Odd Lots Recommended Books

The acclaimed historian demonstrates a link between climate change and social unrest across the globe during the mid-17th century Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides, government collapses—the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were unprecedented in both frequency and severity The effects of what historians call the "General Crisis" extended from England to Japan and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas

In this meticulously researched volume, historian Geoffrey Parker presents the firsthand testimony of men and women who experienced the many political, economic, and social crises that occurred between 1618 to the late 1680s He also incorporates the scientific evidence of climate change during this period into the narrative, offering a strikingly new understanding of the General Crisis Changes in weather patterns, especially longer winters and cooler and wetter summers, disrupted growing seasons and destroyed harvests This in turn brought hunger, malnutrition, and disease; and as material conditions worsened, wars, rebellions, and revolutions rocked the world.

Yang Jisheng's The World Turned Upside Down is the definitive history of the Cultural Revolution, in withering and heartbreaking detail As a major political event and a crucial turning point in the history of the People's Republic of China, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) marked the zenith as well as the nadir of Mao Zedong's ultra-leftist politics Reacting in part to the Soviet Union's revisionism that he regarded as a threat to the future of socialism, Mao mobilized the masses in a battle against what he called bourgeois forces within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

This ten-year-long class struggle on a massive scale devastated traditional Chinese culture as well as the nation's economy Following his groundbreaking and award-winning history of the Great Famine, Tombstone, Yang Jisheng here presents the only history of the Cultural Revolution by an independent scholar based in mainland China, and makes a crucial contribution to understanding those years' lasting influence today The World Turned Upside Down puts every political incident, major and minor, of those ten years under extraordinary and withering scrutiny, and arrives in English at a moment when contemporary Chinese governance is leaning once more toward a highly centralized power structure and Mao-style cult of personality.

Yang Jisheng’s The World Turned Upside Down is the definitive history of the Cultural Revolution, in withering and heartbreaking detail As a major political event and a crucial turning point in the history of the People’s Republic of China, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) marked the zenith as well as the nadir of Mao Zedong’s ultra-leftist politics Reacting in part to the Soviet Union’s "revisionism" that he regarded as a threat to the future of socialism, Mao mobilized the masses in a battle against what he called "bourgeois" forces within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

This ten-year-long class struggle on a massive scale devastated traditional Chinese culture as well as the nation’s economy Following his groundbreaking and award-winning history of the Great Famine, Tombstone, Yang Jisheng here presents the only history of the Cultural Revolution by an independent scholar based in mainland China, and makes a crucial contribution to understanding those years' lasting influence today The World Turned Upside Down puts every political incident, major and minor, of those ten years under extraordinary and withering scrutiny, and arrives in English at a moment when contemporary Chinese governance is leaning once more toward a highly centralized power structure and Mao-style cult of personality.

China's leader, Xi Jinping, is one of the most powerful individuals in the world—and one of the least understood Much can be learned, however, about both Xi Jinping and the nature of the party he leads from the memory and legacy of his father, the revolutionary Xi Zhongxun (1913–2002) The elder Xi served the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for more than seven decades

He worked at the right hand of prominent leaders Zhou Enlai and Hu Yaobang He helped build the Communist base area that saved Mao Zedong in 1935, and he initiated the Special Economic Zones that launched China into the reform era after Mao's death He led the Party's United Front efforts toward Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Taiwanese

And though in 1989 he initially sought to avoid violence, he ultimately supported the Party's crackdown on the Tiananmen protesters The Party's Interests Come First is the first biography of Xi Zhongxun written in English This biography is at once a sweeping story of the Chinese revolution and the first several decades of the People's Republic of China and a deeply personal story about making sense of one's own identity within a larger political context

Drawing on an array of new documents, interviews, diaries, and periodicals, Joseph Torigian vividly tells the life story of Xi Zhongxun, a man who spent his entire life struggling to balance his own feelings with the Party's demands Through the eyes of Xi Jinping's father, Torigian reveals the extraordinary organizational, ideological, and coercive power of the CCP—and the terrible cost in human suffering that comes with it.

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • “A magisterial overview of a thousand years of Native American history” (The New York Review of Books), from the rise of ancient cities more than a thousand years ago to fights for sovereignty that continue today WINNER OF THE BANCROFT PRIZE, THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE, AND THE MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE Long before the colonization of North America, Indigenous Americans built diverse civilizations and adapted to a changing world in ways that reverberated globally And, as award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal vividly recounts, when Europeans did arrive, no civilization came to a halt because of a few wandering explorers, even when the strangers came well armed

A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size Then, following a period of climate change and instability, numerous smaller nations emerged, moving away from rather than toward urbanization From this urban past, egalitarian government structures, diplomacy, and complex economies spread across North America

So, when Europeans showed up in the sixteenth century, they encountered societies they did not understand—those having developed differently from their own—and whose power they often underestimated For centuries afterward, Indigenous people maintained an upper hand and used Europeans in pursuit of their own interests In Native Nations, we see how Mohawks closely controlled trade with the Dutch—and influenced global markets—and how Quapaws manipulated French colonists

Power dynamics shifted after the American Revolution, but Indigenous people continued to command much of the continent’s land and resources Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa forged new alliances and encouraged a controversial new definition of Native identity to attempt to wall off U.S. ambitions The Cherokees created institutions to assert their sovereignty on the global stage, and the Kiowas used their power in the west to regulate the passage of white settlers across their territory In this important addition to the growing tradition of North American history centered on Indigenous nations, Kathleen DuVal shows how the definitions of power and means of exerting it shifted over time, but the sovereignty and influence of Native peoples remained a constant—and will continue far into the future. “An essential American history”—The Wall Street Journal

How the world’s largest e-commerce market highlights a digital path to development How do states build vital institutions for market development Too often, governments confront technical or political barriers to providing the rule of law, contract enforcement, and loan access In From Click to Boom, Lizhi Liu examines a digital solution: governments strategically outsourcing tasks of institutional development and enforcement to digital platforms—a process she calls “institutional outsourcing.” China’s e-commerce boom showcases this digital path to development

In merely two decades, China built from scratch a two-trillion-dollar e-commerce market, with 800 million users, seventy million jobs, and nearly fifty percent of global online retail sales Contrary to conventional wisdom, Liu argues, this market boom occurred because of weak government institutions, not despite them Gaps in government institutions compelled e-commerce platforms to build powerful private institutions for contract enforcement, fraud detection, and dispute resolution

For a surprisingly long period, the authoritarian government acquiesced, endorsed, and even partnered with this private institutional building despite its disruptive nature Drawing on a plethora of interviews, original surveys, proprietary data, and a field experiment, Liu shows that the resulting e-commerce boom had far-reaching effects on China Institutional outsourcing nonetheless harbors its own challenges

With inadequate regulation, platforms may abuse market power, while excessive regulation stifles institutional innovation China’s regulatory oscillations toward platforms—from laissez-faire to crackdown and back to support—underscore the struggle to strike the right balance.

From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Greg Grandin comes the stunning, never before told story of the quixotic attempt to recreate small-town America in the heart of the Amazon In 1927, Henry Ford, the richest man in the world, bought a tract of land twice the size of Delaware in the Brazilian Amazon His intention was to grow rubber, but the project rapidly evolved into a more ambitious bid to export America itself, along with its golf courses, ice-cream shops, bandstands, indoor plumbing, and Model Ts rolling down broad streets

Fordlandia, as the settlement was called, quickly became the site of an epic clash On one side was the car magnate, lean, austere, the man who reduced industrial production to its simplest motions; on the other, the Amazon, lush, extravagant, the most complex ecological system on the planet Ford's early success in imposing time clocks and square dances on the jungle soon collapsed, as indigenous workers, rejecting his midwestern Puritanism, turned the place into a ribald tropical boomtown

Fordlandia's eventual demise as a rubber plantation foreshadowed the practices that today are laying waste to the rain forest More than a parable of one man's arrogant attempt to force his will on the natural world, Fordlandia depicts a desperate quest to salvage the bygone America that the Ford factory system did much to dispatch As Greg Grandin shows in this gripping and mordantly observed history, Ford's great delusion was not that the Amazon could be tamed but that the forces of capitalism, once released, might yet be contained Fordlandia is a 2009 National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction.

Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world today In China, a country with a vast array of regional and local vernaculars, how was this “common language” forged How did people learn to speak Mandarin And what does a focus on speech instead of script reveal about Chinese language and history

This book traces the surprising social history of China’s spoken standard, from its creation as the national language of the early Republic in 1913 to its journey into postwar Taiwan to its reconfiguration as the common language of the People’s Republic after 1949 Janet Y Chen examines the process of linguistic change from multiple perspectives, emphasizing the experiences of ordinary people

After the fall of the Qing dynasty, a chorus of influential elites promoted the goal of a strong China speaking in one unified voice Chen explores how this vision fared in practice, showing the complexities of transforming an ideological aspiration into spoken reality She tracks linguistic change in schools, rural areas, and urban life against the backdrop of war and revolution

The Sounds of Mandarin draws on a novel aural archive of early twentieth-century sound technology, including phonograph recordings, films, and radio broadcasts Following the uneven trajectory of standard speech, this book sheds new light on the histories of language, nationalism, and identity in China and Taiwan.

A fascinating story of writing across cultures and time While other ancient nonalphabetic scripts--Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Mayan hieroglyphs--are long extinct, Chinese characters, invented over three thousand years ago, are today used by well over a billion people to write Chinese and Japanese In medieval East Asia, the written Classical Chinese language knit the region together in a common intellectual enterprise that encompassed religion, philosophy, historiography, political theory, art, and literature

Literacy in Classical Chinese set the stage for the adaptation of Chinese characters into ways of writing non-Chinese languages like Vietnamese and Korean, which differ dramatically from Chinese in vocabularies and grammatical structures Because of its unique status in the modern world, myths and misunderstandings about Chinese characters abound Where does this writing system, so different in form and function from alphabetic writing, come from

How does it really work How did it come to be used to write non-Chinese languages And why has it proven so resilient By exploring the spread and adaptation of the script across two millennia and thousands of miles, Chinese Characters across Asia addresses these questions and provides insights into human cognition and culture Written in an approachable style and meant for readers with no prior knowledge of Chinese script or Asian languages, it presents a fascinating story that challenges assumptions about speech and writing.

The turmoil of global commodities markets amidst conflict.

Global Trade in the Premodern World offers an authoritative and expansive history of exchange and interaction across Eurasia from the prehistoric origins of trade to the integration of large parts of this world-system by the fifteenth century CE The book tackles questions that are critical to our understanding of premodern globalization How did global trade in the premodern world take shape

Who did the trading and what motivated them Which commodities were traded and how did different goods influence how trading networks functioned How did geography change how and where people carried goods How did states and communities seek to control the practice of commerce

And finally, what was the impact of trade on political structures and in the relationship between different states, empires, and communities Drawing on the fruits of research in history, anthropology, and archaeology, as well as primary sources produced by authors from Africa, Asia, and Europe, Global Trade in the Premodern World is a book of remarkable scope written engagingly and accessibly with scholars, students, and non-specialists in mind.

In a Bad State provides the first comprehensive history and theory of how the federal government has addressed subnational debt crises Tracing the long history of public budgeting at the state and local level, David Schleicher argues that federal officials face a "trilemma" when a state or city nears default But whether they demand state austerity, permit state defaults, or provide bailouts-and all have been tried-federal officials can only achieve two out of three goals, at best Authoritative and accessible, this book is a guide to understanding the pressing problems that local, state, and federal officials currently face and the policy options they possess for responding.

In The Power of Systems, Eglė Rindzevičiūtė introduces readers to one of the best-kept secrets of the Cold War: the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), an international think tank established by the US and USSR to advance scientific collaboration From 1972 until the late 1980s, IIASA was one of the very few permanent platforms where policy scientists from both sides of the Cold War could work together to articulate and solve world problems

A rare zone of freedom, communication, and negotiation East-West scientists co-produced computer simulations of the long-term world future, using global modeling to explore the possible effects of climate change and nuclear winter Their concern with global issues also became a vehicle for transformation inside the Soviet Union The Power of Systems explores how computer modeling, cybernetics, and the systems approach challenged Soviet governance by undermining the linear notions of control on which Soviet governance was based and creating new objects and techniques of government.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more Industrial Islamism analyzes the relationship, since the end of the Cold War, between the rise of political Islamism in Muslim-majority countries and the rise of a new global "middle class" of industrial entrepreneurs

Challenging common assumptions, Utku Balaban questions the idea that political Islamism represents the antithesis of Western modernity and industrialization On the contrary: the more enthusiastically a Muslim-majority country industrializes, the more "Islamized" its politics becomes

The book focuses on Turkey, historically the most industrialized Muslim-majority country in the world, with the most successful Islamist movement and a relatively competitive electoral system It provides a fine-grained historical and ethnographic analysis at the local level of urban-industrial control over workers in sweatshops and working-class neighborhoods by this new global middle class, whom Balaban calls the faubourgeoisie As the central actor behind Turkey's post-Cold War industrialization, the faubourgeoisie allies with the Islamist movement to control its workers and significantly influence national politics.

A riveting, firsthand investigation of China's seismic progress, its human costs, and what it means for America.

Politics of the State Grid Corporation of China -- Electricity -- From the ministry to a corporation -- Overseeing SGCC: the contested regimes of central agencies -- State Grid Corporation of China -- SGCC in action: as a policy entrepreneur -- SGCC in action: as technology innovator -- SGCC in action: internationalisation

The Roman empire tends to be seen as a whole whereas the early middle ages tends to be seen as a collection of regional histories, roughly corresponding to the land-areas of modern nation states As a result, early medieval history is much more fragmented, and there have been few convincing syntheses of socio-economic change in the post-Roman world since the 1930s In recent decades, the rise of early medieval archaeology has also transformed our source-base, but this has not been adequately integrated into analyses of documentary history in almost any country

In Framing the Early Middle Ages Chris Wickham combines documentary and archaeological evidence to create a comparative history of the period 400-800 His analysis embraces each of the regions of the late Roman and immediately post-Roman world, from Denmark to Egypt

The book concentrates on classic socio-economic themes, state finance, the wealth and identity of the aristocracy, estate management, peasant society, rural settlement, cities, and exchange These give only a partial picture of the period, but they frame and explain other developments Earlier syntheses have taken the development of a single region as 'typical', with divergent developments presented as exceptions This book takes all different developments as typical, and aims to construct a synthesis based on a better understanding of difference and the reasons for it.

Available in its complete form for the first time since its original publication.

Winner of the James Beard Award for Literary Writing "Engrossing...hard to put down." — The New York Times Book Review “Frostbite is a perfectly executed cold fusion of science, history, and literary verve . . . as a fellow nonfiction writer, I bow down This is how it's done.” — Mary Roach, author of Fuzz and Stiff An engaging and far-reaching exploration of refrigeration, tracing its evolution from scientific mystery to globe-spanning infrastructure, and an essential investigation into how it has remade our entire relationship with food—for better and for worse How often do we open the fridge or peer into the freezer with the expectation that we’ll find something fresh and ready to eat

It’s an everyday act—but just a century ago, eating food that had been refrigerated was cause for both fear and excitement The introduction of artificial refrigeration overturned millennia of dietary history, launching a new chapter in human nutrition We could now overcome not just rot, but seasonality and geography

Tomatoes in January Avocados in Shanghai All possible In Frostbite, New Yorker contributor and cohost of the award-winning podcast Gastropod Nicola Twilley takes readers on a tour of the cold chain from farm to fridge, visiting off-the-beaten-path landmarks such as Missouri’s subterranean cheese caves, the banana-ripening rooms of New York City, and the vast refrigerated tanks that store the nation’s orange juice reserves

Today, nearly three-quarters of everything on the average American plate is processed, shipped, stored, and sold under refrigeration It’s impossible to make sense of our food system without understanding the all-but-invisible network of thermal control that underpins it Twilley’s eye-opening book is the first to reveal the transformative impact refrigeration has had on our health and our guts; our farms, tables, kitchens, and cities; global economics and politics; and even our environment

In the developed world, we’ve reaped the benefits of refrigeration for more than a century, but the costs are catching up with us We’ve eroded our connection to our food and redefined what “fresh” means More important, refrigeration is one of the leading contributors to climate change As the developing world races to build a US-style cold chain, Twilley asks: Can we reduce our dependence on refrigeration

Should we A deeply researched and reported, original, and entertaining dive into the most important invention in the history of food and drink, Frostbite makes the case for a recalibration of our relationship with the fridge—and how our future might depend on it.

Winner of the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction A SUNDAY TIMES & NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The spectacular new novel from the bestselling author of JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL, 'one of our greatest living authors' NEW YORK MAGAZINE __________________________________ Piranesi lives in the House Perhaps he always has In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls

On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead But mostly, he is alone Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements

There is someone new in the House But who are they and what do they want Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered

The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite. __________________________________ 'What a world Susanna Clarke conjures into being .. Piranesi is an exquisite puzzle-box' DAVID MITCHELL 'It subverts expectations throughout ..

Utterly otherworldly' GUARDIAN 'Piranesi astonished me It is a miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling' MADELINE MILLER 'Brilliantly singular' SUNDAY TIMES 'A gorgeous, spellbinding mystery .. This book is a treasure, washed up upon a forgotten shore, waiting to be discovered' ERIN MORGENSTERN 'Head-spinning .. Fully imagined and richly evoked' TELEGRAPH **Pre-order now** **The 20th anniversary edition of the fantasy classic Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell – with an exquisite new package and an exclusive introduction by V E Schwab** **Buy The Wood at Midwinter – a beautifully illustrated Christmas story from the queen of fantasy**

This perspective allows a unique view of the development of an industrial society not just from the ground up but from the hearth up.

“A surprise best-seller which, apparently, has the power to turn even the most feeble of us into axe-wielding lumberjacks.” —Independent The latest Scandinavian publishing phenomenon is not a Stieg Larsson-like thriller; it’s a book about chopping, stacking, and burning wood that has sold more than 200,000 copies in Norway and Sweden and has been a fixture on the bestseller lists there for more than a year Norwegian Wood provides useful advice on the rustic hows and whys of taking care of your heating needs, but it’s also a thoughtful attempt to understand man’s age-old predilection for stacking wood and passion for open fires

An intriguing window into the exoticism of Scandinavian culture, the book also features enough inherently interesting facts and anecdotes and inspired prose to make it universally appealing The U.S. edition is a fully updated version of the Norwegian original, and includes an appendix of U.S.-based resources and contacts. “A how-to guide as well as a celebration of wood—its scent, its variability, and the way it can connect modern life to simpler times . . You don’t need to have a wood-burning stove or fireplace to be captivated by the craft and lore surrounding a Stone Age method of creating heat.” —The Boston Globe “The book has spread like wildfire.” —Daily Mail “A how-to book with poetry at its heart.” —The Times Literary Supplement

Nazi Germany's quest for raw materials.

From the author of New York Times bestseller The New New Deal, a groundbreaking piece of reportage from the trenches of the next climate war: the fight to fix our food system Humanity has cleared a land mass the size of Asia plus Europe to grow food, and our food system generates a third of our carbon emissions By 2050, we’re going to need a lot more calories to fill nearly 10 billion bellies, but we can’t feed the world without frying it if we keep tearing down an acre of rainforest every six seconds

We are eating the earth, and the greatest challenge facing our species will be to slow our relentless expansion of farmland into nature Even if we quit fossil fuels, we’ll keep hurtling towards climate chaos if we don’t solve our food and land problems In this rollicking, shocking narrative, Grunwald shows how the world, after decades of ignoring the climate problem at the center of our plates, has pivoted to making it worse, embracing solutions that sound sustainable but could make it even harder to grow more food with less land

But he also tells the stories of the dynamic scientists and entrepreneurs pursuing real solutions, from a jungle-tough miracle crop called pongamia to genetically-edited cattle embryos, from Impossible Whoppers to a non-polluting pesticide that uses the technology behind the COVID vaccines to constipate beetles to death It’s an often infuriating saga of lobbyists, politicians, and even the scientific establishment making terrible choices for humanity, but it’s also a hopeful account of the people figuring out what needs to be done—and trying to do it

Michael Grunwald, bestselling author of The Swamp and The New New Deal, builds his narrative around a brilliant, relentless, unforgettable food and land expert named Tim Searchinger He chronicles Searchinger’s uphill battles against bad science and bad politics, both driven by the overwhelming influence of agricultural interests And he illuminates a path that could save our planetary home for ourselves and future generations—through better policy, technology, and behavior, as well as a new land ethic recognizing that every acre matters.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Deftly written, Chokepoints is a compelling and dramatic narrative about the new shape of geopolitics." — Daniel Yergin, The Wall Street Journal “Remarkable...One of the most important books on economic warfare ever written.” — Paul Kennedy, author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers The epic story of how America turned the world economy into a weapon, upending decades of globalization to take on a new authoritarian axis—Russia, China, and Iran It used to be that ravaging another country’s economy required blockading its ports and laying siege to its cities

Now all it takes is a statement posted online by the U.S. government In Chokepoints, Edward Fishman, a former top State Department sanctions official, takes us deep into the back rooms of power to reveal the untold history of the last two decades of U.S. foreign policy, in which America renounced the gospel of globalization and waged a new kind of economic war As Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Ayatollah Khamenei wreaked havoc on the world stage, mavericks within the U.S. government built a fearsome new arsenal of economic weapons, exploiting America’s dominance in global finance and technology

Successive U.S. presidents have relied on these unconventional weapons to address the most pressing national-security threats, for good and for ill Chokepoints provides a thrilling account of one of the most critical geopolitical developments of our time, demystifying the complex strategies the U.S. government uses to harness the power of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Big Oil against America’s enemies At the center of the narrative is an eclectic group of policy innovators: the diplomats, lawyers, and financial whizzes who’ve masterminded America’s escalating economic wars against Russia, China, and Iran

Economic warfare has become the primary way the United States confronts international crises and counters rivals Sometimes it has achieved spectacular success; other times, bitter failure The result we live with today is a new world order: an economic arms race among great powers and a fracturing global economy Chokepoints is the definitive account of how America pioneered this new, hard-hitting style of economic war—and how it’s changing the world.

One of the truly original books of the decade, and written as a single, hypnotic, propulsive, physically irresistible sentence, Mathias Enard's Zone is an Iliad for our time, an extraordinary and panoramic view of violent conflict and its consequences in the twentieth century and beyond.

