states rather than between them. These emerging fault lines hold out the possibility of new political movements transforming nation states and transcending global markets.

"A narrative which reads as easily as an historical novel, but is faithful to facts." Daily Telegraph "The story is worked out like a film scenario, with cameras switching from court to street, from street to battlefield in a dramatic series. Mr. Aronson knows how to appeal to our visual imagination." Spectator "One can only greet with pleasure a book on a historically most fertile theme that may be called a popular work of considerable appeal and relevance." History Today "Mr. Aronson's style is clear and effective and not unduly overcoloured; while the portraits he draws of his unlucky protagonists are both sensible and sympathetic." Financial Times "We shall have a lot of 1870 this year but I shall be surprised if anything is written which is much better than this." Books and Bookmen The year 1970 marks the centenary of one of the great turning-points in world history: the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war and the resulting downfall of the French Second Empire. For centuries, until the debacle of 1870, France had been mistress of Europe and Paris the capital of the civilized world. Then suddenly, in a matter of weeks, culminating in the Prussian victory at Sedan, the centre of European gravity swung from Paris to Berlin; Germany became the dominant country on the Continent and it took two of the greatest wars mankind has ever known to oust her from this position. Under its creator, the romantic, inscrutable Napoleon III (‘a sphinx without a riddle', said Bismarck), and his beautiful Empress, Eugenie, the Empire had known 'eighteen years of luxury, pleasure, recklessness and gaiety, of gallantry and incomparable elegance'. In the spring of 1870 a massive vote of confidence in the so-called Liberal Empire had seemed to assure the future of the regime; yet, by the end of the summer, the French armies had suffered ignominious defeat; the Emperor himself had been taken prisoner at Sedan, and the bewildered young Prince Imperial, robbed of his hopes of military glory, had made his escape to England. Eugenie, who had revelled in her dramatic role as Regent, could hardly bring herself to accept that total disaster had overtaken France. But, after one terrible outburst against the Emperor, she rallied with a courage that survived her escape from Paris, the proclamation of a Republic, the twilight years of exile in England, and the death of the Emperor. The Prince Imperial was never to forget the shame of Sedan; anxious to prove himself worthy of his destiny, he met his death fighting with the British army in the Zulu War when he was twenty-three. The seventeen assegai wounds which killed him were all in the front of his body; and in his wallet was found a vicious French newspaper article raking up yet again the charge of Bonaparte cowardice. The Fall of the Third Napoleon gives both a splendidly clear-cut analysis of the reasons for the collapse of the Empire, and a sympathetic, freshly angled presentation of the two main characters—of Napoleon, hardly the 'coward of Sedan' of his enemies' imaginings, and Eugenie who, though highhanded and impetuous, was far from the war-mongering virago of popular legend. The action takes place against a changing and colourful backdrop: Haussmann's grandiose Paris, the Taderies and Saint Cloud, the sodden roads and bloody battlefields of north-eastern France, a country house in Kent, a lonely hollow in the South African veld.. . `It is all very beautiful—for the moment,' said Alfred de Musset at a ball at the Tuileries during the Second Empire, but I would not give two sous for the last act!' This book is the story of that last act—a gaslit tragedy, both brilliant and sombre.

Few documents have had more of an impact on the course of history as has the Communist Manifesto. From its famous opening lines--"A specter is haunting Europe: the specter of Communism"--to its final rallying cry--"Workers of the world unite!"--the words of Marx and Engels have moved millions to join in the struggle against capitalism. But they have also inspired a legion of critics, detractors, and even a few despots to intentionally distort their meanings so as to sow confusion and justify untold horrors. According to Hal Draper, these mis-readings have, in part, been made possible by the enduring prevalence of translations from the original German that fail to accurately capture the intended meaning of certain key phrases. In this magisterial volume, Draper assembles the original German text, the first English translation, the officially authorized English translation--providing enlightening commentary throughout--as well as his own new translation of the pamphlet.