A leading journalist and public intellectual explains the long, disturbing history behind the American Right’s embrace of foreign dictators, from Kaiser Wilhelm and Mussolini to Putin and Orban Why do Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, and much of the far Right so explicitly admire the murderous and incompetent Russian dictator Vladimir Putin Why is Ron DeSantis drawing from Victor Orbán’s illiberal politics for his own policies as governor of Florida—a single American state that has more than twice the population of Orbán’s entire nation, Hungary

In America Last, Jacob Heilbrunn, a highly respected observer of the American Right, demonstrates that the infatuation of American conservatives with foreign dictators—though a striking and seemingly inexplicable fact of our current moment—is not a new phenomenon It dates to the First World War, when some conservatives, enthralled with Kaiser Wilhelm II, openly rooted for him to defeat the forces of democracy In the 1920s and 1930s, this affinity became even more pronounced as Hitler and Mussolini attracted a variety of American admirers

Throughout the Cold War, the Right evinced a fondness for autocrats such as Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet, while some conservatives wrote apologias for the Third Reich and for apartheid South Africa The habit of mind is not really about foreign policy, however As Heilbrunn argues, the Right is drawn to what it perceives as the impressive strength of foreign dictators, precisely because it sees them as models of how to fight against liberalism and progressivism domestically

America Last is a guide for the perplexed, identifying and tracing a persuasion—or what one might call the “illiberal imagination”—that has animated conservative politics for a century now Since the 1940s, the Right has railed against communist fellow travelers in America Heilbrunn finally corrects the record, showing that dictator worship is an unignorable tradition within modern American conservatism—and what it means for us today.

The Basques are Europe's oldest people, their origins a mystery, their language related to no other on Earth, and even though few in population and from a remote and rugged corner of Spain and France, they have had a profound impact on the world Whilst inward-looking, preserving their ancient language and customs, the Basques also struck out for new horizons, pioneers of whaling and cod fishing, leading the way in exploration of the Americas and Asia, were among the first capitalists and later led Southern Europe's industrial revolution Mark Kurlansky, the author of the acclaimed Cod, blends human stories with economic, political, literary and culinary history to paint a fascinating picture of an intriguing people.

The Making of New World Slavery argues that independent commerce, geared to burgeoning consumer markets, was the driving force behind the rise of plantation slavery The baroque state sought-successfully-to feed upon this commerce and-with markedly less success-to regulate slavery and racial relations To illustrate this thesis, Blackburn examines the deployment of slaves in the colonial possessions of the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Dutch, the English and the French

Plantation slavery is shown to have emerged from the impulses of civil society, not from the strategies of individual states Robin Blackburn argues that the organization of slave plantations placed the West on a destructive path to modernity and that greatly preferable alternatives were both proposed and rejected Finally, he shows that the surge of Atlantic trade, predicated on the murderous toil of the plantations, made a decisive contribution to both the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the West.

Social historian and TV presenter Ruth Goodman tells the story of how the development of the coal-fired domestic range fundamentally changed not just our domestic comforts, but our world.

Examines the transformation of vernacular knowledge during a pivotal period of modern Chinese history, 1894 to 1954 In The Politics of Common Reading, Joan Judge examines an era of modern Chinese history, ranging from 1894 to 1954, which she terms "the long Republic." During this era, she explains, editors and compilers accommodated the needs of common readers by secularizing and standardizing texts relating to health, technology, and agriculture, including handbooks and recipe collections

Based on detailed research, she argues that these texts were quietly revolutionary in liberating common readers from state structures that sought to transform them while offering them practical knowledge, technical know-how, and tools for self-improvement Judge examines an understudied corpus of 500 how-to texts alongside government documents, archival materials, newspapers and periodicals, fiction and other media She brings to life the way these books were published and circulated through a national network, urban and rural bookstalls, and mail order channels

She examines how these collections were compiled, reassembled, and repurposed, and how they experimented with visual strategies to help readers process and memorize new information She focuses on the kind of vernacular knowledge these publications promulgated across a series of domains--opium addiction, electricity, cholera infection, and horticulture Finally, she devises composites of individual knowers so that we can better know them: details of the crises they faced, the remedies they tried, and the texts they might have consulted She ultimately argues that the acts of conciliation these readers engaged in shaped the broader epistemic terrain from which historical change was actualized in China's century of revolution.

The untold story of climate migration-the personal stories of those experiencing displacement, the portraits of communities being torn apart by disaster, and the implications for all of us as we confront a changing future"--

This book chronicles the earliest histories of familiar tropical Asian crops in the ancient Middle East and the Mediterranean, from rice and cotton to citruses and cucumbers Drawing on archaeological materials and textual sources in over seven ancient languages, The Tropical Turn unravels the breathtaking anthropogenic peregrinations of these familiar crops from their homelands in tropical and subtropical Asia to the Middle East and the Mediterranean, showing the significant impact South Asia had on the ecologies, dietary habits, and cultural identities of peoples across the ancient world In the process, Sureshkumar Muthukumaran offers a fresh narrative history of human connectivity across Afro-Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the late centuries BCE.

Demystifies the role of the Chinese state in its development of S&T and innovation using the theory of political economy.

A vivid look at China’s shifting place in the global political economy of technology production How did China’s mass manufacturing and “copycat” production become transformed, in the global tech imagination, from something holding the nation back to one of its key assets Prototype Nation offers a rich transnational analysis of how the promise of democratized innovation and entrepreneurial life has shaped China’s governance and global image With historical precision and ethnographic detail, Silvia Lindtner reveals how a growing distrust in Western models of progress and development, including Silicon Valley and the tech industry after the financial crisis of 2007–8, shaped the rise of the global maker movement and the vision of China as a “new frontier” of innovation

Lindtner’s investigations draw on more than a decade of research in experimental work spaces—makerspaces, coworking spaces, innovation hubs, hackathons, and startup weekends—in China, the United States, Africa, Europe, Taiwan, and Singapore, as well as in key sites of technology investment and industrial production—tech incubators, corporate offices, and factories She examines how the ideals of the maker movement, to intervene in social and economic structures, served the technopolitical project of prototyping a “new” optimistic, assertive, and global China

In doing so, Lindtner demonstrates that entrepreneurial living influences governance, education, policy, investment, and urban redesign in ways that normalize the persistence of sexism, racism, colonialism, and labor exploitation Prototype Nation shows that by attending to the bodies and sites that nurture entrepreneurial life, technology can be extricated from the seemingly endless cycle of promise and violence Cover image: Courtesy of Cao Fei, Vitamin Creative Space and Sprüth Magers

In Innovate to Dominate, Tai Ming Cheung offers insight into why, how, and whether China will overtake the United States to become the world's preeminent technological and security power This examination of the means and ends of China's quest for techno-security supremacy is required reading for anyone looking for clues as to the long-term direction of the global order The techno-security domain, Cheung argues, is where national security, innovation, and economic development converge, and it has become the center of power and prosperity in the twenty-first century

China's paramount leader Xi Jinping recognizes that effectively harnessing the complex interactions among security, innovation, and development is essential in enabling China to compete for global dominance Cheung offers a richly detailed account of how China is building a potent techno-security state In Innovate to Dominate he takes readers from the strategic vision guiding this transformation to the nuts-and-bolts of policy implementation

The state-led top-down mobilizational model that China is pursuing has been a winning formula so far, but the sternest test is ahead as China begins to compete head-to-head with the United States and aims to surpass its archrival by mid-century if not sooner Innovate to Dominate is a timely and analytically rigorous examination of the key strategies guiding China's transformation of its capabilities in the national, technological, military, and security spheres and how this is taking place

Cheung authoritatively addresses the burning questions being asked in capitals around the world: Can China become the dominant global techno-security power And if so, when?

Looks at the rollout of one of the largest infrastructure programs in human history to show how local governments play a complex role China's high-speed railway network is one of the largest infrastructure programs in human history Despite global media coverage, we know very little about the political process that led the government to invest in the railway program and the reasons for the striking regional and temporal variation in such investments

In Localized Bargaining, Xiao Ma offers a novel theory of intergovernmental bargaining that explains the unfolding of China's unprecedented high-speed railway program Drawing on a wealth of in-depth interviews, original data sets, and surveys with local officials, Ma details how the bottom-up bargaining efforts by territorial authorities--whom the central bureaucracies rely on to implement various infrastructure projects--shaped the allocation of investment in the railway system Demonstrating how localities of different types invoke institutional and extra-institutional sources of bargaining power in their competition for railway stations, Ma sheds new light on how the nation's massive bureaucracy actually functions.

Before markets opened in 1978, China was an impoverished planned economy governed by a Maoist bureaucracy In just three decades it evolved into the world's second-largest economy and is today guided by highly entrepreneurial bureaucrats In How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, Yuen Yuen Ang explains this astonishing metamorphosis

Rather than insist that either strong institutions of good governance foster markets or that growth enables good governance, Ang lays out a new, dynamic framework for understanding development broadly Successful development, she contends, is a coevolutionary process in which markets and governments mutually adapt By mapping this coevolution, Ang reveals a startling conclusion: poor and weak countries can escape the poverty trap by first harnessing weak institutions—features that defy norms of good governance—to build markets

Further, she stresses that adaptive processes, though essential for development, do not automatically occur Highlighting three universal roadblocks to adaptation, Ang identifies how Chinese reformers crafted enabling conditions for effective improvisation How China Escaped the Poverty Trap offers the most complete synthesis to date of the numerous interacting forces that have shaped China’s dramatic makeover and the problems it faces today

Looking beyond China, Ang also traces the coevolutionary sequence of development in late medieval Europe, antebellum United States, and contemporary Nigeria, and finds surprising parallels among these otherwise disparate cases Indispensable to all who care about development, this groundbreaking book challenges the convention of linear thinking and points to an alternative path out of poverty traps.

A noted Chinese economist examines the mechanisms behind China's economic reforms, arguing that universal principles and specific implementations are equally important As China has transformed itself from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, economists have tried to understand and interpret the success of Chinese reform As the Chinese economist Yingyi Qian explains, there are two schools of thought on Chinese reform: the “School of Universal Principles,” which ascribes China's successful reform to the workings of the free market, and the “School of Chinese Characteristics,” which holds that China's reform is successful precisely because it did not follow the economics of the market but instead relied on the government

In this book, Qian offers a third perspective, taking certain elements from each school of thought but emphasizing not why reform worked but how it did Economics is a science, but economic reform is applied science and engineering To a practitioner, it is more useful to find a feasible reform path than the theoretically best way

The key to understanding how reform has worked in China, Qian argues, is to consider the way reform designs respond to initial historical conditions and contemporary constraints Qian examines the role of “transitional institutions”—not “best practice institutions” but “incentive-compatible institutions”—in Chinese reform; the dual-track approach to market liberalization; the ownership of firms, viewed both theoretically and empirically; government decentralization, offering and testing hypotheses about its link to local economic development; and the specific historical conditions of China's regional-based central planning.

An eye-opening deep dive into the sources and consequences of how China has financed it’s rise to global economic prominence In The Red Dream: The Chinese Communist Party and the Financial Deterioration of China, veteran finance executive Carl Walter uses his unique experience in Chinese finance to deepen his exploration of how the Chinese Communist Party finances its obsession with GDP growth and social control Overwhelmingly debt-fueled, the party’s financial strategy has driven an unsustainable growth in banking and state enterprise assets

Inevitably the party’s own financial health is being severely weakened and China’s future over the next decades put in doubt You’ll also find: A discussion of the financial power of local governments and the Ponzi scheme created by their sale of land use rights How China’s entry into the World Trade Organization gave rise to today’s China How the party and China’s regulators enable banks to present outstanding performance metrics An exploration of the party’s financial assets and liabilities since 1979 Examples of financial crisis management and related costs incurred by China and the US A look at Japan’s experience as a potential guide for China future development An essential read for anyone interested in international economics, geopolitics, and finance, The Read Dream will also earn a place in the hands of finance professionals, bankers, policymakers, corporate strategists, and investors.

A comprehensive, in-depth, and authoritative guide to China's financial system The Chinese economy is one of the most important in the world, and its success is driven in large part by its financial system Though closely scrutinized, this system is poorly understood and vastly different than those in the West The Handbook of China’s Financial System will serve as a standard reference guide and invaluable resource to the workings of this critical institution

The handbook looks in depth at the central aspects of the system, including banking, bonds, the stock market, asset management, the pension system, and financial technology Each chapter is written by leading experts in the field, and the contributors represent a unique mix of scholars and policymakers, many with firsthand knowledge of setting and carrying out Chinese financial policy The first authoritative volume on China’s financial system, this handbook sheds new light on how it developed, how it works, and the prospects and direction of significant reforms to come Contributors include Franklin Allen, Marlene Amstad, Kaiji Chen, Tuo Deng, Hanming Fang, Jin Feng, Tingting Ge, Kai Guo, Zhiguo He, Yiping Huang, Zhaojun Huang, Ningxin Jiang, Wenxi Jiang, Chang Liu, Jun Ma, Yanliang Mao, Fan Qi, Jun Qian, Chenyu Shan, Guofeng Sun, Xuan Tian, Chu Wang, Cong Wang, Tao Wang, Wei Xiong, Yi Xiong, Tao Zha, Bohui Zhang, Tianyu Zhang, Zhiwei Zhang, Ye Zhao, and Julie Lei Zhu.

The success or failure of China's development will impact not only its own citizens but also those of the world China is widely recognized as a global actor on the world stage and no global challenge can be resolved without its participation It is important to understand how the country is ruled and what its policy priorities are

Can China move to a more market-based economy, while controlling environmental degradation Can it integrate hundreds of millions of new migrants into the urban landscape The tensions between communist and capitalist identities continue to divide society as China searches for a path to modernization In this revised fifth edition and essential guide to the subject, Tony Saich delivers a thorough introduction to all aspects of politics and governance in post-Mao China, taking full account of the changes of the 20th Party Congress and the 13th National People's Congress as well as the situation in Hong Kong and current debates in Chinese society.

From a New York Times media correspondent, a dishy history of the Condé Nast magazine empire, home of Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and more, focusing on its glitzy heyday from the 1980s through the 2000s For decades, Condé Nast and its glittering magazines defined how to live the good life in America The brilliant, complicated, striving characters behind Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, GQ, Architectural Digest, and many other titles manufactured a vision of luxury and sophistication that shaped consumer habits, cultural trends, intellectual attitudes, and political beliefs the world over

Condé’s billionaire owner Si Newhouse and his stable of star editors, photographers, and writers were the gatekeepers who decided what and who mattered, and they offered those opinions to tens of millions of readers every month They were the ultimate influencers—before social media changed everything The magazines crowned celebrities by the dozens, patronized creative talent much as the Medicis had underwritten Renaissance artists, and supercharged opulent events like the Vanity Fair Oscar Party and the Met Gala, which came to rival any fete that Louis XIV ever hosted at Versailles

The book is full of fresh behind-the-scenes reporting about a plethora of boldface names and sets out to explain how Condé Nast established itself as a de facto American aristocracy, anointing an elite and dictating the culture they presided over The colorful story of Condé Nast at its zenith and the profound way it influenced how Americans aspired to look, eat, decorate, date, marry, and even think, has never been examined deeply Empire of the Elite is the first book-length history of an empire whose publications refashioned American notions of prestige, whose editors became celebrities themselves, and whose diminution offers a cautionary tale of class, hubris, and technological change, even as its aesthetic and ethos remain influential to this day.

Originally published: New York, NY: BasicBooks, c1992.

Globalization is the lead story of the new century, but its roots reach back nearly one hundred years, to major corporations' quest for stable, inexpensive, and pliant sources of labor Before the largest companies moved beyond national boundaries, they crossed state lines, abandoning the industrial centers of the Eastern Seaboard for impoverished rural communities in the Midwest and South In their wake they left the decaying urban landscapes and unemployment rates that became hallmarks of late twentieth-century America

This is the story that Jefferson Cowie, in "a stunningly important work of historical imagination and rediscovery" (Nelson Lichtenstein), tells through the lens of a single American corporation, RCA Capital Moves takes us through the interconnected histories of Camden, New Jersey; Bloomington, Indiana; Memphis, Tennessee; and Juárez, Mexico--four cities radically transformed by America's leading manufacturer of records and radio sets In a sweeping narrative of economic upheaval and class conflict, Cowie weaves together the rich detail of local history with the national--and ultimately international--story of economic and social change.

An Instant New York Times Bestseller “Excellent and deeply reported.” —Tim Wu, The New York Times “Startling and intensely researched . . . an essential account of how OpenAI and ChatGPT came to be and the catastrophic places they will likely take us.” —Vulture “Hao’s reporting inside OpenAI is exceptional, and she’s persuasive in her argument that the public should focus less on A.I.’s putative ‘sentience’ and more on its implications for labor and the environment.” —Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New Yorker From a brilliant longtime AI insider with intimate access to the world of Sam Altman's OpenAI from the beginning, an eye-opening account of arguably the most fateful tech arms race in history, reshaping the planet in real time, from the cockpit of the company that is driving the frenzy When AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces

What could go wrong Over time, Hao began to wrestle ever more deeply with that question Increasingly, she realized that the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that its vision of success requires an almost unprecedented amount of resources: the “compute” power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans “cleaning up” that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all

The truth is that we have entered a new and ominous age of empire: only a small handful of globally scaled companies can even enter the field of play At the head of the pack with its ChatGPT breakthrough, how would OpenAI resist such temptations Spoiler alert: it didn’t Armed with Microsoft’s billions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace, chased by a small group of the most valuable companies in human history—toward what end, not even they can define

All this time, Hao has maintained her deep sourcing within the company and the industry, and so she was in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry—Altman’s sudden firing and triumphant return The behind-the-scenes story of what happened, told here in full for the first time, is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are But this isn’t just the story of a single company, however fascinating it is

The g forces pressing down on the people of OpenAI are deforming the judgment of everyone else too—as such forces do Naked power finds the ideology to cloak itself; no one thinks they’re the bad guy But in the meantime, as Hao shows through intrepid reporting on the ground around the world, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on

By drawing on the viewpoints of Silicon Valley engineers, Kenyan data laborers, and Chilean water activists, Hao presents the fullest picture of AI and its impact we’ve seen to date, alongside a trenchant analysis of where things are headed An astonishing eyewitness view from both up in the command capsule of the new economy and down where the real suffering happens, Empire of AI pierces the veil of the industry defining our era.

A compelling treatise on the relationship between power and enclosure Fortress Power presents a genealogy of fortification as a material and political technology intent on obstruction, tracing its implementation across battlefields, borders, and urban environments Drawing on the influential work of philosophers Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, Derek S Denman places the fortress alongside the archetypes of the prison and the camp, citing them as paradigmatic of how space is transformed into a tool of domination and control

Focusing on the defensive architecture of bastion fortresses, urban design, and border landscapes, Fortress Power charts the rise of a form of governance grounded in hostility, extending the scope of its subject from a piece of military construction to a much broader political concept Detailing how power manifests in everything from city centers to international boundaries, the book analyzes the logic of fortification as it moves through various contexts in the advancement of surveillance, exploitation, warfare, and political authority

Through a unique blend of architecture and design studies, political theory, international relations, geography, and migration studies, Denman outlines the disquieting legacy of the fortress to highlight its role in the formation of modern government and the enactment of violence In an era marked by the increasing prevalence of authoritarian power and conflicting geopolitical boundaries, he presents an insightful investigation of the weaponization of the built environment.

In just thirteen brief, accessible chapters, this engaging little book takes "absolute beginners" from the most basic questions about the language (e.g., what does a classical Chinese character look like?) to reading and understanding selections from classical Chinese philosophical texts and Tang dynasty poetry. "An outstanding introduction to reading classical Chinese Van Norden does a wonderful job of clearly explaining the basics of classical Chinese, and he carefully takes the reader through beautifully chosen examples from the textual tradition An invaluable work." —Michael Puett, Harvard University

Brook Ziporyn's carefully crafted, richly annotated translation of the complete writings of Zhuangzi—including a lucid Introduction, a Glossary of Essential Terms, and a Bibliography—provides readers with an engaging and provocative deep dive into this magical work.

A “TOUR DE FORCE OF NARRATIVE NONFICTION” (WSJ) WITH OVER ONE YEAR ON THE NYT BEST SELLER LIST From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, TIME, Smithsonian, NPR, Vulture “Riveting...Reads like a thriller, tackling a multilayered history—and imperialism—with gusto.” —Time On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil

Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia

The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas They were greeted as heroes But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile

This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness

As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth The stakes were life-and-death—for whomever the court found guilty could hang The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers

Grann’s recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O’Brian, his portrayal of the castaways’ desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller As always with Grann’s work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.

A military study of the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan—the first war in history won primarily by unmanned systems Fought over the course of forty-four days, the Second Nagorno-Karabakh war resulted in a decisive military victory for Azerbaijan Armenia lost even though they controlled the high ground in a mountainous region that favored traditional defense

In 7 Seconds to Die, military consultant and historian John Antal examines the decisive factors of the war and their implications for the future of armed conflict The fact that Azerbaijan won the war is not extraordinary, considering the correlation of forces arrayed against Armenia What is exceptional is that this was the first modern war primarily decided by unmanned weapons The Turkish-made BAYRAKTAR TB2 Unmanned Air Combat Vehicle (UCAV) and the Israeli-made HAROP Loitering Munition (LM) dominated the fighting and provided Azerbaijan with a war-winning advantage.

From the author of Axis and Vortex, the first Hugo Award-winning novel in the environmental apocalyptic Spin Trilogy.. One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier

He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout It would shape their lives The effect is worldwide The sun is now a featureless disk--a heat source, rather than an astronomical object

The moon is gone, but tides remain Not only have the world's artificial satellites fallen out of orbit, their recovered remains are pitted and aged, as though they'd been in space far longer than their known lifespans As Tyler, Jason, and Diane grow up, space probe reveals a bizarre truth: The barrier is artificial, generated by huge alien artifacts

Time is passing faster outside the barrier than inside--more than a hundred million years per day on Earth At this rate, the death throes of the sun are only about forty years in our future Jason, now a promising young scientist, devotes his life to working against this slow-moving apocalypse Diane throws herself into hedonism, marrying a sinister cult leader who's forged a new religion out of the fears of the masses

Earth sends terraforming machines to Mars to let the onrush of time do its work, turning the planet green Next they send humans...and immediately get back an emissary with thousands of years of stories to tell about the settling of Mars Then Earth's probes reveal that an identical barrier has appeared around Mars

Jason, desperate, seeds near space with self-replicating machines that will scatter copies of themselves outward from the sun--and report back on what they find Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

An overwhelming, outstanding novel...!"--Irish Times

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program for monographs Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more Islamic Shangri-La transports readers to the heart of the Himalayas as it traces the rise of the Tibetan Muslim community from the 17th century to the present

Radically altering popular interpretations that have portrayed Tibet as isolated and monolithically Buddhist, David Atwill's vibrant account demonstrates how truly cosmopolitan Tibetan society was by highlighting the hybrid influences and internal diversity of Tibet In its exploration of the Tibetan Muslim experience, this book presents an unparalleled perspective of Tibet's standing during the rise of post–World War II Asia.

When Red Guards arrived in Tibet in 1966, intent on creating a classless society, they unleashed a decade of revolutionary violence, political rallies, and factional warfare marked by the ransacking of temples, the destruction of religious artifacts, the burning of books, and the public humiliation of Tibet's remaining lamas and scholars Within Tibet, discussion of those events has long been banned, and no visual records of this history were known to have survived

In Forbidden Memory the leading Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser presents three hundred previously unseen photographs taken by her father, then an officer in the People's Liberation Army, that show for the first time the frenzy and violence of the Cultural Revolution in Tibet Found only after his death, Woeser's annotations and reflections on the photographs, edited and introduced by the Tibet historian Robert Barnett, are based on scores of interviews she conducted privately in Tibet with survivors

Her book explores the motives and thinking of those who participated in the extraordinary rituals of public degradation and destruction that took place, carried out by Tibetans as much as Chinese on the former leaders of their culture Heartbreaking and revelatory, Forbidden Memory offers a personal, literary discussion of the nature of memory, violence, and responsibility, while giving insight into the condition of a people whose violently truncated history they are still unable to discuss today Access the glossary.

Conflicting Memories is a study of how the Tibetan encounter with the Chinese state during the Maoist era has been recalled and reimagined by Chinese and Tibetan authors and artists since the late 1970s Written by a team of historians, anthropologists, and scholars of religion, literature and culture, it examines official histories, biographies, memoirs, and films as well as oral testimonies, fiction, and writings by Buddhist adepts

The book includes translated extracts from key interviews, speeches, literature, and filmscripts Conflicting Memories explores what these revised versions of the past chose as their focus, which types of people produced them, and what aims they pursued in the production of new, post-Mao descriptions of Tibet under Chinese socialism Contributors include: Robert Barnett, Benno Weiner, Françoise Robin, Bianca Horlemann, Alice Travers, Alex Raymond, Chung Tsering, Dáša Pejchar Mortensen, Charlene Makley, Xénia de Heering, Nicole Willock, M

Maria Turek, Geoffrey Barstow, Gedun Rabsal, Heather Stoddard, Organ Nyima. "Conflicting Memories is a truly marvellous book It has assembled critical readings of Tibetan memories of their fateful encounters with the Chinese Communists who came uninvited as their ‘liberators’ and ‘friends’ Supplemented with excerpts from key Tibetan writings or oral reminiscences, the volume brings forth hitherto unheard of Tibetan voices

Yet, these were not hidden voices, but often commissioned by Chinese authorities or in dialogue with them, each trying to juggle the promissory pronouncements and an unsavoury reality Taken together, the contrapuntal reading of these memories masterfully showcases Tibetan people’s resourcefulness in dealing with a regime that often redefines its relations with Tibet while always aiming for total ownership." - URADYN E BULAG, author of Collaborative Nationalism: The Politics of Friendship on China's Mongolian Frontier "Conflicting Memories offers an invaluable collection aiding us to think through the complex and much contested ramifications of Tibet's incorporation into Maoist China

The mix of analytical articles by some of the best scholars now working in the area and original documents translated from the writings of astute Tibetan observers is particularly welcome The volume will be required reading for all serious students of contemporary Tibet." - MATTHEW KAPSTEIN, author of The Tibetans "This remarkable book offers unequalled access to the Tibetan experience of Communist nation-building By examining how the Maoist encounter has been remembered and misremembered across many media—under the influence of ever-changing political conditions—the authors communicate both the trauma of those years and the persisting difficulty of coming to terms with it, for Chinese as well as Tibetans

The chapters, enhanced by numerous first-hand accounts and illustrations, represent the best scholarship of this field Strongly recommended for readers interested in the history of the People’s Republic and its ethnic minorities." - DONALD S SUTTON, co-author of Contesting the Yellow Dragon: Ethnicity, Religion and the State in the Sino-Tibetan Borderland (with XIAOFEI KANG) "This groundbreaking work sheds unprecedented light on the various processes of historical rewriting about Tibet since the death of Mao The multivocal composition of the book offers rich and diverse accounts of a set of key events and epochal moments that attest to the numerous obstacles in retelling the Maoist past and the experience of sufferi...

The status of Tibet is one of the most controversial and complex issues in the history of modern China In To the End of Revolution, Xiaoyuan Liu draws on unprecedented access to the archives of the Chinese Communist Party to offer a groundbreaking account of Beijing’s evolving Tibet policy during the critical first decade of the People’s Republic Liu details Beijing’s overarching strategy toward Tibet, the last frontier for the Communist revolution to reach

He analyzes how China’s new leaders drew on Qing and Nationalist legacies as they attempted to resolve a problem inherited from their predecessors Despite acknowledging that religion, ethnicity, and geography made Tibet distinct, Beijing nevertheless forged ahead, zealously implementing socialist revolution while vigilantly guarding against real and perceived enemies Seeking to wait out local opposition before choosing to ruthlessly crush Tibetan resistance in the late 1950s, Beijing eventually incorporated Tibet into its sociopolitical system

The international and domestic ramifications, however, are felt to this day Liu offers new insight into the Chinese Communist Party’s relations with the Dalai Lama, ethnic revolts across the vast Tibetan plateau, and the suppression of the Lhasa Rebellion in 1959 Placing Beijing’s approach to Tibet in the contexts of the Communist Party’s treatment of ethnic minorities and China’s broader domestic and foreign policies in the early Cold War, To the End of Revolution is the most detailed account to date of Chinese thinking and acting on Tibet during the 1950s.

The Qing empire and the Dalai Lama-led Geluk School of Tibetan Buddhism came into contact in the eighteenth century Their interconnections would shape regional politics and the geopolitical history of Inner Asia for centuries to come In Common Ground, Lan Wu analyzes how Tibetan Buddhists and the Qing imperial rulers interacted and negotiated as both sought strategies to expand their influence in eighteenth-century Inner Asia

In so doing, she recasts the Qing empire, seeing it not as a monolithic project of imperial administration but as a series of encounters among different communities Wu examines a series of interconnected sites in the Qing empire where the influence of Tibetan Buddhism played a key role, tracing the movement of objects, flows of peoples, and circulation of ideas in the space between China and Tibet She identifies a transregional Tibetan Buddhist knowledge network, which provided institutional, pragmatic, and intellectual common ground for both polities

Wu draws out the voices of lesser-known Tibetan Buddhists, whose writings and experiences evince an alternative Buddhist space beyond the state She highlights interactions between Mongols and Tibetans within the Qing empire, exploring the creation of a Buddhist Inner Asia Wu argues that Tibetan Buddhism occupied a central—but little understood—role in the Qing vision of empire Revealing the interdependency of two expanding powers, Common Ground sheds new light on the entangled histories of political, social, and cultural ties between Tibet and China.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more The Monastery Rules discusses the position of the monasteries in pre-1950s Tibetan Buddhist societies and how that position was informed by the far-reaching relationship of monastic Buddhism with Tibetan society, economy, law, and culture

Jansen focuses her study on monastic guidelines, or bca’ yig The first study of its kind to examine the genre in detail, the book contains an exploration of its parallels in other Buddhist cultures, its connection to the Vinaya, and its value as socio-historical source-material The guidelines are witness to certain socio-economic changes, while also containing rules that aim to change the monastery in order to preserve it Jansen argues that the monastic institutions’ influence on society was maintained not merely due to prevailing power-relations, but also because of certain deep-rooted Buddhist beliefs.

In The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier, Benno Weiner provides the first in-depth study of an ethnic minority region during the first decade of the People's Republic of China: the Amdo region in the Sino-Tibetan borderland Employing previously inaccessible local archives as well as other rare primary sources, he demonstrates that the Communist Party's goal in 1950s Amdo was not just state-building but also nation-building Such an objective required the construction of narratives and policies capable of convincing Tibetans of their membership in a wider political community

As Weiner shows, however, early efforts to gradually and organically transform a vast multiethnic empire into a singular nation-state lost out to a revolutionary impatience, demanding more immediate paths to national integration and socialist transformation This led in 1958 to communization, then to large-scale rebellion and its brutal pacification Rather than joining voluntarily, Amdo was integrated through the widespread, often indiscriminate use of violence, a violence that lingers in the living memory of Amdo Tibetans and others.

A National Bestseller “Scorching, seductive . . A superb and disturbing vivisection of our darkest urges.” —Los Angeles Times “This is about as highbrow as true crime gets.” —Vulture “Fraser has outdone herself, and just about everyone else in the true-crime genre, with Murderland.” —Esquire From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Prairie Fires comes a terrifying true-crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond—a gripping investigation of how a new strain of psychopath emerged out of a toxic landscape of deadly industrial violence Caroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial murderer of women in American history, surrounded by his hunting grounds and mountain body dumps, in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest

But in the 1970s and ’80s, Bundy was just one perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the region Why so many Why so weirdly and nightmarishly gruesome Why the senseless rise and then sudden fall of an epidemic of serial killing

As Murderland indelibly maps the lives and careers of Bundy and his infamous peers in mayhem—the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, even Charles Manson—Fraser’s Northwestern death trip begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction At ground zero in Ted Bundy’s Tacoma stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper, and arsenic smelters in the world, but it was hardly unique in the West

As Fraser’s investigation inexorably proceeds, evidence mounts that the plumes of these smelters not only sickened and blighted millions of lives but also warped young minds, including some who grew up to become serial killers A propulsive nonfiction thriller, Murderland transcends true-crime voyeurism and noir mythology, taking readers on a profound quest into the dark heart of the real American berserk.

From the Booker Prize winning author of Amsterdam, a brilliant new novel On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house Watching her is Robbie Turner, son of the Tallis’s cleaning lady, whose education has been subsidized by Cecilia’s and Briony’s father, and who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge

By day's end, their lives will be changed – irrevocably Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not imagined at its start And Briony will have witnessed mysteries, seen an unspeakable word, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone… Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of love and war and class and childhood and England, An Atonement is a profound – and profoundly moving – exploration of shame and forgiveness, of atonement and of the possibility of absolution.

In 1995, the People’s Republic of China resurrected a Qing-era law mandating that the reincarnations of prominent Tibetan Buddhist monks be identified by drawing lots from a golden urn The Chinese Communist Party hoped to limit the ability of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile to independently identify reincarnations In so doing, they elevated a long-forgotten ceremony into a controversial symbol of Chinese sovereignty in Tibet

In Forging the Golden Urn, Max Oidtmann ventures into the polyglot world of the Qing empire in search of the origins of the golden urn tradition He seeks to understand the relationship between the Qing state and its most powerful partner in Inner Asia—the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism Why did the Qianlong emperor invent the golden urn lottery in 1792

What ability did the Qing state have to alter Tibetan religious and political traditions What did this law mean to Qing rulers, their advisors, and Tibetan Buddhists Working with both the Manchu-language archives of the empire’s colonial bureaucracy and the chronicles of Tibetan elites, Oidtmann traces how a Chinese bureaucratic technology—a lottery for assigning administrative posts—was exported to the Tibetan and Mongolian regions of the Qing empire and transformed into a ritual for identifying and authenticating reincarnations Forging the Golden Urn sheds new light on how the empire’s frontier officers grappled with matters of sovereignty, faith, and law and reveals the role that Tibetan elites played in the production of new religious traditions in the context of Qing rule.

The Cold War ended long ago, but the language of science and freedom continues to shape public debates over the relationship between science and politics in the United States Scientists like to proclaim that science knows no borders Scientific researchers follow the evidence where it leads, their conclusions free of prejudice or ideology

But is that really the case In Freedom's Laboratory, Audra J Wolfe shows how these ideas were tested to their limits in the high-stakes propaganda battles of the Cold War Wolfe examines the role that scientists, in concert with administrators and policymakers, played in American cultural diplomacy after World War II

During this period, the engines of US propaganda promoted a vision of science that highlighted empiricism, objectivity, a commitment to pure research, and internationalism Working (both overtly and covertly, wittingly and unwittingly) with governmental and private organizations, scientists attempted to decide what, exactly, they meant when they referred to "scientific freedom" or the "US ideology." More frequently, however, they defined American science merely as the opposite of Communist science

Uncovering many startling episodes of the close relationship between the US government and private scientific groups, Freedom's Laboratory is the first work to explore science's link to US propaganda and psychological warfare campaigns during the Cold War Closing in the present day with a discussion of the 2017 March for Science and the prospects for science and science diplomacy in the Trump era, the book demonstrates the continued hold of Cold War thinking on ideas about science and politics in the United States.

In this masterfully written and brilliantly informed work, Dr. Rhorne, the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, leads readers through an elegant, always human, tapestry of interlocking themes, answering the great question: what principles control our universe and why do physicists think they know what they know Features an introduction by Stephen Hawking.

Nicolas Tackett explores the emergence of a new worldview and sense of Chinese identity during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127).

A provocative account showing that "China"--and its 5,000 years of unified history--is a national myth, created only a century ago with a political agenda that persists to this day

How the King James Bible has influenced the style of the American novel from Melville to Cormac McCarthy The simple yet grand language of the King James Bible has pervaded American culture from the beginning—and its powerful eloquence continues to be felt even today In this book, acclaimed biblical translator and literary critic Robert Alter traces some of the fascinating ways that American novelists—from Melville, Hemingway, and Faulkner to Bellow, Marilynne Robinson, and Cormac McCarthy—have drawn on the rich stylistic resources of the canonical English Bible to fashion their own strongly resonant styles and distinctive visions of reality

Showing the radically different manners in which the words, idioms, syntax, and cadences of this Bible are woven into Moby-Dick, Absalom, Absalom!, The Sun Also Rises, Seize the Day, Gilead, and The Road, Alter reveals the wide variety of stylistic and imaginative possibilities that American novelists have found in Scripture At the same time, Alter demonstrates the importance of looking closely at the style of literary works, making the case that style is not merely an aesthetic phenomenon but is the very medium through which writers conceive their worlds.

A groundbreaking work of history and reportage that unveils the stranger-than-fiction world of multilevel marketing: a massive money-making scam and radical political conspiracy that has remade American society Companies like Amway, Mary Kay, and Herbalife advertise the world’s greatest opportunity: the chance to be your own boss via an enigmatic business model called multilevel marketing, or MLM They offer a world of pink Cadillacs, white-columned mansions, tropical vacations, and—most precious of all—financial freedom

If, that is, you’re willing to shell out for expensive products and recruit everyone you know to buy them, and if they recruit everyone they know, too, thus creating the “multiple levels” of MLM Overwhelming evidence suggests that most people lose money in multilevel marketing, and that many MLM companies are pyramid schemes Yet the industry’s origins, tied to right-wing ideologues like Ronald Reagan, have escaped public scrutiny

MLM has slithered in the wake of every economic crisis of the last century, from the Depression to the pandemic, ensnaring laid-off workers, stay-at-home moms, and teachers—anyone who has been left behind by rising inequality In Little Bosses Everywhere, journalist Bridget Read tells the gripping story of multilevel marketing in full for the first time, winding from sunny postwar California, where a failed salesman started a vitamin business, through the devoutly religious suburbs of Michigan, where the industry built its political influence, to stadium-size conventions where today’s top sellers preach to die-hard recruits

MLM has enriched powerful people, like the DeVos and Van Andel families, Warren Buffett, and President Donald Trump, all while eroding public institutions and the social safety net, then profiting from the chaos Along the way, Read delves into the stories of those devastated by the majority-female industry: a veteran in Florida searching for healing; a young mom in Texas struggling to feed her children; a waitress scraping by in Brooklyn A wild trip down an endless rabbit hole of greed and exploitation, Little Bosses Everywhere exposes multilevel marketing as American capitalism’s stealthiest PR campaign, a cunning grift that has shaped nearly everything about how we live, and whose ultimate target is democracy itself.

The first comparative study of estimative intelligence and strategic surprise in a European context, complementing and testing insights from previous studies centred on the United States

A history of modern South Asia told through five partitions that reshaped it As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia--India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait--were bound together under a single imperial banner, an entity known officially as the 'Indian Empire', or more simply as the Raj It was the British Empire's crown jewel, a vast dominion stretching from the Red Sea to the jungles of Southeast Asia, home to a quarter of the world's population and encompassing the largest Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian communities on the planet

Its people used the Indian rupee, were issued passports stamped 'Indian Empire', and were guarded by armies garrisoned forts from the Bab el-Mandab to the Himalayas And then, in the space of just fifty years, the Indian Empire shattered Five partitions tore it apart, carving out new nations, redrawing maps, and leaving behind a legacy of war, exile and division

Shattered Lands, for the first time, presents the whole story of how the Indian Empire was unmade How a single, sprawling dominion became twelve modern nations How maps were redrawn in boardrooms and on battlefields, by politicians in London and revolutionaries in Delhi, by kings in remote palaces and soldiers in trenches

Its legacies include civil wars in Burma and Sri Lanka, ongoing insurgencies in Kashmir, Baluchistan, Northeast India, and the Rohingya genocide It is a history of ambition and betrayal, of forgotten wars and unlikely alliances, of borders carved with ink and fire And, above all, it is the story of how the map of modern Asia was made

Sam Dalrymple's stunning narrative is based on deep archival research, previously untranslated private memoirs, and interviews in English, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Konyak, Arabic and Burmese From portraits of the key political players to accounts of those swept up in these wars and mass migrations, Shattered Lands is vivid, compelling, thought-provoking history at its best.

Americans often complain about the operation of their government, but scholars have never developed a complete picture of people's preferred type of government In this provocative and timely book, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, employing an original national survey and focus groups, report the governmental procedures Americans desire Contrary to the prevailing view that people want greater involvement in politics, most citizens do not care about most policies and therefore are content to turn over decision-making authority to someone else

People's wish for the political system is that decision makers be empathetic and, especially, non-self-interested, not that they be responsive and accountable to the people's largely nonexistent policy preferences or, even worse, that the people be obligated to participate directly in decision making Hibbing and Theiss-Morse conclude by cautioning communitarians, direct democrats, social capitalists, deliberation theorists, and all those who think that greater citizen involvement is the solution to society's problems.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for Nonfiction Finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize and the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize Embracing Defeat is John W Dower's brilliant examination of Japan in the immediate, shattering aftermath of World War II

Drawing on a vast range of Japanese sources and illustrated with dozens of astonishing documentary photographs, Embracing Defeat is the fullest and most important history of the more than six years of American occupation, which affected every level of Japanese society, often in ways neither side could anticipate Dower, whom Stephen E Ambrose has called "America's foremost historian of the Second World War in the Pacific," gives us the rich and turbulent interplay between West and East, the victor and the vanquished, in a way never before attempted, from top-level manipulations concerning the fate of Emperor Hirohito to the hopes and fears of men and women in every walk of life Already regarded as the benchmark in its field, Embracing Defeat is a work of colossal scholarship and history of the very first order.

“Riveting and intimate It is hard to imagine a more humanizing portrait of the American labor movement A remarkable debut.” —Francisco Cantú, New York Times bestselling author of The Line Becomes a River On the Line takes readers inside a bold five-year campaign to bring a union to the dangerous industrial laundry factories of Phoenix, Arizona

Workers here wash hospital, hotel, and restaurant linens and face harsh conditions: routine exposure to biohazardous waste, injuries from surgical tools left in hospital sheets, and burns from overheated machinery Broken U.S. labor law makes it nearly impossible for them to fight back The drive to unionize is led by two women: author Daisy Pitkin, a young labor organizer, who addresses this exhilarating narrative to Alma Gomez García, a second-shift immigrant worker, who risks her livelihood to join the struggle and convinces her fellow workers to take a stand

Forged in the flames of a grueling legal battle and the company’s vicious anti-union crusade, including the retaliatory firing of Alma, the relationships that grow between Daisy, Alma, and the rest of the factory workers show how a union, at its best, can reach beyond the workplace and form a solidarity so powerful that it can transcend friendship and transform communities But when political strife divides the union, and her friendship with Alma along with it, Daisy must reflect on her own position of privilege and the complicated nature of union hierarchies and top-down organizing

Daisy Pitkin looks back to uncover the forgotten roles immigrant women have played in the U.S. labor movement and points the way forward As we experience one of the largest labor upheavals in decades, On the Line shows how difficult it is to bring about social change, and why we can’t afford to stop trying.

With the collapse of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance in 1991, the Eastern European nations of the former socialist bloc had to figure out their newly capitalist future Capitalism, they found, was not a single set of political-economic relations Rather, they each had to decide what sort of capitalist nation to become

In Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery, Dorothee Bohle and Béla Geskovits trace the form that capitalism took in each country, the assets and liabilities left behind by socialism, the transformational strategies embraced by political and technocratic elites, and the influence of transnational actors and institutions They also evaluate the impact of three regional shocks: the recession of the early 1990s, the rolling global financial crisis that started in July 1997, and the political shocks that attended EU enlargement in 2004.Bohle and Greskovits show that the postsocialist states have established three basic variants of capitalist political economy: neoliberal, embedded neoliberal, and neocorporatist

The Baltic states followed a neoliberal prescription: low controls on capital, open markets, reduced provisions for social welfare The larger states of central and eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, and the Czech and Slovak republics) have used foreign investment to stimulate export industries but retained social welfare regimes and substantial government power to enforce industrial policy Slovenia has proved to be an outlier, successfully mixing competitive industries and neocorporatist social inclusion

Bohle and Greskovits also describe the political contention over such arrangements in Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia A highly original and theoretically sophisticated typology of capitalism in postsocialist Europe, this book is unique in the breadth and depth of its conceptually coherent and empirically rich comparative analysis.

This book, a third edition, has been significantly expanded and updated It revisits the process of institutional change: its characteristics, determinants and implications for economic performance New chapters address the significance of Post-Communist transition, the differences and importance of initial conditions in institutional building, and, social norms, values, and happiness

Other chapters have been expanded to include, for example, a focus on the Washington consensus, commentary on the 2008 financial crisis, state capacity and corruption, and new findings on redistribution and inequality With specific focus on Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, this revised edition examines the process of development, and its interdependence with institutions.

Sanctions have enormous consequences Especially when imposed by a country with the economic influence of the United States, sanctions induce clear shockwaves in both the economy and political culture of the targeted state, and in the everyday lives of citizens But do economic sanctions induce the behavioral changes intended

Do sanctions work in the way they should To answer these questions, the authors of How Sanctions Work highlight Iran, the most sanctioned country in the world Comprehensive sanctions are meant to induce uprisings or pressures to change the behavior of the ruling establishment, or to weaken its hold on power

But, after four decades, the case of Iran shows the opposite to be true: sanctions strengthened the Iranian state, impoverished its population, increased state repression, and escalated Iran's military posture toward the U.S. and its allies in the region Instead of offering an 'alternative to war,' sanctions have become a cause of war Consequently, How Sanctions Work reveals how necessary it is to understand how sanctions really work.

From his birth into the lowest stratum of the samurai class to his assassination by right-wing militarists, Takahashi Korekiyo (1854-1936) lived through tumultuous times that shaped the course of modern Japan This biography underscores the profound influence of the charismatic finance minister on the political and economic development of Japan.