Over the past decade, a small group of economists has challenged traditional wisdom about international trade. "Rethinking International Trade provides a coherent account of this research program and traces the key steps in an exciting new trade theory that offers, among other possibilities, new arguments against free trade. Krugman's introduction is a valuable guide to research that has delved anew into the causes of international trade and reopened basic questions about the international pattern of specialization, the effects of protectionism, and what constitutes an optimal trade policy In the four sections that follow, he takes a revisionary look at the causes of international trade, and discusses growth and the role of history, technological change and trade, and strategic trade policy. Essays in part I review and challenge the theories of Ricardo and his successors, rethinking a 160-year tradition of looking at international trade. Models are presented in which trade frequently arises because of opportunities to exploit increasing returns through exports rather than from comparative advantage. In part II, Krugman traces the resulting pattern of trade specialization not only to the influence of comparative advantage but also to more arbitrary factors such as historical events, the rachet effect of cumulative processes, technological changes, and temporary economic shocks. Part III expands on the theme of technological change as a key factor in determining the pattern of specialization in international trade and addresses questions about the effects of innovation, or lack of it, on a country's international trade position. The concluding essays examine the issue of protectionismalong with other elements of trade policy, showing how protectionist policies, used as an export enhancement device by some national governments, may shift world specialization to the advantage of the protectionist nations. Paul R. Krugman is Professor of Economics at MIT.

Examines the role of women as leaders, activists, and members of the labor movement in New York and Chicago during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

We can't sit under Mises at his famous Vienna private seminar. We can't go back in time and attend his New York seminar, or follow him to his speaking engagements that he held in the 50s and 60s.But thanks to this second volume in a thrilling series (here is volume one), we do have access to what he said. He is warm, funny, passionate, and learned. This book provides a candid look at the man and his teaching style. It demonstrates his dazzling command over the material, and teaches in a breezier way than his treatises.This volume contains nine lectures delivered over one week, from June 23, to July 3, 1952, at the San Francisco Public Library. Mises was at his prime as a teacher and lecturer. He shares a lifetime of learning on topics that were (and remain) central to American public life.As the title indicates, his main focus is on Marxism. He discusses Marx and his place in the history of ideas, the destruction wrought by his dangerous ideology, the manner in which his followers have covered up his errors, and how the Marxists themselves have worked for so long to save Marxism from itself. He discusses Marxist claims about history and refutes the smear of the industrial revolution.The approach is systematic but casual. So the reader encounters wonderful insights in the form of short asides. For example: "The worst thing that can happen to a socialist is to have his country ruled by socialists who are not his friends."As a lecturer, he is steady and relentless. The reader can nearly "hear" him speaking through the prose. And there are times when Mises reveals a level of rhetorical passion that you would never encounter in print. That's because what is printed here are not pre-prepared lectures in the sense that they were written out. They were transcribed by Bettina Bien Greaves from what he actually said.Thus can we hear this passage:It is not true, as Marx said, that the improvements in technology are available only to the exploiters and that the masses are living in a state much worse than on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. Everything the Marxists say about exploitation is absolutely wrong! Lies! In fact, capitalism made it possible for many persons to survive who wouldn't have otherwise.Some readers of Mises's larger works have said that while his rigor is dazzling, the man himself can seem remote. Whether or not you agree with this observation, Mises comes across in these lectures as brilliant but very warm and charming in an old world sense.This approach is particularly fruitful in the last four of the lectures, which cover topics such as savings, interest, inflation, profit and loss, and the place of foreign investment. The lecture on interest rates, for example, must surely rank as one of the best explanations of this complicated topic. He recounts the history of the attempt to suppress interest rates, from the ancient world to the modern period. He explains why this cannot work because interest is merely the objective sign of a phenomenon that is integral to human action. As he moves on to money, Mises reveals himself to be tougher on the issue of fiduciary media than he was when he wrote his 1912 book The Theory of Money and Credit.In response to a question Mises says: "In the future no additional banknotes should be issued, no additional credit should be entered on a bank subject to check, unless there is 100 percent coverage in money."Also not to be missed is Mises's wry defense of "money cranks": at least they were only more consistent than the advocates of Keynesian and monetarism.Mises was clearly pressed for time, so he had to be at once thorough and move quickly through the material. It's still not "light reading" by the normal standards, but for people who want to see a great mind at work, this has a wonderful element of spontaneity about it that attracts and teaches at the same time.

For more than a decade the leaders of the United States, Japan, Western Europe and Canada have met annually to discuss international economic and political issues. Hanging Together analyses the history of these seven-power summits and the relations between the Western allies during these turbulent years. New chapters in this edition relate the story of Western economic diplomacy until the Reagan Years. They give lucid accounts of the revamped international economic strategy after 1984 and how the Europeans and Japanese reacted to it. A new introduction and conclusion place the summits in a theoretical framework.

Maps, tables, charts, epilogue, appendices, index.