A globe-trotting work of relentless investigative reporting, this is the first major book to expose the catastrophic reality of the multi-billion-dollar global garbage trade Dumps and landfills around the world are overflowing Disputes about what to do with the millions of tons of garbage generated every day have given rise to waste wars waged almost everywhere you look

Some are border skirmishes Others hustle trash across thousands of miles and multiple oceans But no matter the scale, one thing is true about almost all of them: few people have any idea they're happening Journalist Alexander Clapp spent two years roaming five continents to report deep inside the world of Javanese recycling gangsters, cruise ship dismantlers in the Aegean, Tanzanian plastic pickers, whistle-blowing environmentalists throughout the jungles of Guatemala, and a community of Ghanaian boys who burn Western cellphones and televisions for cents an hour, to tell readers what he has figured out: While some trash gets tossed onto roadsides or buried underground, much of it actually lives a secret hot potato second life, getting shipped, sold, re-sold, or smuggled from one country to another, often with devastating consequences for the poorest nations of the world

Waste Wars is a jaw-dropping exposé of how and why, for the last forty years, our garbage — the stuff we deem so worthless we think nothing of throwing it away — has spawned a massive, globe-spanning, multi-billion-dollar economy, one that offloads our consumption footprints onto distant continents, pristine landscapes, and unsuspecting populations If the handling of our trash reveals deeper truths about our Western society, what does the globalized business of garbage say about our world today And what does it say about us?

‘Absolutely riveting’ Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads ‘Disturbing and enlightening’ Chris Miller, author of Chip War ‘Hugely important’ Rana Foroohar, author of Makers and Takers ‘A once-in-a-generation read’ Robert D Kaplan, author of Waste Land As Trump wages a tariff war with China, seeking to boost domestic electronics manufacturing, this book offers an unparalleled insight into why his strategy is embarrassingly naïve Apple isn’t just a brand; it’s the world’s most valuable company and creator of the 21st century’s defining product

The iPhone has revolutionized the way we live, work and connect But Apple is now a victim of its own success, caught in the middle of a new Cold War between two superpowers On the brink of bankruptcy in 1996, Apple adopted an outsourcing strategy By 2003 it was lured to China by the promise of affordable, ubiquitous labour

As the iPod and iPhone transformed Apple’s fortunes, their sophisticated production played a seminal role in financing, training, supervising and supplying Chinese manufacturers – skills Beijing is now weaponizing against the West Investigative journalist Patrick McGee draws on 200 interviews with former Apple executives and engineers to reveal how Cupertino’s choice to anchor its supply chain in China has increasingly made it vulnerable to the regime’s whims Both an insider’s historical account and a cautionary tale, Apple in China is the first history of Apple to go beyond the biographies of its top executives and set the iPhone’s global domination within an increasingly fraught geopolitical context.

How, despite thirty years of effort, Soviet attempts to build a national computer network were undone by socialists who seemed to behave like capitalists Between 1959 and 1989, Soviet scientists and officials made numerous attempts to network their nation—to construct a nationwide computer network None of these attempts succeeded, and the enterprise had been abandoned by the time the Soviet Union fell apart

Meanwhile, ARPANET, the American precursor to the Internet, went online in 1969 Why did the Soviet network, with top-level scientists and patriotic incentives, fail while the American network succeeded In How Not to Network a Nation, Benjamin Peters reverses the usual cold war dualities and argues that the American ARPANET took shape thanks to well-managed state subsidies and collaborative research environments and the Soviet network projects stumbled because of unregulated competition among self-interested institutions, bureaucrats, and others

The capitalists behaved like socialists while the socialists behaved like capitalists After examining the midcentury rise of cybernetics, the science of self-governing systems, and the emergence in the Soviet Union of economic cybernetics, Peters complicates this uneasy role reversal while chronicling the various Soviet attempts to build a “unified information network.” Drawing on previously unknown archival and historical materials, he focuses on the final, and most ambitious of these projects, the All-State Automated System of Management (OGAS), and its principal promoter, Viktor M

Glushkov Peters describes the rise and fall of OGAS—its theoretical and practical reach, its vision of a national economy managed by network, the bureaucratic obstacles it encountered, and the institutional stalemate that killed it Finally, he considers the implications of the Soviet experience for today's networked world.

In Molecular Red, McKenzie Wark creates philosophical tools for the Anthropocene, our new planetary epoch, in which human and natural forces are so entwined that the future of one determines that of the other Wark explores the implications of Anthropocene through the story of two empires, the Soviet and then the American The fall of the former prefigures that of the latter

From the ruins of these mighty histories, Wark salvages ideas to help us picture what kind of worlds collective labor might yet build From the Russian revolution, Wark unearths the work of Alexander Bogdanov—Lenin’s rival—as well as the great Proletkult writer and engineer Andrey Platonov The Soviet experiment emerges from the past as an allegory for the new organizational challenges of our time

From deep within the Californian military-entertainment complex, Wark retrieves Donna Haraway’s cyborg critique and science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson’s Martian utopia as powerful resources for rethinking and remaking the world that climate change has wrought Molecular Red proposes an alternative realism, where hope is found in what remains and endures.

A transatlantic history of the Euromissiles from the arms race's early origins to the final days of the Cold War, in which NATO takes center stage For the Western allies, the successive decisions to field, deploy, and destroy the Euromissiles all involved high-stakes gambles--a stark reminder of just how fragile the Atlantic Alliance was"--

A splendid book by authors who long ago detected Germany's fragility – and aimed at readers who take no pleasure in the sight of its precipitous decline' Yanis Varoufakis 'The best polemic yet ... the authors prosecute their case with vigour and a terrific eye for detail' Oliver Moody, The Times Book of the Week The compelling story of Germany's decline – where it all went wrong and how it could bounce back For many years, the post-war recovery of Germany was an inspirational story

All of Europe looked on with admiration and envy as the nation rebuilt and set standards for the rest to follow Companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Siemens and Bayer rose to become global titans, while the country's political leaders earned respect around the world – even their football teams were the best Such was its success that when the Berlin Wall fell, it appeared to reunify almost seamlessly

Where Germany led, the rest followed But, even at its zenith, there were signs of trouble, with a worrying lack of national identity at its heart So, when events started to turn against Germany, the whole edifice began to crumble As political and business leaders benefited from the status quo, they couldn't see the problems heading their way

Volkswagen's emissions fraud tainted its industrial reputation; abandoning nuclear power left the country at the mercy of Russia for its energy needs; and a growing divide between rich and poor stoked international tensions that opened the door to the rise of the far-right AfD party Journalists Chris Reiter and Will Wilkes have been reporting for years on the problems the country faces Germany is not alone in this, but it is singularly ill-equipped to deal with them Broken Republik is an essential read for anyone who wants to understand Germany's slide towards the brink.

This comprehensive account of the meteoric rise of The Simpsons combines incisive pop culture criticism and interviews with the show’s creative team that take readers inside the making of an American phenomenon during its most influential decade, the 1990s The Simpsons is an American institution But its status as an occasionally sharp yet ultimately safe sitcom that's still going after 33 years on the air undercuts its revolutionary origins

The early years of the animated series didn't just impact Hollywood, they changed popular culture It was a show that altered the way we talked around the watercooler, in school hallways, and on the campaign trail, by bridging generations with its comedic sensibility and prescient cultural commentary In Stupid TV, Be More Funny, writer Alan Siegel reveals how the first decade of the show laid the groundwork for the series' true influence

He explores how the show's rise from 1990 to 1998 intertwined with the supposedly ascendent post-Cold War America, turning Fox into the juggernaut we know today, simultaneously shaking its head at America's culture wars while finding itself in the middle of them By packing the book with anecdotes from icons like Conan O’Brien and Yeardley Smith, Siegel alaso provides readers with an unparalleled look inside the making of the show Through interviews with the show's legendary staff and whip-smart analysis, Siegel charts how The Simpsons developed its singular sensibility throughout the ‘90s, one that was at once groundbreakingly subversive for a primetime cartoon and shocking wholesome The result is a definitive history of The Simpsons' most essential decade.

How technological advances and colonial fears inspired utopian geoengineering projects during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries From the 1870s to the mid-twentieth century, European explorers, climatologists, colonial officials, and planners were avidly interested in large-scale projects that might actively alter the climate Uncovering this history, Desert Edens looks at how arid environments and an increasing anxiety about climate in the colonial world shaped this upsurge in ideas about climate engineering

From notions about the transformation of deserts into forests to Nazi plans to influence the climates of war-torn areas, Philipp Lehmann puts the early climate change debate in its environmental, intellectual, and political context, and considers the ways this legacy reverberates in the present climate crisis Lehmann examines some of the most ambitious climate-engineering projects to emerge in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Confronted with the Sahara in the 1870s, the French developed concepts for a flooding project that would lead to the creation of a man-made Sahara Sea

In the 1920s, German architect Herman Sörgel proposed damming the Mediterranean in order to geoengineer an Afro-European continent called “Atlantropa,” which would fit the needs of European settlers Nazi designs were formulated to counteract the desertification of Eastern Europe and Central Asia Despite ideological and technical differences, these projects all incorporated and developed climate change theories and vocabulary

They also combined expressions of an extreme environmental pessimism with a powerful technological optimism that continue to shape the contemporary moment Focusing on the intellectual roots, intended effects, and impact of early measures to modify the climate, Desert Edens investigates how the technological imagination can be inspired by pressing fears about the environment and civilization.

A pioneering history that transforms our understanding of the colonial era and China's place in it China has conventionally been considered a land empire whose lack of maritime and colonial reach contributed to its economic decline after the mid-eighteenth century Distant Shores challenges this view, showing that the economic expansion of southeastern Chinese rivaled the colonial ambitions of Europeans overseas In a story that dawns with the Industrial Revolution and culminates in the Great Depression, Melissa Macauley explains how sojourners from an ungovernable corner of China emerged among the commercial masters of the South China Sea

She focuses on Chaozhou, a region in the great maritime province of Guangdong, whose people shared a repertoire of ritual, cultural, and economic practices Macauley traces how Chaozhouese at home and abroad reaped many of the benefits of an overseas colonial system without establishing formal governing authority Their power was sustained instead through a mosaic of familial, fraternal, and commercial relationships spread across the ports of Bangkok, Singapore, Saigon, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Swatow

The picture that emerges is not one of Chinese divergence from European modernity but rather of a convergence in colonial sites that were critical to modern development and accelerating levels of capital accumulation A magisterial work of scholarship, Distant Shores reveals how the transoceanic migration of Chaozhouese laborers and merchants across a far-flung maritime world linked the Chinese homeland to an ever-expanding frontier of settlement and economic extraction.

How climate change ushered in the collapse of one of history’s mighty empires In 1644, after close to three centuries of relative stability and prosperity, the Ming dynasty collapsed Many historians attribute its demise to the Manchu invasion of China, but the truth is far more profound The Price of Collapse provides an entirely new approach to the economic and social history of China, exploring how global climate crisis spelled the end of Ming rule

The mid-seventeenth century witnessed the deadliest phase of the Little Ice Age, when temperatures and rainfall plunged and world economies buckled Timothy Brook draws on the history of grain prices to paint a gripping portrait of the final tumultuous years of a once-great dynasty He explores how global trade networks that increasingly moved silver into China may have affected prices and describes the daily struggle to survive amid grain shortages and famine

By the early 1640s, as the subjects of the Ming found themselves caught in a deadly combination of cold and drought that defied all attempts to stave off disaster, the Ming price regime collapsed, and with it the Ming political regime A masterful work of scholarship, The Price of Collapse reconstructs the experience of ordinary people under the immense pressure of unaffordable prices as their country slid from prosperity to calamity and shows how the market mediated the relationship between an empire and the climate that turned against it.

This book traces the emergence of mass production and Fordism, its accompanying ideology, first in the United States and then in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union"--

A richly illustrated guide to lichens and their biology Existing at the margins of life, lichens are the result of symbiotic relationships between fungi and photosynthesizing partners in the form of algae or cyanobacteria Comprising more than twenty thousand species, lichens are pioneers in diverse ecosystems, colonizing virtually any surface and growing at almost any altitude Found in rainforests, polar regions, deserts, and your backyard, lichens embody a paradox of toughness and sensitivity, surviving trips to space yet endangered by even the slightest environmental changes from industrial pollution here on Earth

Lichens grow everywhere, but only on their own terms: no one has ever fully assembled a lichen in the lab from its component parts The Lives of Lichens explores all facets of these peculiar organisms, blending stunning macrophotography and graphics with in-depth coverage of profiled species to provide an unforgettable tour of the marvelous world of lichens Features a wealth of color illustrations Covers symbiosis, biology, architecture, evolution, taxonomy, and much more Provides an up-close look at lichens in their ecosystems Discusses human relationships with lichens Essential reading for nature lovers everywhere

A biologist’s firsthand account of the hunt for life beneath earth’s surface—and how new discoveries are challenging our most basic assumptions about the nature of life on Earth Life thrives in the deepest, darkest recesses of Earth’s crust—from methane seeps in the ocean floor to the highest reaches of Arctic permafrost—and it is unlike anything seen on the surface Intraterrestrials shares what scientists are learning about these strange types of microbial life—and how research expeditions to some of the most extreme locales on the planet are broadening our understanding of what life is and how its earliest forms may have evolved

Drawing on her experiences and those of her fellow scientists working in challenging and often dangerous conditions, Karen Lloyd takes readers on an adventure from the bottom of the ocean through the jungles of Central America to the high-altitude volcanoes of the Andes Only discovered in recent decades, “intraterrestrials”—subsurface beings that are truly alien—are demonstrating how life can exist in boiling water, pure acid, and bleach They enable us to peer back to the very dawn of life on Earth, disclosing deep branches on the tree of life that push the limits of what we thought possible

Some can “breathe” rocks or even electrons Others may live for hundreds of thousands of years or longer All of them are living in ways that are totally foreign to us surface dwellers Blending captivating storytelling with the latest science, Intraterrestrials reveals what microbes in Earth’s deep subsurface biosphere can tell us about the prospects for finding life on other planets—and the future of life on our own.

Named 2025's Most Anticipated Release by Toronto Star • Literary Hub • Esquire • The Washington Post • Esquire One of Electric Literature's '48 Books by Women of Color to Read in 2025' The sublime, long-awaited, major new novel from the beloved author of the GG Award-winning, Booker Prize-shortlisted bestseller Do Not Say We Have Nothing In "The Sea," a sprawling, mysterious building-complex that endlessly receives migrants from everywhere and seems to exist somewhere outside of normal space and time, adolescent Lina cares for her ailing father

Having landed at The Sea with only what could be carried by hand, Lina grows up with nothing but a trio of books to read—three volumes in a series about the lives of famous "voyagers" of the past Soon, however, she discovers three eccentric neighbours in the building who have stories of their own to share These neighbours are Bento (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Baruch Spinoza), a Jewish scholar in seventeenth-century Amsterdam who was excommunicated for his radical thought; Blucher (whose life mirrors Hannah Arendt), a philosopher whose academic promise in 1930s Germany became a quest to survive Nazi persecution; and Jupiter (or shades of Du Fu), a poet of Tang Dynasty China whose brilliance went unrecognised by the state, and whose dependence on fickle patrons barely sustained him while lesser artists thrived

As she grows up in the building, Lina spends many hours listening to the fascinating tales of these friends But it is only when she is finally told her father’s account of how the two of them came to reside in The Sea that she truly understands the unbearable cost of betrayal in her own life And the combined force of these stories soon sets her on her own path into the unknown future

An adventurous, voyaging novel in which time occupies space uniquely, The Book of Records holds a mirror to the idea of fate in history, interrogates questions of legacy, explores how the political factors of a collective moment may determine an individual's future, and beautifully shows the infinite joys of art and intellectual endeavour This is the great novelist Madeleine Thien at her most remarkable, exciting, engrossing, and enriching.

A Harper's Bazaar "Best Book Coming Out This Spring" Pick • One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025 • One of The Millions's Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2025 A fast-moving, heartbreaking collection of short fiction from "the American writer with the funniest, wisest grasp on how we fool ourselves" (Chicago Tribune) The word atavism, coined by a botanist and popularized by a criminologist, refers to the resurfacing of a primitive evolutionary trait or urge in a modern being

This inventive collection from Lydia Millet offers overlapping tales of urges ranging from rage to jealousy to yearning—a fluent triumph of storytelling, rich in ideas and emotions both petty and grand The titular atavists include an underachieving, bewildered young bartender; a middle-aged mother convinced her gentle son-in-law is fixated on geriatric porn; a bodybuilder with an incel’s fantasy life; an arrogant academic accused of plagiarism; and an empty-nester dad determined to host refugees in a tiny house in his backyard

As they pick away at the splitting seams in American culture, Millet’s characters shimmer with the sense of powerlessness we share in an era of mass overwhelm A beautician in a waxing salon faces a sudden resurgence of grief in the midst of a bikini Brazilian; a couple sets up a camera to find out who’s been slipping homophobic letters into their mailbox; a jilted urban planner stalks a man she met on a dating app In its rich warp and weft of humiliations and human error, Atavists returns to the trenchant, playful social commentary that made A Children’s Bible a runaway hit In these stories sharp observations of middle-class mores and sanctimony give way to moments of raw exposure and longing: Atavists performs an uncanny fictional magic, full of revelation but also hilarious, unpretentious, and warm.

When European missionaries first arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they entered a world both fascinating and bewildering Hinduism, as they saw it, was a pagan mess: the worship of devils and monsters by a people who burned women alive, performed outlandish rites and fed children to crocodiles But soon it became clear that Hindu ‘idolatry’ was far more complex than white men’s stereotypes allowed, and Hindus had little desire to convert

But then, European power began to grow in India, and under colonial rule, missionaries assumed a forbidding appearance During the British Raj, Western frames of thinking gained ascendancy and Hindus felt pressed to reimagine their religion This was both to fortify it against Christian attacks and to resist foreign rule

It is this encounter which has, in good measure, inspired modern Hinduism’s present shape Indeed, Hindus subverted some of the missionaries’ own tools and strategies in the process, triggering the birth of Hindu nationalism, now so dominant in the country In Gods, Guns and Missionaries, Manu S Pillai takes us through these remarkable dynamics

With an arresting cast of characters—maharajahs, poets, gun-wielding revolutionaries, politicians, polemicists, philosophers and clergymen—this book is ambitious in its scope and provocative in its position Lucid and exhaustive, it is, at once, a political history, a review of Hindu culture and a study of the social forces that prepared the ground for Hindu nationalism Turning away from simplistic ideas on religious evolution and European imperialism, the past as it appears here is more complicated—and infinitely richer—than popular narratives allow.

The never-before-told story of the epic battle of wills between Andrew Mellon and Winston Churchill, as they debated the repayment of the enormous sums loaned by America to Great Britain during World War I Andrew Mellon, one of the most accomplished businessmen of his era, is almost unknown today To this shy, diffident (but brilliant) man fell the daunting task of collecting the war debts from European governments still devastated by World War I and struggling to recover economically

Dealing with the U.S Congress and the heads of foreign governments on the world stage became one of the great adventures of his life Winston Churchill is one of the best-known figures in history Mellon vs

Churchill presents Churchill through a different lens, focusing on his service as Chancellor of the Exchequer when Great Britain was the largest debtor to the United States That he became the most vocal critic of American foreign policy during that time is a scarcely told chapter of economic history—and his long and contentious debate with Mellon has seldom been explored Yet, during the five years that Churchill served as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1924-1929), Mellon was his counterpart at the United States Treasury, and their debate and fierce differences of opinion about the handling of what Churchill called “the monstrous war debts” made frequent headlines on both sides of the Atlantic

No mention of any of their five meetings are included in the official biographies of either man Now these confrontations are brought to vivid life in Mellon vs Churchill, as are many other vignettes from their very public, but largely forgotten, rivalry Mellon vs Churchill brings the reader inside the adventurous lives of these two great public figures—men who were not afraid to take huge risks to pursue their grand ambitions.

When Stalin came to power, making music in Russia became dangerous Composers now had to create work that served the socialist state, and all artistic production was scrutinized for potential subversion In The Sound of Utopia, Michel Krielaars vividly depicts Soviet musicians and composers struggling to create art in a climate of risk, suspicion and fear

Some successfully toed the ideological line, diluting their work in the process; others ended up facing the Gulag or even death While some, like Sergei Prokofiev, achieved lasting fame, others were consigned to oblivion, their work still hard to find As Krielaars traces the twists and turns of these artists' fortunes, he paints a fascinating and disturbing portrait of the absurdity of Soviet musical life - and of the people who crafted sublime melodies under the darkest circumstances.

A masterful new biography of North Korea's despotic founding father and his enduring impact on his country today.

In An Engine, Not a Camera, Donald MacKenzie argues that the emergence of modern economic theories of finance affected financial markets in fundamental ways These new, Nobel Prize-winning theories, based on elegant mathematical models of markets, were not simply external analyses but intrinsic parts of economic processes Paraphrasing Milton Friedman, MacKenzie says that economic models are an engine of inquiry rather than a camera to reproduce empirical facts

More than that, the emergence of an authoritative theory of financial markets altered those markets fundamentally For example, in 1970, there was almost no trading in financial derivatives such as "futures." By June of 2004, derivatives contracts totaling $273 trillion were outstanding worldwide MacKenzie suggests that this growth could never have happened without the development of theories that gave derivatives legitimacy and explained their complexities

MacKenzie examines the role played by finance theory in the two most serious crises to hit the world's financial markets in recent years: the stock market crash of 1987 and the market turmoil that engulfed the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998 He also looks at finance theory that is somewhat beyond the mainstream—chaos theorist Benoit Mandelbrot's model of "wild" randomness MacKenzie's pioneering work in the social studies of finance will interest anyone who wants to understand how America's financial markets have grown into their current form.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel The nation was shocked, enraged, and saddened As chaos erupted across the country and mourners gathered at King's funeral, investigators launched a sixty-five day search for King’s assassin that would lead them across two continents—from the author of Blood and Thunder and Ghost Soldiers

With a blistering, cross-cutting narrative that draws on a wealth of dramatic unpublished documents, Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers, delivers a non-fiction thriller in the tradition of William Manchester's The Death of a President and Truman Capote's In Cold Blood With Hellhound On His Trail, Sides shines a light on the largest manhunt in American history and brings it to life for all to see With a New Afterword

no.39: Redlich, Fritz De praeda militari Looting and booty, 1500-1815. (1956)

The Routledge Handbook of Maritime Trade around Europe 1300-1600 explores the links between maritime trading networks around Europe, from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to the North and Baltic Seas Maritime trade routes connected diverse geographical and cultural spheres, contributing to a more integrated Europe in both cultural and material terms This volume explores networks' economic functions alongside their intercultural exchanges, contacts and practical arrangements in ports on the European coasts

The collection takes as its central question how shippers and merchants were able to connect regional and interregional trade circuits around and beyond Europe in the late medieval period It is divided into four parts, with chapters in Part I looking across broad themes such as ships and sailing routes, maritime law, financial linkages and linguistic exchanges In the following parts - divided into the Mediterranean, the Baltic Sea, and the Atlantic and North Seas - contributors present case studies addressing themes including conflict resolution, relations between different types of main ports and their hinterland, the local institutional arrangements supporting maritime trade, and the advantages and challenges of locations around the continent

The volume concludes with a summary that points to the extraterritorial character of trading systems during this fascinating period of expansion Drawing together an international team of contributors, The Routledge Handbook of Maritime Trade around Europe is a vital contribution to the study of maritime history and the history of trade It is essential reading for students and scholars in these fields.

The conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War has long been understood in a global context, but Jeremy Friedman’s Shadow Cold War delves deeper into the era to examine the competition between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China for the leadership of the world revolution When a world of newly independent states emerged from decolonization desperately poor and politically disorganized, Moscow and Beijing turned their focus to attracting these new entities, setting the stage for Sino-Soviet competition

Based on archival research from ten countries, including new materials from Russia and China, many no longer accessible to researchers, this book examines how China sought to mobilize Asia, Africa, and Latin America to seize the revolutionary mantle from the Soviet Union The Soviet Union adapted to win it back, transforming the nature of socialist revolution in the process This groundbreaking book is the first to explore the significance of this second Cold War that China and the Soviet Union fought in the shadow of the capitalist-communist clash.

In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that reshaped manufacturing But the container didn't just happen

Its adoption required huge sums of money, years of high-stakes bargaining, and delicate negotiation on standards Now with a new chapter, The Box tells the dramatic story of how the drive and imagination of an iconoclastic entrepreneur turned containerization from an impractical idea into a phenomenon that transformed economic geography, slashed transportation costs, and made the boom in global trade possible. -- from back cover.

A timely work of singular reportage and a damning indictment of the private equity industry told through the stories of four American workers whose lives and communities were upended by the ruinous effects of private equity takeovers Private equity runs our country, yet few Americans have any idea how ingrained it is in their lives Private equity controls our hospitals, daycare centers, supermarket chains, voting machine manufacturers, local newspapers, nursing home operators, fertility clinics, and prisons

The industry even manages highways, municipal water systems, fire departments, emergency medical services, and owns a growing swath of commercial and residential real estate Private equity executives, meanwhile, are not only among the wealthiest people in American society, but have grown to become modern-day barons with outsized influence on our politics and legislation CEOs of firms like Blackstone, Carlyle, KKR, and Apollo are rewarded with seats in the Senate and on the boards of the country’s most august institutions; meanwhile, entire communities are hollowed out as a result of their buyouts

Workers lose their jobs Communities lose their institutions Only private equity wins Acclaimed journalist Megan Greenwell’s Bad Company unearths the hidden story of private equity by examining the lives of four American workers that were devastated as private equity upended their employers and communities: a Toys R Us floor supervisor, a rural doctor, a local newspaper journalist, and an affordable housing organizer

Taken together, their individual experiences also pull back the curtain on a much larger project: how private equity reshaped the American economy to serve its own interests, creating a new class of billionaires while stripping ordinary people of their livelihoods, their health care, their homes, and their sense of security In the tradition of deeply human reportage like Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, Megan Greenwell pulls back the curtain on shadowy multibillion dollar private equity firms, telling a larger story about how private equity is reshaping the economy, disrupting communities, and hollowing out the very idea of the American dream itself Timely and masterfully told, Bad Company is a forceful rebuke of America’s most consequential, yet least understood economic forces.

Since time immemorial, Native peoples’ understandings of space and territory have defined the landscape of the Tennessee Country—the region drained by the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Mississippi rivers and their tributaries Marking Native Borders challenges the narrative of inevitable U.S. expansion by exploring how Cherokees and Chickasaws used these notions of space and territory in new and different ways to counter the encroachment of white settlers and land speculators in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries

When settlers began to trudge over the Appalachian Mountains, intent on making new homes on Native land, Cherokees and Chickasaws fortified their territories by creating clear borders around their nations They further defended their permanent, inherent right to these bordered spaces by combining Indigenous ideas of communal land use with aspects of European property law The Cherokees and Chickasaws, however, did not always agree on how to maintain control of their lands, and Lucas P

Kelley’s comparison of their differing strategies provides a nuanced, more accurate picture of Native peoples’ lived experiences in this turbulent time and place He also describes how white settlers and speculators, in turn, revised their own strategies for expansion in response to the Cherokees’ and Chickasaws’ success in defending their national lands

The story of the early Tennessee Country is one of competing geographies, contested sovereignties, and disputed boundaries among Chickasaws, Cherokees, settlers, and land speculators It is a history of conflict and contestation that influenced Native sovereignty and shaped the construction of an American empire As this book suggests, it is an ongoing story, as Native peoples’ notions of space and territory continue to impact the Tennessee Country today.

• Choice 1988 Outstanding Academic Book • Named one of the Best Business Books of 1988 by USA TodayA veteran reporter of American labor analyzes the spectacular and tragic collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s John Hoerr's account of these events stretches from the industrywide barganing failures of 1982 to the crippling work stoppage at USX (U.S Steel) in 1986-87

He interviewed scores of steelworkers, company managers at all levels, and union officials, and was present at many of the crucial events he describes Using historical flashbacks to the origins of the steel industry, particularly in the Monongahela Valley of southwestern Pennsylvania, he shows how an obsolete and adversarial relationship between management and labor made it impossible for the industry to adapt to shattering changes in the global economy.

A literary classic that wasn't recognized for its merits until decades after its publication, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick tells the tale of a whaling ship and its crew, who are carried progressively further out to sea by the fiery Captain Ahab Obsessed with killing the massive whale, which had previously bitten off Ahab's leg, the seasoned seafarer steers his ship to confront the creature, while the rest of the shipmates, including the young narrator, Ishmael, and the harpoon expert, Queequeg, must contend with their increasingly dire journey The book invariably lands on any short list of the greatest American novels.

She was the golden beast, an unconscious force, the very scent of her could bring the world to ruin.' Nana, daughter of a drunk and a laundress, is the Helen of Troy of Paris A sexually magnetic high-class prostitute and actress, she becomes a celebrity, rapidly conquering society, ruining all men who fall under her spell-especially Count Muffat, Chamberlain to the Empress Nana herself meets a terrible fate, consumed by her own dissipation and extravagance, just as the disastrous war with Prussia is declared

Nana is the ninth instalment in the twenty volume Rougon-Macquart series The novel opens in 1867, the year of the World Fair, when Paris, thronged by a cosmopolitan élite, was la Ville Lumière, the glittering setting-and object-of Zola's scathing denunciation of society's hypocrisy and moral corruption Nana comes to symbolize the Second Empire regime itself in all its excesses; but in the final chapters, the narrator seems to suggest that the coming disaster is not so much a result of the corruption of the Empire, as of rampant female sexuality.

Considered by André Gide to be one of the ten greatest novels in the French language, Émile Zola's Germinal is a brutal depiction of the poverty of a mining community in northern France Étienne Lantier, an unemployed railway worker, is a clever but uneducated young man with a dangerous temper Compelled to take a back-breakin job at Le Voreux mine when he cannot get other work, he discovers that his fellow miners are ill, hungry and in debt, unable to feed and clothe their families

When conditions in the mining community deteriorate even further, Lantier finds himself leading a strike that could mean starvation or salvation for all The thirteenth novel in Zola's great Rougon-Macquart sequence, Germinal expresses outrage at the exploitation of the many by the few, but also shows humanity's capacity for compassion and hope Translated with an introduction by Roger Pearson in Penguin Classics If you enjoyed Germinal, you might like Zola's Thérèse Raquin, also available in Penguin Classics.

"Lizzie Wade is an exceptional journalist and a master storyteller She reminds us that survival always has been, and still is, possible, and that our world always has been, and still is, a choice." –Ed Yong, author of An Immense World “This book upended my understanding of the ancient world Wade renders our deep past in vivid prose, showing us that times of great rupture also bring great possibilities for new ways of living, if we let them

Apocalypse is the best kind of history book: vibrant and vital.” —Zoë Schlanger, author of The Light Eaters A richly imagined new view on the great human tradition of apocalypse, from the rise of Homo sapiens to the climate instability of our present, that defies conventional wisdom and long-held stories about our deep past to reveal how cataclysmic events are not irrevocable endings, but transformations A drought lasts for decades, a disease rips through a city, a civilization collapses

When we finally uncover the ruins, we ask: What happened The good news is, we’ve been here before History is long, and people have already confronted just about every apocalypse we’re facing today But these days, archaeologists are getting better at seeing stories of survival, transformation, and even progress hidden within those histories of collapse and destruction

Perhaps, we begin to see, apocalypses do not destroy worlds, but create them anew Apocalypse offers a new way of understanding human history, reframing it as a series of crises and cataclysms that we survived, moments of choice in an evolution of humanity that has never been predetermined or even linear Here Lizzie Wade asks us to reckon with our long-held narratives of these events, from the end of Old Kingdom Egypt, the collapse of the Classic Maya, to the Black Death, and shows us how people lived through and beyond them—and even considered what a new world could look like in their wake

The more we learn about apocalypses past, the more hope we have that we will survive our own It won’t be pleasant It won’t be fair The world will be different on the other side, and our cultures and communities—perhaps even our species—will be different too.

An argument that contagion is the most significant risk facing the financial system and that Dodd¬Frank has reduced the government's ability to respond effectively The Dodd–Frank Act of 2010 was intended to reform financial policies in order to prevent another massive crisis such as the financial meltdown of 2008 Dodd–Frank is largely premised on the diagnosis that connectedness was the major problem in that crisis—that is, that financial institutions were overexposed to one another, resulting in a possible chain reaction of failures

In this book, Hal Scott argues that it is not connectedness but contagion that is the most significant element of systemic risk facing the financial system Contagion is an indiscriminate run by short-term creditors of financial institutions that can render otherwise solvent institutions insolvent It poses a serious risk because, as Scott explains, our financial system still depends on approximately $7.4 to $8.2 trillion of runnable and uninsured short-term liabilities, 60 percent of which are held by nonbanks

Scott argues that efforts by the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and the Treasury to stop the contagion that exploded after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers lessened the economic damage And yet Congress, spurred by the public's aversion to bailouts, has dramatically weakened the power of the government to respond to contagion, including limitations on the Fed's powers as a lender of last resort Offering uniquely detailed forensic analyses of the Lehman Brothers and AIG failures, and suggesting alternative regulatory approaches, Scott makes the case that we need to restore and strengthen our weapons for fighting contagion.

The British historian and author of Into India delivers “a history that is intelligent, incisive, and eminently readable” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) Fully revised with forty thousand new words that take the reader up to present-day India, John Keay’s India: A History spans five millennia in a sweeping narrative that tells the story of the peoples of the subcontinent, from their ancient beginnings in the valley of the Indus to the events in the region today

In charting the evolution of the rich tapestry of cultures, religions, and peoples that comprise the modern nations of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, Keay weaves together insights from a variety of scholarly fields to create a rich historical narrative Wide-ranging and authoritative, India: A History is a compelling epic portrait of one of the world’s oldest and most richly diverse civilizations. “Keay’s panoramic vision and multidisciplinary approach serves the function of all great historical writing It illuminates the present.” —Thrity Umrigar, The Boston Globe

An empirical investigation of financial crises during the last 800 years.

The Mongols are universally known as conquerors, but they were more than that: influential thinkers, politicians, engineers, and merchants Challenging the view that nomads are peripheral to history, The Horde reveals the complex empire the Mongols built and traces its enduring imprint on politics and society in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Before reading The Panic of 1907, the year 1907 seemed like a long time ago and a different world The authors, however, bring this story alive in a fast-moving book, and the reader sees how events of that time are very relevant for today's financial world In spite of all of our advances, including a stronger monetary system and modern tools for managing risk, Bruner and Carr help us understand that we are not immune to a future crisis." —Dwight B

Crane, Baker Foundation Professor, Harvard Business School "Bruner and Carr provide a thorough, masterly, and highly readable account of the 1907 crisis and its management by the great private banker J P Morgan Congress heeded the lessons of 1907, launching the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to prevent banking panics and foster financial stability

We still have financial problems But because of 1907 and Morgan, a century later we have a respected central bank as well as greater confidence in our money and our banks than our great-grandparents had in theirs." —Richard Sylla, Henry Kaufman Professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets, and Professor of Economics, Stern School of Business, New York University "A fascinating portrayal of the events and personalities of the crisis and panic of 1907

Lessons learned and parallels to the present have great relevance Crises and panics are as much a part of our future as our past." —John Strangfeld, Vice Chairman, Prudential Financial "Who would have thought that a hundred years after the Panic of 1907 so much remained to be written about it Bruner and Carr break significant new ground because they are willing to do the heavy lifting of combing through massive archival material to identify and weave together important facts Their book will be of interest not only to banking theorists and financial historians, but also to business school and economics students, for its rare ability to teach so clearly why and how a panic unfolds." —Charles Calomiris, Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions, Columbia University, Graduate School of Business

From the winner of the 2017 John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Ada Palmer's 2017 Compton Crook Award-winning political science fiction, Too Like the Lightning, ventures into a human future of extraordinary originality Mycroft Canner is a convict For his crimes he is required, as is the custom of the 25th century, to wander the world being as useful as he can to all he meets

Carlyle Foster is a sensayer--a spiritual counselor in a world that has outlawed the public practice of religion, but which also knows that the inner lives of humans cannot be wished away The world into which Mycroft and Carlyle have been born is as strange to our 21st-century eyes as ours would be to a native of the 1500s It is a hard-won utopia built on technologically-generated abundance, and also on complex and mandatory systems of labelling all public writing and speech

What seem to us normal gender distinctions are now distinctly taboo in most social situations And most of the world's population is affiliated with globe-girdling clans of the like-minded, whose endless economic and cultural competition is carefully managed by central planners of inestimable subtlety To us it seems like a mad combination of heaven and hell

To them, it seems like normal life And in this world, Mycroft and Carlyle have stumbled on the wild card that may destablize the system: the boy Bridger, who can effortlessly make his wishes come true Who can, it would seem, bring inanimate objects to life.. Terra Ignota 1

Too Like the Lightning 2 Seven Surrenders 3 The Will to Battle At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

An eye-opening, terrifying history of this notorious and widely influential mercenary group This book exposes the history and the future of the Wagner Group, Russia’s notorious and secretive mercenary army, revealing details of their operations never documented before

Using extensive leaks, first-hand accounts, and the byzantine paper trail left in the group’s wake, Jack Margolin traces the Wagner Group from its roots as a battlefield rumor to a private military enterprise tens of thousands–strong that eventually comes to threaten Putin himself He follows individual commanders and foot soldiers within the group as they fight in Ukraine, Syria, and Africa, sometimes alongside fellow military contractors from the United Kingdom and the United States

He shows Wagner mercenaries committing atrocities, plundering oil, diamonds, and gold, and changing the course of conflicts from Europe to Africa in the name of the Kremlin’s strategic aims In documenting the Wagner Group’s story up to the dramatic demise of its chief director, Evgeniy Prigozhin, Margolin demonstrates that Wagner was not an aberration, but a manifestation of the new geopolitical order of global capital, global crime, and of the entrepreneurs that thrive in it.

“Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” Such comments spotlight a central question animating Suzanne Mettler’s provocative and timely book: why are many Americans unaware of government social benefits and so hostile to them in principle, even though they receive them The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for its inability to convey how much it has accomplished for ordinary citizens Mettler argues that this difficulty is not merely a failure of communication; rather it is endemic to the formidable presence of the “submerged state.” In recent decades, federal policymakers have increasingly shunned the outright disbursing of benefits to individuals and families and favored instead less visible and more indirect incentives and subsidies, from tax breaks to payments for services to private companies

These submerged policies, Mettler shows, obscure the role of government and exaggerate that of the market As a result, citizens are unaware not only of the benefits they receive, but of the massive advantages given to powerful interests, such as insurance companies and the financial industry Neither do they realize that the policies of the submerged state shower their largest benefits on the most affluent Americans, exacerbating inequality

Mettler analyzes three Obama reforms—student aid, tax relief, and health care—to reveal the submerged state and its consequences, demonstrating how structurally difficult it is to enact policy reforms and even to obtain public recognition for achieving them She concludes with recommendations for reform to help make hidden policies more visible and governance more comprehensible to all Americans The sad truth is that many American citizens do not know how major social programs work—or even whether they benefit from them Suzanne Mettler’s important new book will bring government policies back to the surface and encourage citizens to reclaim their voice in the political process.

Plato's frontal attack on poetry has always been a problem for sympathetic students, who have often minimized or avoided it Beginning with the premise that the attack must be taken seriously, Eric Havelock shows that Plato's hostility is explained by the continued domination of the poetic tradition in contemporary Greek thought The reason for the dominance of this tradition was technological

In a nonliterate culture, stored experience necessary to cultural stability had to be preserved as poetry in order to be memorized Plato attacks poets, particularly Homer, as the sole source of Greek moral and technical instruction-Mr. Havelock shows how the Iliad acted as an oral encyclopedia Under the label of mimesis, Plato condemns the poetic process of emotional identification and the necessity of presenting content as a series of specific images in a continued narrative

The second part of the book discusses the Platonic Forms as an aspect of an increasingly rational culture Literate Greece demanded, instead of poetic discourse, a vocabulary and a sentence structure both abstract and explicit in which experience could be described normatively and analytically: in short a language of ethics and science.

Named One of the Year's Best Books by VULTURE • THE NEW REPUBLIC • DAZED • WIRED • BLOOMBERG • ESQUIRE • SALON • THE NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB The history of Silicon Valley, from railroads to microchips, is an “extraordinary” story of disruption and destruction, told for the first time in this comprehensive, jaw-dropping narrative (Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The End of the Myth) Palo Alto’s weather is temperate, its people are educated and enterprising, its corporations are spiritually and materially ambitious and demonstrably world-changing

Palo Alto is also a haunted toxic waste dump built on stolen Indian burial grounds, and an integral part of the capitalist world system In PALO ALTO, the first comprehensive, global history of Silicon Valley, Malcolm Harris examines how and why Northern California evolved in the particular, consequential way it did, tracing the ideologies, technologies, and policies that have been engineered there over the course of 150 years of Anglo settler colonialism, from IQ tests to the "tragedy of the commons," racial genetics, and "broken windows" theory

The Internet and computers, too It's a story about how a small American suburb became a powerful engine for economic growth and war, and how it came to lead the world into a surprisingly disastrous 21st century PALO ALTO is an urgent and visionary history of the way we live now, one that ends with a clear-eyed, radical proposition for how we might begin to change course.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE • AN ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium These fundamental materials have created empires, razed civilizations, and fed our ingenuity and greed for thousands of years Without them, our modern world would not exist, and the battle to control them will determine our future. • Finalist for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award The fiber-optic cables that weave the World Wide Web, the copper veins of our electric grids, the silicon chips and lithium batteries that power our phones and cars: though it can feel like we now live in a weightless world of information—what Ed Conway calls “the ethereal world”—our twenty-first-century lives are still very much rooted in the material

In fact, we dug more stuff out of the earth in 2017 than in all of human history before 1950 For every ton of fossil fuels, we extract six tons of other materials, from sand to stone to wood to metal And in Material World, Conway embarks on an epic journey across continents, cultures, and epochs to reveal the underpinnings of modern life on Earth—traveling from the sweltering depths of the deepest mine in Europe to spotless silicon chip factories in Taiwan to the eerie green pools where lithium originates

Material World is a celebration of the humans and the human networks, the miraculous processes and the little-known companies, that combine to turn raw materials into things of wonder This is the story of human civilization from an entirely new perspective: the ground up.

WINNER OF THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2019 SHORLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2019 'A landmark work giving a global panorama of Mao's ideology filled with historic events and enlivened by striking characters' Jonathan Fenby, author of The Penguin History of China 'Wonderful' Andrew Marr, New Statesman Since the 1980s, China seems to have abandoned the utopian turmoil of Mao's revolution in favour of authoritarian capitalism But Mao and his ideas remain central to the People's Republic

With disagreements between China and the West on the rise, the need to understand the political legacy of Mao is urgent and growing A crucial motor of the Cold War: Maoism shaped the course of the Vietnam War and brought to power the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; it aided anti-colonial resistance movements in Africa; it inspired terrorism in Germany and Italy, and wars and insurgencies in Peru, India and Nepal, some of which are still with us today Starting with the birth of Mao's revolution in northwest China in the 1930s and concluding with its violent afterlives in South Asia and resurgence in the People's Republic today, Julia Lovell re-evaluates Maoism as both a Chinese and an international force, linking its evolution in China with its global legacy.

From the early twentieth century, a big part of the world - the arid/semiarid tropics - began extracting, storing, and recycling vast quantities of water to sustain population growth and economic development The idea was not a new one in this geography It was an intrinsic part of ancient culture, statecraft, and technology

Most ancient projects, however, were local and small in scale The capability of water extraction on a scale large enough to transform whole regions and create new cities improved in the early twentieth century, giving rise to a sharp break in the long-term population and economic growth pattern from the mid-twentieth century Ironically, the geography of the arid tropics made transforming landscapes in this way expensive, damaging for the environment, and disputatious The book describes this troubled history of economic emergence, building on a definition of tropicality"-- Provided by publisher.

Philosopher, theologian, critic, sociologist, political activist -- Simone Weil was among the foremost thinkers of our time Best known in this country for her theological writing, Weil wrote on a great variety of subjects ranging from classical philosophy and poetry, to modern labor, to the language of political discourse The present anthology offers a generous collection of her work, including essays never before translated into English and many that have long been out of print It amply confirms Elizabeth Hardwick's words that Simone Weil was "one of the most brilliant and original minds of twentieth-century France" and "a woman of transcendent intellectual gifts and the widest learning." A longtime Weil scholar, Sian Miles has selected essays representative of the wide sweep of Weil's work and provides a superb introduction that places Weil's work in context of her life and times.

Independent Africa explores Africa's political economy in the first two full decades of independence through the joint projects of nation-building, economic development, and international relations Drawing on the political careers of four heads of states: Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Ahmed Sékou Touré of Guinea, Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Julius Kambarage Nyerere of Tanzania, Independent Africa engages four major themes: what does it mean to construct an African nation-state and what should an African nation-state look like; how does one grow a tropical economy emerging from European colonialism; how to explore an indigenous model of economic development, a "third way," in the context of a Cold War that had divided the world into two camps; and how to leverage internal resources and external opportunities to diversify agricultural economies and industrialize Combining aspects of history, economics, and political science, Independent Africa examines the important connections between the first generation of African leaders, and the shared ideas that informed their endeavors at nation-building and worldmaking.

Revealing the central yet intentionally obliterated role of Africa in the creation of modernity, Born in Blackness vitally reframes our understanding of world history Traditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the “New World.” Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo-Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum

The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity In a sweeping narrative spanning more than six centuries, Howard W French does just that, for Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe’s dehumanizing engagement with the “dark” continent

In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not—as we are so often told, even today—Europe’s yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies sequestered away in the heart of West Africa Creating a historical narrative that begins with the commencement of commercial relations between Portugal and Africa in the fifteenth century and ends with the onset of World War II, Born in Blackness interweaves precise historical detail with poignant, personal reportage

In so doing, it dramatically retrieves the lives of major African historical figures, from the unimaginably rich medieval emperors who traded with the Near East and beyond, to the Kongo sovereigns who heroically battled seventeenth-century European powers, to the ex-slaves who liberated Haitians from bondage and profoundly altered the course of American history While French cogently demonstrates the centrality of Africa to the rise of the modern world, Born in Blackness becomes, at the same time, a far more significant narrative, one that reveals a long-concealed history of trivialization and, more often, elision in depictions of African history throughout the last five hundred years

As French shows, the achievements of sovereign African nations and their now-far-flung peoples have time and again been etiolated and deliberately erased from modern history As the West ascended, their stories—siloed and piecemeal—were swept into secluded corners, thus setting the stage for the hagiographic “rise of the West” theories that have endured to this day. “Capacious and compelling” (Laurent Dubois), Born in Blackness is epic history on the grand scale In the lofty tradition of bold, revisionist narratives, it reframes the story of gold and tobacco, sugar and cotton—and of the greatest “commodity” of them all, the twelve million people who were brought in chains from Africa to the “New World,” whose reclaimed lives shed a harsh light on our present world.

A New York Times Notable Book Chinese immigrants of the recent past and unfolding twenty-first century are in search of the African dream So explains indefatigable traveler Howard W French, prize-winning investigative journalist and former New York Times bureau chief in Africa and China, in the definitive account of this seismic geopolitical development

China’s burgeoning presence in Africa is already shaping, and reshaping, the future of millions of people From Liberia to Senegal to Mozambique, in creaky trucks and by back roads, French introduces us to the characters who make up China’s dogged emigrant population: entrepreneurs singlehandedly reshaping African infrastructure, and less-lucky migrants barely scraping by but still convinced of Africa’s opportunities French’s acute observations offer illuminating insight into the most pressing unknowns of modern Sino-African relations: Why China is making these cultural and economic incursions into the continent; what Africa’s role is in this equation; and what the ramifications for both parties and their people—and the watching world—will be in the foreseeable future One of the Best Books of the Year at • The Economist • The Guardian • Foreign Affairs

Thoroughly sharp and honest treatment of a brutal conflict.The Algerian War (1954-1962) was a savage colonial war, killing an estimated one million Muslim Algerians and expelling the same number of European settlers from their homes It was to cause the fall of six French prime minsters and the collapse of the Fourth Repbulic It came close to bringing down de Gaulle and - twice - to plunging France into civil war.The story told here contains heroism and tragedy, and poses issues of enduring relevance beyond the confines of either geography or time Horne writes with the extreme intelligence and perspicacity that are his trademarks.

This book relates the extraordinary adventures of Colonel F.M Bailey, the famous British undercover agent Long accused by Moscow as a master-spy orchestrating the destruction of Bolshevism in Central Asia, Bailey tells a tale that is at once spellbinding, thrilling, and even darkly humorous In Mission to Tashkent Bailey relates in compelling detail the perilous game of cat-and-mouse that he played with Cheka--the dreaded Bolshevik secret police--for sixteen remarkable months

At one point, using a false identity, he actually joined the ranks of the rival intelligence force, which unsuspectingly sent him to Bokhara with orders to arrest himself Told with almost breathtaking understatement, and now reprinted for the first time since the British Foreign Office first cleared it for publication in 1946, Bailey's narrative will excite and intrigue anyone who loves real-life adventure, or simply a good spy story.

The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A spellbinding work of history that reads like a Cold War spy thriller—about the U.S.-sanctioned plot to assassinate the democratically elected leader of the newly independent Congo A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The Economist, Financial Times “This is one of the best books I have read in years . . . gripping, full of colorful characters, and strange plot twists.” —Fareed Zakaria, CNN host It was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation The Congo was at last being set free from Belgium—one of seventeen countries to gain independence in 1960 from ruling European powers

At the helm as prime minister was charismatic nationalist Patrice Lumumba Just days after the handover, however, the Congo’s new army mutinied, Belgian forces intervened, and Lumumba turned to the United Nations for help in saving his newborn nation from what the press was already calling “the Congo crisis.” Dag Hammarskjöld, the tidy Swede serving as UN secretary-general, quickly arranged the organization’s biggest peacekeeping mission in history

But chaos was still spreading Frustrated with the fecklessness of the UN and spurned by the United States, Lumumba then approached the Soviets for help—an appeal that set off alarm bells at the CIA To forestall the spread of Communism in Africa, the CIA sent word to its station chief in the Congo, Larry Devlin: Lumumba had to go

Within a year, everything would unravel The CIA plot to murder Lumumba would fizzle out, but he would be deposed in a CIA-backed coup, transferred to enemy territory in a CIA-approved operation, and shot dead by Congolese assassins Hammarskjöld, too, would die, in a mysterious plane crash en route to negotiate a cease-fire with the Congo’s rebellious southeast

And a young, ambitious military officer named Joseph Mobutu, who had once sworn fealty to Lumumba, would seize power with U.S. help and misrule the country for more than three decades For the Congolese people, the events of 1960–61 represented the opening chapter of a long horror story For the U.S. government, however, they provided a playbook for future interventions.

Larry Devlin arrived as the new chief of station for the CIA in the Congo five days after the country had declared its independence, the army had mutinied, and governmental authority had collapsed As he crossed the Congo River in an almost empty ferry boat, all he could see were lines of people trying to travel the other way -- out of the Congo Within his first two weeks he found himself on the wrong end of a revolver as militiamen played Russian-roulette, Congo style, with him

During his first year, the charismatic and reckless political leader, Patrice Lumumba, was murdered and Devlin was widely thought to have been entrusted with (he was) and to have carried out (he didn't) the assassination Then he saved the life of Joseph Desire Mobutu, who carried out the military coup that presaged his own rise to political power Devlin found himself at the heart of Africa, fighting for the future of perhaps the most strategically influential country on the continent, its borders shared with eight other nations

He met every significant political figure, from presidents to mercenaries, as he took the Cold War to one of the world's hottest zones This is a classic political memoir from a master spy who lived in wildly dramatic times.

Why violence in the Congo has continued despite decades of international intervention Well into its third decade, the military conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been dubbed a “forever war”—a perpetual cycle of war, civil unrest, and local feuds over power and identity Millions have died in one of the worst humanitarian calamities of our time The War That Doesn’t Say Its Name investigates the most recent phase of this conflict, asking why the peace deal of 2003—accompanied by the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world and tens of billions in international aid—has failed to stop the violence

Jason Stearns argues that the fighting has become an end in itself, carried forward in substantial part through the apathy and complicity of local and international actors Stearns shows that regardless of the suffering, there has emerged a narrow military bourgeoisie of commanders and politicians for whom the conflict is a source of survival, dignity, and profit Foreign donors provide food and urgent health care for millions, preventing the Congolese state from collapsing, but this involvement has not yielded transformational change

Stearns gives a detailed historical account of this period, focusing on the main players—Congolese and Rwandan states and the main armed groups He extrapolates from these dynamics to other conflicts across Africa and presents a theory of conflict that highlights the interests of the belligerents and the social structures from which they arise Exploring how violence in the Congo has become preoccupied with its own reproduction, The War That Doesn't Say Its Name sheds light on why certain military feuds persist without resolution.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492—from “a remarkably engaging writer” (The New York Times Book Review) Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them

The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man’s first feat of genetic engineering Indeed, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.

A provocative exploration about the architecture of power, the forces that stifle us from getting things done, and how we can restore confidence in democratically elected government America was once a country that did big things—we built the world’s greatest rail network, a vast electrical grid, interstate highways, abundant housing, the Social Security system, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and more But today, even while facing a host of pressing challenges—a housing shortage, a climate crisis, a dilapidated infrastructure—we feel stuck, unable to move the needle

Why America is today the victim of a vetocracy that allows nearly anyone to stifle progress While conservatives deserve some blame, progressives have overlooked an unlikely culprit: their own fears of “The Establishment.” A half-century ago, progressivism’s designs on getting stuff done were eclipsed by a desire to box in government

Reformers put speaking truth to power ahead of exercising that power for good The ensuing gridlock has pummeled faith in public institutions of all sorts, stifled the movement’s ability to deliver on its promises, and, most perversely, opened the door for MAGA-style populism A century ago, Americans were similarly frustrated—and progressivism pointed the way out

The same can happen again Marc J Dunkelman vividly illustrates what progressives must do if they are going to break through today’s paralysis and restore, once again, confidence in democratically elected government To get there, reformers will need to acknowledge where they’ve gone wrong Progressivism’s success moving forward hinges on the movement’s willingness to rediscover its roots.

Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy remains one of the greatest works of social theory written this century When it first appeared the New English Weekly predicted that for the next five to ten years it will cetainly remain a work with which no one who professes any degree of information on sociology or economics can afford to be unacquainted.' Fifty years on, this prediction seems a little understated Why has the work endured so well

Schumpeter's contention that the seeds of capitalism's decline were internal, and his equal and opposite hostility to centralist socialism have perplexed, engaged and infuriated readers since the book's publication By refusing to become an advocate for either position Schumpeter was able both to make his own great and original contribution and to clear the way for a more balanced consideration of the most important social movements of his and our time.

An original and empirically grounded analysis of the Gulf monarchies and their role in shaping the political economy of the Middle East.

Until recently, Germany appeared to be a paragon of economic and political success Angela Merkel was widely seen as the true 'leader of the free world', and Germany's export-driven economic model seemed to deliver prosperity But recent events – from Germany's dependence on Russian gas to its car industry's delays in the race to electric – have undermined this view

In Kaput, Wolfgang Münchau argues that the weaknesses of Germany's economy have, in fact, been brewing for decades The neo-mercantilist policies of the German state, driven by close connections between the country's industrial and political elite, have left Germany technologically behind over-reliant on authoritarian Russia and China – and with little sign of being able to adapt to the digital realities of the 21st century It is an essential read for anyone interested in the future of Europe's biggest economy.

How did we get to where we are John Cassidy shows that the roots of our most recent financial failure lie not with individuals, but with an idea - the idea that markets are inherently rational He gives us the big picture behind the financial headlines, tracing the rise and fall of free market ideology from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan

Full of wit, sense and, above all, a deeper understanding, How Markets Fail argues for the end of 'utopian' economics, and the beginning of a pragmatic, reality-based way of thinking A very good history of economic thought Economist How Markets Fail offers a brilliant intellectual framework . . . fine work New York Times An essential, grittily intellectual, yet compelling guide to the financial debacle of 2009 Geordie Greig, Evening Standard A powerful argument . .

Cassidy makes a compelling case that a return to hands-off economics would be a disaster BusinessWeek This book is a well constructed, thoughtful and cogent account of how capitalism evolved to its current form Telegraph Books of the Year recommendation John Cassidy ... describe[s] that mix of insight and madness that brought the world's system to its knees FT, Book of the Year recommendation Anyone who enjoys a good read can safely embark on this tour with Cassidy as their guide . . Like his colleague Malcolm Gladwell [at the New Yorker], Cassidy is able to lead us with beguiling lucidity through unfamiliar territory New Statesman John Cassidy has covered economics and finance at The New Yorker magazine since 1995, writing on topics ranging from Alan Greenspan to the Iraqi oil industry and English journalism

He is also now a Contributing Editor at Portfolio where he writes the monthly Economics column Two of his articles have been nominated for National Magazine Awards: an essay on Karl Marx, which appeared in October, 1997, and an account of the death of the British weapons scientist David Kelly, which was published in December, 2003 He has previously written for Sunday Times in as well as the New York Post, where he edited the Business section and then served as the deputy editor

In 2002, Cassidy published his first book, Dot.Con He lives in New York.

On his way into Parliament on 2 February 1990 FW de Klerk turned to his wife Marike and said, referring to his forthcoming speech: 'South Africa will never be the same again after this.' Did white South Africa crack, or did its leadership yield sufficiently and just in time to avert a revolution The transformation has been called a miracle, belying gloomy predictions of race war in which the white minority went into a laager and fought to the last drop of blood

Why did it happen Professor Welsh views the topic against the backdrop of a long history of conflict spanning apartheid's rise and demise, and the liberation movement's suppression and subsequent resurrection His view is that the movement away from apartheid to majority rule would have taken far longer and been much bloodier were it not for the changes undergone by Afrikaner nationalism itself

There were turning points, such as the Soweto uprising of 1976, but few believed that the transition from white domination to inclusive democracy would occur as soon - and as relatively peacefully - as it did In effect, however, a multitude of different factors led the ANC and the National Party to see that neither side could win the conflict on its own terms Utterly dissimilar in background, culture, beliefs and political style, Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk were an unlikely pair of liberators But both soon recognised that they were dependent on each other to steer the transformation process through to its conclusion.

The legendary space opera that kicked off the ground-breaking, universe-spanning series Nine hundred thousand years ago, something wiped out the Amarantin For the human colonists now settling their homeworld, their predecessors are of little interest, even after the discovery of a long-hidden, almost perfect Amarantin city

For brilliant and ruthless scientist Dan Sylveste, the long-dead race are more than a merely intellectual curiosity - and he will stop at nothing to get at the truth of their demise But the Amarantin were wiped out for a reason, and the danger is closer and greater than even Sylveste can imagine.. REVELATION SPACE: a huge, magnificent space opera that ranges across the known and unknown universe ... towards the most terrifying of destinations

Readers are hooked on Revelation Space: 'An amazing blend of space opera, hard SF, and gothic horror that reads like a cross between Frank Herbert's "Dune" and Ridley Scott's film "Alien"' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Marvellous hard space opera.' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Revelation Space series is one of my favouritest favourites . . Reynolds held me in thrall with his vision' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'a gritty, desolate, and unforgiving universe in which humanity finds itself in imminent danger of extinction . .

I highly recommend it to all adult fans of space opera, cyberpunk, and horror genres' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'A darn good, solid, well executed work of hard sci-fi . . I really appreciate that Revelation Space ends in a satisfying and self-contained way' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Awesome characters, awesome setting, awesome ideas, awesome awesome awesome . . .' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Hugo and Shirley Jackson award-winning Peter Watts stands on the cutting edge of hard SF with his acclaimed novel, Blindsight Two months since the stars fell.. Two months of silence, while a world held its breath Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam

Whatever's out there isn't talking to us It's talking to some distant star, perhaps Or perhaps to something closer, something en route So who do you send to force introductions with unknown and unknowable alien intellect that doesn't wish to be met

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths

And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there Pray they can be trusted with the fate of a world They may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Protected by vast mountains and seas, the Indian subcontinent might seem a nearly complete and self-contained world with its own religions, philosophies, and social systems And yet this ancient land and its varied societies experienced prolonged and intense interaction with the peoples and cultures of East and Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa, and especially Central Asia and the Iranian plateau Richard M

Eaton tells this extraordinary story with relish and originality, as he traces the rise of Persianate culture, a many-faceted transregional world connected by ever-widening networks across much of Asia Introduced to India in the eleventh century by dynasties based in eastern Afghanistan, this culture would become progressively indigenized in the time of the great Mughals (sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries) Eaton brilliantly elaborates the complex encounter between India's Sanskrit culture—an equally rich and transregional complex that continued to flourish and grow throughout this period—and Persian culture, which helped shape the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire, and a host of regional states This long-term process of cultural interaction is profoundly reflected in the languages, literatures, cuisines, attires, religions, styles of rulership and warfare, science, art, music, and architecture—and more—of South Asia.

Barbarism and Religion' - Edward Gibbon's own phrase - is the title of a sequence of works by John Pocock designed to situate Gibbon, and his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in a series of contexts in the history of eighteenth-century Europe In the fourth volume in the sequence, first published in 2005, Pocock argues that barbarism was central to the history of western historiography, to the history of the Enlightenment, and to Edward Gibbon himself As a concept it was deeply problematic to Enlightened historians seeking to understand their own civilised societies in the light of exposure to newly discovered civilisations which were, until then, beyond the reach of history itself.

Originally published in 1975, The Machiavellian Moment remains a landmark of historical and political thought Celebrated historian J.G.A Pocock looks at the consequences for modern historical and social consciousness arising from the ideal of the classical republic revived by Machiavelli and other thinkers of Renaissance Italy

Pocock shows that Machiavelli's prime emphasis was on the moment in which the republic confronts the problem of its own instability in time, which Pocock calls the "Machiavellian moment." After examining this problem in the works of Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and Giannotti, Pocock turns to the revival of republican ideology in Puritan England and in Revolutionary and Federalist America He argues that the American Revolution can be considered the last great act of civic humanism of the Renaissance and he relates the origins of modern historicism to the clash between civic, Christian, and commercial values in eighteenth-century thought This Princeton Classics edition of The Machiavellian Moment features a new introduction by Richard Whatmore.

Drawing on four decades of research and a recent archival discovery, revises the biography of the sixteenth-century monarch as it relates to his work, religion, and personal life, and sheds light on the causes of his leadership failures.

This “elegant and engaging” biography dramatically reinterprets the life and reign of the sixteenth-century Holy Roman Emperor: “a masterpiece” (Susannah Lipscomb, Financial Times) The life of Emperor Charles V (1500–1558), ruler of Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and much of Italy and Central and South America, has long intrigued biographers But capturing the nature of this elusive man has proven notoriously difficult—especially given his relentless travel, tight control of his own image, and the complexity of governing the world’s first transatlantic empire

Geoffrey Parker, one of the world’s leading historians of early modern Europe, has examined the surviving written sources in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, as well as visual and material evidence In Emperor, he explores the crucial decisions that created and preserved this vast empire, analyzes Charles’s achievements within the context of both personal and structural factors, and scrutinizes the intimate details of the ruler’s life for clues to his character and inclinations The result is a unique biography that interrogates every dimension of Charles’s reign and views the world through the emperor’s own eyes.

The acclaimed historian demonstrates a link between climate change and social unrest across the globe during the mid-17th century Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides, government collapses—the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were unprecedented in both frequency and severity The effects of what historians call the "General Crisis" extended from England to Japan and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas

In this meticulously researched volume, historian Geoffrey Parker presents the firsthand testimony of men and women who experienced the many political, economic, and social crises that occurred between 1618 to the late 1680s He also incorporates the scientific evidence of climate change during this period into the narrative, offering a strikingly new understanding of the General Crisis Changes in weather patterns, especially longer winters and cooler and wetter summers, disrupted growing seasons and destroyed harvests This in turn brought hunger, malnutrition, and disease; and as material conditions worsened, wars, rebellions, and revolutions rocked the world.

The innovation economy begins with discovery and culminates in speculation Over some 250 years, economic growth has been driven by successive processes of trial and error: upstream exercises in research and invention and downstream experiments in exploiting the new economic space opened by innovation

Drawing on his professional experiences, William H Janeway provides an accessible pathway for readers to appreciate the dynamics of the innovation economy He combines personal reflections from a career spanning forty years in venture capital, with the development of an original theory of the role of asset bubbles in financing technological innovation and of the role of the state in playing an enabling role in the innovation process Today, with the state frozen as an economic actor and access to the public equity markets only open to a minority, the innovation economy is stalled; learning the lessons from this book will contribute to its renewal.

Alexis Madrigal reveals how understanding Oakland explains the modern world In The Pacific Circuit, the award-winning journalist Alexis Madrigal sculpts an intricate tableau of the city of Oakland that is at once a groundbreaking big-idea book, a deeply researched work of social and political history, and an intimate portrait of an essential American city that has been at the crossroads of the defining themes of the twenty-first century Oakland’s stories encompass everything from Silicon Valley’s prominence and the ramifications of a compulsively digital future to the underestimated costs of technological innovation on local communities—all personified in this changing landscape for the city’s lifelong inhabitants

The Pacific Circuit holds a magnifying glass to the scars etched by generations of systemic segregation and the ceaseless march of technological advancement These are not just abstract concepts; they are embedded in the very fabric of Oakland and its people, from dockworkers and community organizers to real estate developers and businesspeople chasing the highest possible profits Madrigal delves into city hall politics, traces the intertwining arcs of venture capital and hedge funds, and offers unprecedented insight into Silicon Valley’s genesis and growth, all against the backdrop of Oakland—a city vibrating with untold stories and unexplored connections that can, when read carefully, reveal exactly how our markets and our world really function.

Consider Phlebas is a space opera of stunning power and awesome imagination, from a modern master of science fiction The war raged across the galaxy Billions had died, billions more were doomed Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random

The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist Principles were at stake There could be no surrender Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind

Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, to actually find it - and with it their own destruction Praise for the Culture series 'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday 'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian 'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman 'Compulsive reading' Sunday Telegraph The Culture series: Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata Other books by Iain M Banks: Against a Dark Background Feersum Endjinn The Algebraist

A thrilling, inventive, playful, and unorthodox detective and caper novel, the latest work by a French master. “Fans of Jean-Patrick Manchette's deadpan irony will appreciate Command Performance, Echenoz's vibrant, playful homage to the hard-boiled genre, which plays like The Big Lebowski on the Seine.” —Publishers Weekly Gerard Fulmard is a loser A disgraced former flight attendant, he attempts the métier of private detective, with spectacularly disastrous results, then begins working for an obscure political groupuscule beset by an outsized share of infighting and backroom maneuvering

At first employed as an enforcer, Fulmard is then co-opted by one of the party’s less savory factions, sinking in deeper and deeper until he finds himself the reluctant assassin of the party’s own leader—and that’s when things really start going downhill Meanwhile, projectiles crash down from the sky, corpses turn up in perfect health, main characters suffer sudden death, and nothing is as it seems In Command Performance, Jean Echenoz, one of France’s most respected contemporary writers, toys with the tropes of genre fiction and high literature, displaying the twists of plot and turns of phrase that have become his signature, and that have made him, in the words of The Washington Post, “the most distinctive voice of his generation and the master magician of the contemporary French novel.”

The winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics upend the most common assumptions about how economics works in this gripping and disruptive portrait of how poor people actually live Why do the poor borrow to save Why do they miss out on free life-saving immunizations, but pay for unnecessary drugs In Poor Economics, Abhijit V

Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two award-winning MIT professors, answer these questions based on years of field research from around the world Called "marvelous, rewarding" by the Wall Street Journal, the book offers a radical rethinking of the economics of poverty and an intimate view of life on 99 cents a day Poor Economics shows that creating a world without poverty begins with understanding the daily decisions facing the poor.

A virtuosic mashup of Philip K Dick and Raymond Chandler by way of Marvel—the story of a detective investigating the murder of a Titan, one of society’s most powerful, medically-enhanced elites. • “Cross-genre brilliance from the superbly talented Nick Harkaway.” —William Gibson, New York Times best-selling author of Agency "An exemplar of its genre, Titanium Noir twists and turns between excellent fun and deep melancholy." —The New York Times Book Review Cal Sounder is a detective working for the police on certain very sensitive cases

So when he’s called in to investigate a homicide at a local apartment, he’s surprised by the routineness of it all But when he arrives on scene, Cal soon learns that the victim—Roddy Tebbit, an otherwise milquetoast techie—is well over seven feet tall And although he doesn’t look a day over thirty, he is ninety-one years old

Tebbit is a Titan—one of this dystopian, near-future society’s genetically altered elites And this case is definitely Cal’s thing There are only a few thousand Titans worldwide, thanks to Stefan Tonfamecasca’s discovery of the controversial T7 genetic therapy, which elevated his family to godlike status

T7 turns average humans into near-immortal distortions of themselves—with immense physical proportions to match their ostentatious, unreachable lifestyles A dead Titan is big news . . . a murdered Titan is unimaginable But these modified magnates are Cal’s specialty In fact, his own ex-girlfriend, Athena, is a Titan

And not just any—she is Stefan’s daughter, heir to the massive Tonfamecasca empire As the murder investigation intensifies, Cal begins to unravel the complicated threads of what should have been a straightforward case, and it becomes clear he’s on the trail of a crime whose roots run deep into the dark heart of the world.

FINALIST FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD Named a notable book of 2019 by the New York Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, Time, and The Guardian As featured by The Daily Show, NPR, PBS, CBC, Time, VIBE, Entertainment Weekly, Well-Read Black Girl, and Chris Hayes, "incisive, witty, and provocative essays" (Publishers Weekly) by one of the "most bracing thinkers on race, gender, and capitalism of our time" (Rebecca Traister) “Thick is sure to become a classic.” —The New York Times Book Review In eight highly praised treatises on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom—award-winning professor and acclaimed author of Lower Ed—is unapologetically "thick": deemed "thick where I should have been thin, more where I should have been less," McMillan Cottom refuses to shy away from blending the personal with the political, from bringing her full self and voice to the fore of her analytical work Thick "transforms narrative moments into analyses of whiteness, black misogyny, and status-signaling as means of survival for black women" (Los Angeles Review of Books) with "writing that is as deft as it is amusing" (Darnell L

Moore) This "transgressive, provocative, and brilliant" (Roxane Gay) collection cements McMillan Cottom's position as a public thinker capable of shedding new light on what the "personal essay" can do She turns her chosen form into a showcase for her critical dexterity, investigating everything from Saturday Night Live, LinkedIn, and BBQ Becky to sexual violence, infant mortality, and Trump rallies Collected in an indispensable volume that speaks to the everywoman and the erudite alike, these unforgettable essays never fail to be "painfully honest and gloriously affirming" and hold "a mirror to your soul and to that of America" (Dorothy Roberts).

Extraordinary."-CHRIS MILLER, author of Chip War "Incredible."-ANNIE JACOBSEN, author of Nuclear War, via X From John Lechner, "an amazingly bold reporter" (Adam Hochschild), the shocking inside story of how the Wagner Group made private military companies inextricable from Russia's anti-Western foreign strategy In 2014, a well-trained, mysterious band of mercenaries arrived in Ukraine, part of Russia's first attempt to claim the country as its own

Upon ceasefire, the “Wagner Group” faded back into shadow, only to reemerge in the Middle East, where they'd go toe-to-toe with the U.S., and in Africa, where they'd earn praise for “tough measures” against insurgencies yet spark outrage for looting, torture, and civilian deaths As Russia gained a foothold of influence abroad, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as “Putin's Chef,” went from caterer to commander to single greatest threat Putin has faced in his over-twenty-year rule

Dually armed with military and strategic prowess, the Wagner Group created a new market in a vast geopolitical landscape increasingly receptive to the promises of private actors In this trailblazing account of the Group's origins and operations, John Lechner-the only journalist to report across its many warzones-brings us on the ground to witness Wagner partner with fragile nation states, score access to natural resources, oust peacekeeping missions, and cash in on conflicts reframed as Kremlin interests

After rebelling, Prigozhin faced an epic demise-but Wagner lives on, its political, business, and military ventures a pillar of Russian operations the world over Featuring exclusive interviews with over thirty Wagner Group members, Death Is Our Business is the terrifying true tale of the renegade militia that proved global instability is nothing if not an opportunity.

We are well aware of the rise of the 1% as the rapid growth of economic inequality has put the majority of the world’s wealth in the pockets of fewer and fewer One much-discussed solution to this imbalance is to significantly increase the rate at which we tax the wealthy But with an enormous amount of the world’s wealth hidden in tax havens—in countries like Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands—this wealth cannot be fully accounted for and taxed fairly

No one, from economists to bankers to politicians, has been able to quantify exactly how much of the world’s assets are currently hidden—until now Gabriel Zucman is the first economist to offer reliable insight into the actual extent of the world’s money held in tax havens And it’s staggering In The Hidden Wealth of Nations, Zucman offers an inventive and sophisticated approach to quantifying how big the problem is, how tax havens work and are organized, and how we can begin to approach a solution

His research reveals that tax havens are a quickly growing danger to the world economy In the past five years, the amount of wealth in tax havens has increased over 25%—there has never been as much money held offshore as there is today This hidden wealth accounts for at least $7.6 trillion, equivalent to 8% of the global financial assets of households

Fighting the notion that any attempts to vanquish tax havens are futile, since some countries will always offer more advantageous tax rates than others, as well the counter-argument that since the financial crisis tax havens have disappeared, Zucman shows how both sides are actually very wrong In The Hidden Wealth of Nations he offers an ambitious agenda for reform, focused on ways in which countries can change the incentives of tax havens Only by first understanding the enormity of the secret wealth can we begin to estimate the kind of actions that would force tax havens to give up their practices

Zucman’s work has quickly become the gold standard for quantifying the amount of the world’s assets held in havens In this concise book, he lays out in approachable language how the international banking system works and the dangerous extent to which the large-scale evasion of taxes is undermining the global market as a whole If we are to find a way to solve the problem of increasing inequality, The Hidden Wealth of Nations is essential reading.

How America's high standard of living came to be and why future growth is under threat In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, motor vehicles, air travel, and television transformed households and workplaces But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end

Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growth challenges the view that economic growth will continue unabated, and demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870 and 1970 cannot be repeated Gordon contends that the nation's productivity growth will be further held back by the headwinds of rising inequality, stagnating education, an aging population, and the rising debt of college students and the federal government, and that we must find new solutions A critical voice in the most pressing debates of our time, The Rise and Fall of American Growth is at once a tribute to a century of radical change and a harbinger of tougher times to come.

In this classic work of economic history and social theory, Karl Polanyi analyzes the economic and social changes brought about by the "great transformation" of the Industrial Revolution His analysis explains not only the deficiencies of the self-regulating market, but the potentially dire social consequences of untempered market capitalism New introductory material reveals the renewed importance of Polanyi's seminal analysis in an era of globalization and free trade.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A suspenseful behind-the-scenes look at the dysfunction that contributed to one of the worst tragedies in modern aviation: the 2018 and 2019 crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX An "authoritative, gripping and finely detailed narrative that charts the decline of one of the great American companies" (New York Times Book Review), from the award-winning reporter for Bloomberg Boeing is a century-old titan of industry

It played a major role in the early days of commercial flight, World War II bombing missions, and moon landings The planemaker remains a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, as well as a linchpin in the awesome routine of modern air travel But in 2018 and 2019, two crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 killed 346 people

The crashes exposed a shocking pattern of malfeasance, leading to the biggest crisis in the company’s history—and one of the costliest corporate scandals ever How did things go so horribly wrong at Boeing Flying Blind is the definitive exposé of the disasters that transfixed the world Drawing from exclusive interviews with current and former employees of Boeing and the FAA; industry executives and analysts; and family members of the victims, it reveals how a broken corporate culture paved the way for catastrophe

It shows how in the race to beat the competition and reward top executives, Boeing skimped on testing, pressured employees to meet unrealistic deadlines, and convinced regulators to put planes into service without properly equipping them or their pilots for flight It examines how the company, once a treasured American innovator, became obsessed with the bottom line, putting shareholders over customers, employees, and communities By Bloomberg investigative journalist Peter Robison, who covered Boeing as a beat reporter during the company’s fateful merger with McDonnell Douglas in the late ‘90s, this is the story of a business gone wildly off course At once riveting and disturbing, it shows how an iconic company fell prey to a win-at-all-costs mentality, threatening an industry and endangering countless lives.

The inside story of one of history's greatest business scandals, in which top executives of America's seventh largest company walked away with over one billion dollars while investors and employees lost everything.

The story of the American Right is often told as the fusion of the free market and religion Yet recent decades have seen the rise of a new fusionism which turns to nature and science to defend naturalized inequality and the Social Darwinist virtues of competition"--

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A brilliant evocation of one of the greatest presidents in American history by the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War "It may well be the best general biography of Franklin Roosevelt we will see for many years to come.” —The Christian Science Monitor Drawing on archival material, public speeches, correspondence and accounts by those closest to Roosevelt early in his career and during his presidency, H W

Brands shows how Roosevelt transformed American government during the Depression with his New Deal legislation, and carefully managed the country's prelude to war Brands shows how Roosevelt's friendship and regard for Winston Churchill helped to forge one of the greatest alliances in history, as Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin maneuvered to defeat Germany and prepare for post-war Europe.

Since the Cold War, outer space has become of strategic importance for nations looking to seize the ultimate high ground World powers establishing a presence there must consider, among other things, how they will conduct warfare in orbit Leaders must dispense with "Buck Rogers" notions about operations in space and realize that policies there will have serious ramifications for geopolitics

How should nations view space How should they fight there What would space warfare look like and how should strategists approach it Offering critical observations regarding this unique theater of international relations, a military professional explores the strategic implications as human affairs move beyond Earth's atmosphere.

***A NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB MUST-READ BOOK OF NOVEMBER 2024*** "A wild success." — Publishers Weekly "A surefire hit." —Library Journal STARRED review "A brilliant star turn." —Andrew O’Hagan A riotous and revealing story of Hollywood’s most spectacular flops and how they ended careers, bankrupted studios and changed film history. "Failure fascinates, for all the reasons that success is a drag…” From grand follies to misunderstood masterpieces, disastrous sequels to catastrophic literary adaptations, Box Office Poison tells a hugely entertaining alternative history of Hollywood, through a century of its most notable flops What can these films tell us about the Hollywood system, the public’s appetite–or lack of it–and the circumstances that saw such flops actually made

Away from the canon, this is the definitive take on these ill-fated, but essential celluloid failures Robey covers a vast century of flops, including: Intolerance; Queen Kelly; Freaks; Sylvia Scarlett; The Magnificent Ambersons; Land of the Pharoahs; Doctor Dolittle; Sorcerer; Dune; The Adventures of Baron Munchausen; Nothing But Trouble; The Hudsucker Proxy; Cutthroat Island; Speed 2: Cruise Control; Babe: Pig in the City; Supernova; Rollerball; The Adventures of Pluto Nash; Gigli; Alexander; Catwoman; A Sound of Thunder; Speed Racer; Synecdoche, New York; Pan; and Cats From Daily Telegraph film critic Tim Robey, this is a brilliantly fun exploration of human nature and stupidity in some of the greatest film flops throughout history.

*WINNER OF THE 2021 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE* *ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2021* Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction Shortlisted for the 2022 DUBLIN Literary Award "Astonishingly good." —Lily Meyer, NPR "So incantatory and visceral I don’t think I’ll ever forget it." —Ali Smith, The Guardian | Best Books of 2020 One of The Wall Street Journal's 11 best books of the fall | One of The A.V Club's fifteen best books of 2020 |A Sunday Times best book of the year Selected by students across France to win the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, David Diop’s English-language, historical fiction debut At Night All Blood is Black is a “powerful, hypnotic, and dark novel” (Livres Hebdo) of terror and transformation in the trenches of the First World War

Alfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who, never before having left his village, finds himself fighting as a so-called “Chocolat” soldier with the French army during World War I When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man’s Land Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa’s mind as he comes to see this refusal as a cruel moment of cowardice

Anxious to avenge the death of his friend and find forgiveness for himself, he begins a macabre ritual: every night he sneaks across enemy lines to find and murder a blue-eyed German soldier, and every night he returns to base, unharmed, with the German’s severed hand At first his comrades look at Alfa’s deeds with admiration, but soon rumors begin to circulate that this super soldier isn’t a hero, but a sorcerer, a soul-eater Plans are hatched to get Alfa away from the front, and to separate him from his growing collection of hands, but how does one reason with a demon, and how far will Alfa go to make amends to his dead friend

Peppered with bullets and black magic, this remarkable novel fills in a forgotten chapter in the history of World War I Blending oral storytelling traditions with the gritty, day-to-day, journalistic horror of life in the trenches, David Diop's At Night All Blood is Black is a dazzling tale of a man’s descent into madness.

The internationally bestselling author of The Anarchy returns with a sparkling, soaring history of ideas, tracing South Asia's under-recognized role in producing the world as we know it For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilization, creating around it a vast empire of ideas Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the world, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific

In The Golden Road, William Dalrymple draws from a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India's oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia For the first time, he gives a name to this spread of Indian ideas that transformed the world From the largest Hindu temple in the world at Angkor Wat to the Buddhism of China, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire to the creation of the numerals we use today (including zero), India transformed the culture and technology of its ancient world – and our world today as we know it.

This book analyzes the emergence of neomercantilist thought between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, highlighting the global origins of this ideology, its diverse varieties, and the lasting legacies of the ideas of its pioneers on the politics of the world economy"--

Contemporary China is seen as a place of widespread commodification and consumerism, while the preceeding Maoist Cultural Revolution is typically understood as a time when goods were scarce and the state criticized what little consumption was possible Indeed, with the exception of the likeness and words of Mao Zedong, both the media and material culture of the Cultural Revolution are often characterized as a void out of which the postsocialist world of commodity consumption miraculously sprang fully formed

In Newborn Socialist Things, Laurence Coderre explores the material culture of the Cultural Revolution to show how it paved the way for commodification in contemporary China Examining objects ranging from retail counters and porcelain statuettes to textbooks and vanity mirrors, she shows how the project of building socialism in China has always been intimately bound up with consumption By focusing on these objects—or “newborn socialist things”—along with the Cultural Revolution’s media environment, discourses of materiality, and political economy, Coderre reconfigures understandings of the origins of present-day China.

From Laila Lalami-the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a maestra of literary fiction; (NPR)-comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman's fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime

Using data from her dreams, the RAA's algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes

With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.

A 2024 US AIR FORCE LEADERSHIP LIBRARY BOOK NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE AWARDS WINNER — TECHNOLOGY As the world rolls out transformational 5G services, it has become increasingly clear that China may be able to disrupt—or even access—the wireless networks that carry our medical, financial, and even military communications This insider story from a telecommunications veteran uncovers how we got into this mess—and how to change the outcome In Wireless Wars: China's Dangerous Domination of 5G and How We're Fighting Back, author Jon Pelson explains how America invented cellular technology, taught China how to make the gear, and then handed them the market

Pelson shares never-before-told stories from the executives and scientists who built the industry and describes how China undercut and destroyed competing equipment makers, freeing themselves to export their nation’s network gear—and their surveillance state He also reveals China’s successful program to purchase the support of the world’s leading political, business, and military figures in their effort to control rival nations’ networks What’s more, Pelson draws on his lifelong experience in the telecommunications industry and remarkable access to the sector’s leaders to reveal how innovative companies can take on the Chinese threat and work with counterintelligence and cybersecurity experts to prevent China from closing the trap

He offers unparalleled insights into how 5G impacts businesses, national security and you Finally, Wireless Wars proposes how America can use its own unique superpower to retake the lead from China This book is about more than just 5G wireless services, which enable self-driving cars, advanced telemedicine, and transformational industrial capabilities

It’s about the dangers of placing our most sensitive information into the hands of foreign companies who answer to the Chinese Communist Party And it’s about the technology giant that China is using to project its power around the world; Huawei, a global super-company that has surged from a local vendor to a $120 billion-a-year behemoth in just a few years For anyone curious about the hottest issue at the intersection of technology and geopolitics, Wireless Wars offers an immersive crash course and an unforgettable read.

Tyson's journey from student to senior executive when an entirely new world of human communications came into being He traces the development of corporate identity, vision, and activities of Bell-Northern Research (BNR), which would become one of the most innovative and widely respected research-and-development organizations in the world.

“ExxonMobil has met its match in Coll, an elegant writer and dogged reporter . . . extraordinary . . . monumental.” —The Washington Post “Fascinating . . Private Empire is a book meticulously prepared as if for trial . . . a compelling and elucidatory work.” —Bloomberg From the Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling author of Ghost Wars and The Achilles Trap, an extraordinary exposé of Big Oil Includes a profile of current Secretary of State and former chairman and chief executive of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson In this, the first hard-hitting examination of ExxonMobil—the largest and most powerful private corporation in the United States—Steve Coll reveals the true extent of its power

Private Empire pulls back the curtain, tracking the corporation’s recent history and its central role on the world stage, beginning with the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 and leading to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 The action spans the globe—featuring kidnapping cases, civil wars, and high-stakes struggles at the Kremlin—and the narrative is driven by larger-than-life characters, including corporate legend Lee “Iron Ass” Raymond, ExxonMobil’s chief executive until 2005, and current chairman and chief executive Rex Tillerson, President-elect Donald Trump's nomination for Secretary of State A penetrating, news-breaking study, Private Empire is a defining portrait of Big Oil in American politics and foreign policy.

A panoramic history of the Muslim world from the age of the Prophet Muḥammad to the birth of the modern era This book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world The body of the book takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the nineteenth century, and an epilogue continues the story to the present day Michael Cook thus provides a broad history of a civilization remarkable for both its unity and diversity

After setting the scene in the Middle East of late antiquity, the book depicts the rise of Islam as one of the great black swan events of history It continues with the spectacular rise of the Caliphate, an empire that by the time it broke up had nurtured the formation of a new civilization It then goes on to cover the diverse histories of all the major regions of the Muslim world, providing a wide-ranging account of the key military, political, and cultural developments that accompanied the eastward and westward spread of Islam from the Middle East to the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific At the same time, A History of the Muslim World contains numerous primary-source quotations that expose the reader to a variety of acutely insightful voices from the Muslim past.

The untold story of the mysterious company that shook the world 'Groundbreaking' Dan Wang 'Essential reading' Chris Miller, author of Chip War On the coast of southern China, an eccentric entrepreneur spent three decades steadily building an obscure telecom company into one of the world's most powerful technological empires with hardly anyone noticing This all changed in December 2018, when the detention of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies' female scion, sparked an international hostage standoff, poured fuel on the U.S.-China trade war, and suddenly thrust the mysterious company into the international spotlight

In House of Huawei, Washington Post technology reporter Eva Dou pieces together a remarkable portrait of Huawei's reclusive founder Ren Zhengfei and how he built a sprawling corporate empire - one whose rise Western policymakers have become increasingly obsessed with halting The book dissects the global web of power, money, influence, surveillance, bloodshed and national glory that Huawei helped to build - and that has also ensnared it Based on wide-ranging interviews and painstaking archival research, House of Huawei tells an epic story of familial and political intrigue that presents a fresh window on China's rise from third-world country to U.S. rival, and shines a clarifying light on the security considerations that keep world leaders up at night House of Huawei holds a mirror up to one of the world's most mysterious companies as never before.

It's easier than ever to share ideas, yet some of the most interesting ideas are burrowing deeper underground, circulating quietly among group chats, texts, and whisper networks While memes - self-replicating bits of culture - thrive in an attention-driven economy, other ideas are becoming strangely harder to find Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading explores this paradox, uncovering the hidden forces that determine what we remember, what we forget, and why some ideas - no matter how compelling - resist going viral

Drawing on historical examples, internet phenomena, and the mechanics of attention, as well as her experiences in the technology sector, Nadia Asparouhova examines how cultural and technological systems shape what enters the public consciousness She argues that while some ideas spread effortlessly, others are structurally resistant to spread, whether due to their complexity, our personal discomfort with these ideas, or a lack of incentives to share them

As we collectively navigate a highly charged, memetic world where the hive mind dictates what we see and think about, Antimemetics offers a new way to think about our place in the information ecosystem It's easy to be overwhelmed by the tide of viral noise, and often it seems like the only options are to either disengage or be swept away But withdrawing from the conversation isn't the only answer By noticing what gets lost in the memetic churn, we can reclaim our attention, find thoughtful ways to participate, and shape the exchange of ideas - rather than letting it unconsciously shape us.

A groundbreaking history of fengshui's roles in public life and law during China's last imperial dynasty Today the term fengshui, which literally means "wind and water," is recognized around the world Yet few know exactly what it means, let alone its fascinating history In Laws of the Land, Tristan Brown tells the story of the important roles--especially legal ones--played by fengshui in Chinese society during China's last imperial dynasty, the Manchu Qing (1644-1912)

Employing archives from Mainland China and Taiwan that have only recently become available, this is the first book to document fengshui's invocations in Chinese law during the Qing dynasty Facing a growing population, dwindling natural resources, and an overburdened rural government, judicial administrators across China grappled with disputes and petitions about fengshui in their efforts to sustain forestry, farming, mining, and city planning Laws of the Land offers a radically new interpretation of these legal arrangements: they worked

An intelligent, considered, and sustained engagement with fengshui on the ground helped the imperial state keep the peace and maintain its legitimacy, especially during the increasingly turbulent decades of the nineteenth century As the century came to an end, contentious debates over industrialization swept across the bureaucracy, with fengshui invoked by officials and scholars opposed to the establishment of railways, telegraphs, and foreign-owned mines Demonstrating that the only way to understand those debates and their profound stakes is to grasp fengshui's longstanding roles in Chinese public life, Laws of the Land rethinks key issues in the history of Chinese law, politics, science, religion, and economics.

A groundbreaking book by one of the most important thinkers of our time shows how technology is warping our social lives and our inner ones Technology has become the architect of our intimacies Online, we fall prey to the illusion of companionship, gathering thousands of Twitter and Facebook friends, and confusing tweets and wall posts with authentic communication But this relentless connection leads to a deep solitude

MIT professor Sherry Turkle argues that as technology ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down Based on hundreds of interviews and with a new introduction taking us to the present day, Alone Together describes changing, unsettling relationships between friends, lovers, and families.

This book is a reassessment of British performance in manufacturing since 1850 in the light of new evidence on international comparisons of productivity It analyzes productivity levels in Britain, the United States and Germany and provides detailed case studies of all the major manufacturing industries over the past century and a half Stephen Broadberry uncovers new ways of looking at Britain's relative economic decline while debunking a number of misapprehensions regarding the nature and causes of the decline.

Out of a liberal, capitalist, genuinely global power of a unique kind, there arose from the 1940s a distinct British nation This nation was committed to internal change, making it much more like the great continental powers From the 1970s it became bound up both with the European Union and with foreign capital in new ways

David Edgerton's fascinating perspective produces refreshed understanding of everything from the nature of British politics to the performance of British industry Packed with surprising examples and arguments, The Rise and Fall of the British Nation gives us a grown-up, unsentimental history, one which is crucial at a moment of serious reconsideration for the country and its future.

It is a curious and relatively little-known fact that for two decades—from the end of World War II until the late 1960s—existentialism’s most fertile ground outside of Europe was in the Middle East, and Jean-Paul Sartre was the Arab intelligentsia’s uncontested champion In the Arab world, neither before nor since has another Western intellectual been so widely translated, debated, and celebrated By closely following the remarkable career of Arab existentialism, Yoav Di-Capua reconstructs the cosmopolitan milieu of the generation that tried to articulate a political and philosophical vision for an egalitarian postcolonial world

He tells this story by touring a fascinating selection of Arabic and Hebrew archives, including unpublished diaries and interviews Tragically, the warm and hopeful relationships forged between Arab intellectuals, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and others ended when, on the eve of the 1967 war, Sartre failed to embrace the Palestinian cause Today, when the prospect of global ethical engagement seems to be slipping ever farther out of reach, No Exit provides a timely, humanistic account of the intellectual hopes, struggles, and victories that shaped the Arab experience of decolonization and a delightfully wide-ranging excavation of existentialism’s non-Western history.

Investment is no longer a matter of individual savers directly choosing which shares or bonds to buy Rather, most of their money flows through a 'chain': an often extended sequence of intermediaries What goes on in that chain is of huge importance: The world's investment managers, who are now almost as well paid as top bankers, control assets equivalent in value to around a year of total global economic output

In Chains of Finance, five social scientists discuss the ways in which the intermediaries in the chain influence each other, channel the flows of savers' money, enhance investment decisions, and form audiences for each other's performances of financially competent selves The central argument of the book is that investment management is fashioned profoundly by the opportunities and constraints this chain creates Whether chains constrain or enable, however, they always entangle, tying intermediaries to each other - silently and profoundly shaping the investment management industry

Chains of Finance is a novel analysis that will make students, social scientists, financial professionals, and regulators looking at the workings of financial markets in a new light A must-read for anyone looking for insights into the decision-making processes of investment managers and those influenced by and working for them.

Clarifies and explains the complex workings of Florence's commercial, banking, and artisan sectors This book focuses on the urban economy of Florence itself, including various industries, merchants, artisans, and investors.

Scientific knowledge grows at a phenomenal pace--but few books have had as lasting an impact or played as important a role in our modern world as The Mathematical Theory of Communication, published originally as a paper on communication theory more than fifty years ago Republished in book form shortly thereafter, it has since gone through four hardcover and sixteen paperback printings It is a revolutionary work, astounding in its foresight and contemporaneity The University of Illinois Press is pleased and honored to issue this commemorative reprinting of a classic.

Gambling Man is the biography of one of the world’s least known but most consequential investors Japan’s Masayoshi Son has made and lost several fortunes, investing or controlling assets worth $1 trillion in the past two decades through his media-tech giant, SoftBank He bankrolled Alibaba, China’s internet colossus, before the world had heard about it; plotted with Steve Jobs to turn the iPhone into a wonder product; and financed hundreds of tech start-ups, fuelling the biggest boom Silicon Valley has ever seen

This book takes you on Son’s wild ride, from his birthplace in a Korean slum in post-war Japan to the modern-day temples of power It speeds through Donald Trump’s golden skyscraper in Manhattan, the royal palaces of Riyadh and the throne rooms of China’s Marxist rulers; all places where Son has deployed his unique blend of financial engineering and crazy risk-taking Son’s story captures a 25 year-span of hyper-globalisation in which money, technologies and ideas flowed freely

From the launch of the microchip to the advent of artificial intelligence, he has ridden the technological wave which has created extraordinary wealth and economic change His topsy-turvy business career is testimony to the power of optimism, daring to dream, ever in search of the Next Big Thing As an ethnic Korean in Japan, Son has overcome adversity and discrimination to become Japan’s best-known businessman and empire-builder but he remains an elusive, intensely private figure

This book, by a former editor of the Financial Times, contains a wealth of new information and has had the co-operation of many of the key participants, including Son himself Written with a verve appropriate to its subject, Gambling Man reveals the man behind the money, what drives him, why he matters, and what he plans for his next act.

#1 New York Times Bestseller “Careless People is darkly funny and genuinely shocking...Not only does [Sarah Wynn-Williams] have the storytelling chops to unspool a gripping narrative; she also delivers the goods." -Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times “When one of the world’s most powerful media companies tries to snuff out a book — amid other alarming attacks on free speech in America like this — it’s time to pull out all the stops.” –Ron Charles, The Washington Post An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold

In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.” Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade—told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.

From the author of the award-winning The Master Switch, who coined the term "net neutrality”—a revelatory, ambitious and urgent account of how the capture and re-sale of human attention became the defining industry of our time. "Dazzling." —Financial Times Ours is often called an information economy, but at a moment when access to information is virtually unlimited, our attention has become the ultimate commodity In nearly every moment of our waking lives, we face a barrage of efforts to harvest our attention

This condition is not simply the byproduct of recent technological innovations but the result of more than a century's growth and expansion in the industries that feed on human attention Wu’s narrative begins in the nineteenth century, when Benjamin Day discovered he could get rich selling newspapers for a penny Since then, every new medium—from radio to television to Internet companies such as Google and Facebook—has attained commercial viability and immense riches by turning itself into an advertising platform

Since the early days, the basic business model of “attention merchants” has never changed: free diversion in exchange for a moment of your time, sold in turn to the highest-bidding advertiser Full of lively, unexpected storytelling and piercing insight, The Attention Merchants lays bare the true nature of a ubiquitous reality we can no longer afford to accept at face value.

In this classic work of women's history (winner of the 1984 Dexter Prize from the Society for the History of Technology), Ruth Schwartz Cowan shows how and why modern women devote as much time to housework as did their colonial sisters In lively and provocative prose, Cowan explains how the modern conveniences—washing machines, white flour, vacuums, commercial cotton—seemed at first to offer working-class women middle-class standards of comfort Over time, however, it became clear that these gadgets and gizmos mainly replaced work previously conducted by men, children, and servants Instead of living lives of leisure, middle-class women found themselves struggling to keep up with ever higher standards of cleanliness.

‘Fiercely intelligent, very funny and unlike anything else I’ve ever read’ MARK HADDON 'Original...witty...playful...a wonderfully funny book' JAMES WOOD 'A triumph – a genuinely new story, a genuinely new form' A S BYATT Eleven-year-old Ludo is in search of a father Raised singlehandedly by his mother Sibylla, Ludo’s been reading Greek, Arabic, Japanese and a little Hebrew since the age of four; but reading Homer in the original whilst riding the Circle Line on the London Underground isn’t enough to satisfy the boy’s boundless curiosity

Is he a genius A real-life child prodigy He’s grown up watching Seven Samurai on a hypnotising loop – his mother’s strategy to give him not one but seven male role models And yet Ludo remains obsessed with the one thing his mother refuses to tell him: his real father’s name Let loose on London, Ludo sets out on a secret quest to find the last samurai – the father he never knew.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR A WASHINGTON POST TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD AND THE MARK TWAIN AMERICAN VOICE IN LITERATURE AWARD A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries—“a time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic” (The Washington Post) from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier. “With the expansiveness and immersive feeling of two-time Booker Prize nominee David Mitchell’s fiction (Cloud Atlas), the wicked creepiness of Edgar Allan Poe, and Mason’s bone-deep knowledge of and appreciation for the natural world that’s on par with that of Thoreau, North Woods fires on all cylinders.”—San Francisco Chronicle New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, The Boston Globe, NPR, Chicago Public Library, The Star Tribune, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, Real Simple, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Bookreporter When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples

A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave—only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets A lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: As the inhabitants confront the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive

This magisterial and highly inventive novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason brims with love and madness, humor and hope Following the cycles of history, nature, and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment, to history, and to one another It is not just an unforgettable novel about secrets and destinies, but a way of looking at the world that asks the timeless question: How do we live on, even after we’re gone?

Ever since the French Revolution, Madame de Pompadour's comment, "Après moi, le déluge" (after me, the deluge), has looked like a callous if accurate prophecy of the political cataclysms that began in 1789 But decades before the Bastille fell, French writers had used the phrase to describe a different kind of selfish recklessness--not toward the flood of revolution but, rather, toward the flood of public debt In Before the Deluge, Michael Sonenscher examines these fears and the responses to them, and the result is nothing less than a new way of thinking about the intellectual origins of the French Revolution

In this nightmare vision of the future, many prerevolutionary observers predicted that the pressures generated by modern war finance would set off a chain of debt defaults that would either destroy established political orders or cause a sudden lurch into despotic rule Nor was it clear that constitutional government could keep this possibility at bay Constitutional government might make public credit more secure, but public credit might undermine constitutional government itself

Before the Deluge examines how this predicament gave rise to a widespread eighteenth-century interest in figuring out how to establish and maintain representative governments able to realize the promise of public credit while avoiding its peril By doing so, the book throws new light on a neglected aspect of modern political thought and on the French Revolution.

A Financial Times Best Science Book of 2023 “[A] profound, sparkling global ocean voyage.” —Andrew Robinson, Nature A scientist’s exploration of the "ocean engine"—the physics behind the ocean’s systems—and why it matters All of Earth’s oceans, from the equator to the poles, are a single engine powered by sunlight, driving huge flows of energy, water, life, and raw materials In The Blue Machine, physicist and oceanographer Helen Czerski illustrates the mechanisms behind this defining feature of our planet, voyaging from the depths of the ocean floor to tropical coral reefs, estuaries that feed into shallow coastal seas, and Arctic ice floes

Through stories of history, culture, and animals, she explains how water temperature, salinity, gravity, and the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates all interact in a complex dance, supporting life at the smallest scale—plankton—and the largest—giant sea turtles, whales, humankind From the ancient Polynesians who navigated the Pacific by reading the waves, to permanent residents of the deep such as the Greenland shark that can live for hundreds of years, she introduces the messengers, passengers, and voyagers that rely on interlinked systems of vast currents, invisible ocean walls, and underwater waterfalls

Most important, however, Czerski reveals that while the ocean engine has sustained us for thousands of years, today it is faced with urgent threats By understanding how the ocean works, and its essential role in our global system, we can learn how to protect our blue machine Timely, elegant, and passionately argued, The Blue Machine presents a fresh perspective on what it means to be a citizen of an ocean planet.

Threat Multiplier takes us onto the battlefield and inside the Pentagon to show how the US military is confronting the biggest security risk in global history: climate change More than thirty years ago, when Sherri Goodman became the Pentagon’s first Chief Environmental Officer, no one would have imagined this role for our armed forces Indeed, for much of the twentieth century, the Department of Defense (DOD) was better known for containing the Soviet nuclear threat than protecting the environment

And yet, today, the military has moved from an environmental laggard to a clean energy and climate leader, recognizing that a warming world exacerbates every threat—from hurricanes and forest fires, to competition for increasingly scarce food and water, to terrorism and power plays by Russia and China The Pentagon now considers climate in war games, disaster relief planning, international diplomacy, and even the design of its own bases What was the key to this dramatic change in military thinking

What keeps today’s generals and admirals up at night How can we safeguard our national defense and our planet No one is better poised to answer these questions than Sherri Goodman, who was at the vanguard of environmental leadership among our armed forces and civilian representatives In Threat Multiplier, she tells the inside story of the military’s fight for global security, a tale that is as hopeful as it is harrowing.

A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year: “Tells the history of American trade policy . . . [A] grand narrative [that] also debunks trade-policy myths.” —Economist Should the United States be open to commerce with other countries, or should it protect domestic industries from foreign competition This question has been the source of bitter political conflict throughout American history Such conflict was inevitable, James Madison argued in the Federalist Papers, because trade policy involves clashing economic interests

The struggle between the winners and losers from trade has always been fierce because dollars and jobs are at stake: depending on what policy is chosen, some industries, farmers, and workers will prosper, while others will suffer Douglas A Irwin’s Clashing over Commerce is the most authoritative and comprehensive history of US trade policy to date, offering a clear picture of the various economic and political forces that have shaped it

From the start, trade policy divided the nation—first when Thomas Jefferson declared an embargo on all foreign trade and then when South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union over excessive taxes on imports The Civil War saw a shift toward protectionism, which then came under constant political attack Then, controversy over the Smoot-Hawley tariff during the Great Depression led to a policy shift toward freer trade, involving trade agreements that eventually produced the World Trade Organization

Irwin makes sense of this turbulent history by showing how different economic interests tend to be grouped geographically, meaning that every proposed policy change found ready champions and opponents in Congress Deeply researched and rich with insight and detail, Clashing over Commerce provides valuable and enduring insights into US trade policy past and present. “Combines scholarly analysis with a historian’s eye for trends and colorful details . . . readable and illuminating, for the trade expert and for all Americans wanting a deeper understanding of America’s evolving role in the global economy.” —National Review “Magisterial.” —Foreign Affairs

An unsparing investigation into Spotify’s origins and influence on music, weaving unprecedented reporting with incisive cultural criticism, illuminating how streaming is reshaping music for listeners and artists alike Drawing on over one hundred interviews with industry insiders, former Spotify employees, and musicians, Mood Machine takes us to the inner workings of today’s highly consolidated record business, showing what has changed as music has become increasingly playlisted, personalized, and autoplayed

Building on her years of wide-ranging reporting on streaming, music journalist Liz Pelly details the consequences of the Spotify model by examining both sides of what the company calls its two-sided marketplace: the listeners who pay with their dollars and data, and the musicians who provide the material powering it all The music business is notoriously opaque, but here Pelly lifts the veil on major stories like streaming services filling popular playlists with low-cost stock music and the rise of new payola-like practices

For all of the inequities exacerbated by streaming, Pelly also finds hope in chronicling the artist-led fight for better models, pointing toward what must be done collectively to revalue music and create sustainable systems A timely exploration of a company that has become synonymous with music, Mood Machine will change the way you think about and listen to music.

The cassette tape was revolutionary Cheap, portable, and reusable, this small plastic rectangle changed music history Make your own tapes Trade them with friends Tape over the ones you don’t like The cassette tape upended pop culture, creating movements and uniting communities

This entertaining book charts the journey of the cassette from its invention in the early 1960s to its Walkman-led domination in the 1980s to decline at the birth of compact discs to resurgence among independent music makers Scorned by the record industry for “killing music,” the cassette tape rippled through scenes corporations couldn’t control For so many, tapes meant freedom—to create, to invent, to connect

Marc Masters introduces readers to the tape artists who thrive underground; concert tapers who trade bootlegs; mixtape makers who send messages with cassettes; tape hunters who rescue forgotten sounds; and today’s labels, which reject streaming and sell music on cassette Their stories celebrate the cassette tape as dangerous, vital, and radical.

Wind energy is often portrayed as a panacea for the environmental and political ills brought on by an overreliance on fossil fuels, but this characterization may ignore the impact wind farms have on the regions that host them Power Struggles investigates the uneven allocation of risks and benefits in the relationship between the regions that produce this energy and those that consume it Jaume Franquesa considers Spain, a country where wind now constitutes the main source of energy production

In particular, he looks at the Southern Catalonia region, which has traditionally been a source of energy production through nuclear reactors, dams, oil refineries, and gas and electrical lines Despite providing energy that runs the country, the region is still forced to the political and economic periphery as the power they produce is controlled by centralized, international Spanish corporations Local resistance to wind farm installation in Southern Catalonia relies on the notion of dignity: the ability to live within one's means and according to one's own decisions Power Struggles shows how, without careful attention, renewable energy production can reinforce patterns of exploitation even as it promises a fair and hopeful future.

Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror Jaspers' Axial Age and Logan's Alphabet Effect (2023), argues that all contemporary disturbances are the outcomes of the reversal of literacy and retrieval of orality - in the form of digital orality To explore these reversal and retrieval, the book looks back in history at how literacy replaced orality in the past The idea is that digital media are now replaying this process backward."--Author's wesite, https://human-as-media.com/about/, viewed 2/26/24.

Walter J Ong’s classic work provides a fascinating insight into the social effects of oral, written, printed and electronic technologies, and their impact on philosophical, theological, scientific and literary thought This thirtieth anniversary edition – coinciding with Ong’s centenary year – reproduces his best-known and most influential book in full and brings it up to date with two new exploratory essays by cultural writer and critic John Hartley

Hartley provides: A scene-setting chapter that situates Ong’s work within the historical and disciplinary context of post-war Americanism and the rise of communication and media studies; A closing chapter that follows up Ong’s work on orality and literacy in relation to evolving media forms, with a discussion of recent criticisms of Ong’s approach, and an assessment of his concept of the ‘evolution of consciousness’; Extensive references to recent scholarship on orality, literacy and the study of knowledge technologies, tracing changes in how we know what we know These illuminating essays contextualize Ong within recent intellectual history, and display his work’s continuing force in the ongoing study of the relationship between literature and the media, as well as that of psychology, education and sociological thought.

Oil Revolution chronicles the rise and fall of anti-colonial oil elites who forged a new international culture of economic dissent from the 1950s to the 1970s.

A cabal of tech-billionaires is colluding with once-idealistic journalists to create an entirely new media landscape Owned is the story of the underreported and growing collusion between new wealth and new journalism In recent years, right-wing billionaires like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and David Sacks have turned to media as their next investment and source of influence

Their cronies are Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi—once known as idealistic and left-leaning voices, now beneficiaries of Silicon Valley largesse Together, this new alliance aims to exploit the failings of traditional journalism and undermine the very idea of an independent and fact-based fourth estate Owned examines how this shift has allowed spectacularly wealthy reactionaries to pursue their ultimate goal of censoring critics so to further their own business interests—and personal vendettas—entirely unimpeded while also advancing a toxic and antidemocratic ideology

A rich history of the decades-long rise of this new right-wing alternative media takeover, Owned follows the money, names names, and offers a chilling portrait of a future social media and news landscape It is a biting exposé of journalistic greed, tech-billionaire ambition, and a lament for a disappearing free press.

A detailed, one-stop guide for experienced options traders Positional Option Trading: An Advanced Guide is a rigorous, professional-level guide on sophisticated techniques from professional trader and quantitative analyst Euan Sinclair The author has over two decades of high-level option trading experience He has written this book specifically for professional options traders who have outgrown more basic trading techniques and are searching for in-depth information suitable for advanced trading

Custom-tailored to respond to the volatile option trading environment, this expert guide stresses the importance of finding a valid edge in situations where risk is usually overwhelmed by uncertainty and unknowability Using examples of edges such as the volatility premium, term-structure premia and earnings effects, the author shows how to find valid trading ideas and details the decision process for choosing an option structure that best exploits the advantage

Advanced topics include a quantitative approach for directionally trading options, the robustness of the Black Scholes Merton model, trade sizing for option portfolios, robust risk management and more This book: Provides advanced trading techniques for experienced professional traders Addresses the need for in-depth, quantitative information that more general, intro-level options trading books do not provide Helps readers to master their craft and improve their performance Includes advanced risk management methods in option trading No matter the market conditions, Positional Option Trading: An Advanced Guide is an important resource for any professional or advanced options trader.

An instant Sunday Times bestseller and soon to be a major motion picture! 'Astonishing Compelling Powerful' - Delia Owens, bestselling author of Where the Crawdads Sing 'Stuns with sacrifice Uplifts with heroism' - Bonnie Garmus, bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry 'Powerful' - Matt Haig, bestselling author of The Midnight Library From the worldwide bestselling author of The Four Winds, The Nightingale and Firefly Lane (a Number One series on Netflix), The Women is a story of devastating loss and epic love

It would be the journey of a lifetime . . . 'Women can be heroes, too' When twenty-year-old nursing student, Frances "Frankie" McGrath, hears these unexpected words, it is a revelation Raised on California's idyllic Coronado Island and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing, being a good girl

But in 1965 the world is changing, and she suddenly imagines a different path for her life When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she impulsively joins the Army Nurses Corps and follows his path As green and inexperienced as the young men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war, as well as the unexpected trauma of coming home to a changed America

Frankie will also discover the true value of female friendship and the heartbreak that love can cause Readers love The Women: 'It honours ALL women: those who have fought for their rights and freedoms, those who have been overlooked and underappreciated, those who have been forgotten by families and society' 'I've been looking forward to this book's release for months' 'Kristin Hannah has done it again'

This monograph examines the domain of classical political economy using the methodologies developed in recent years both by the new discipline of econo-physics and by computing science This approach is used to re-examine the classical subdivisions of political economy: production, exchange, distribution and finance

The book begins by examining the most basic feature of economic life – production – and asks what it is about physical laws that allows production to take place How is it that human labour is able to modify the world It looks at the role that information has played in the process of mass production and the extent to which human labour still remains a key resource

The Ricardian labour theory of value is re-examined in the light of econophysics, presenting agent based models in which the Ricardian theory of value appears as an emergent property The authors present models giving rise to the class distribution of income, and the long term evolution of profit rates in market economies Money is analysed using tools drawn both from computer science and the recent Chartalist school of financial theory Covering a combination of techniques drawn from three areas, classical political economy, theoretical computer science and econophysics, to produce models that deepen our understanding of economic reality, this new title will be of interest to higher level doctoral and research students, as well as scientists working in the field of econophysics.

Winner of the SHEAR Book Prize Honorable Mention, Avery O Craven Award “Few books have captured the lived experience of slavery as powerfully.” —Ari Kelman, Times Literary Supplement “[One] of the most impressive works of American history in many years.” —The Nation “An important, arguably seminal, book...Always trenchant and learned.” —Wall Street Journal A landmark history, by the author of National Book Critics Circle Award finalist The Broken Heart of America, that shows how slavery fueled Southern capitalism

When Jefferson acquired the Louisiana Territory, he envisioned an “empire for liberty” populated by self-sufficient white farmers Cleared of Native Americans and the remnants of European empires by Andrew Jackson, the Mississippi Valley was transformed instead into a booming capitalist economy commanded by wealthy planters, powered by steam engines, and dependent on the coerced labor of slaves River of Dark Dreams places the Cotton Kingdom at the center of worldwide webs of exchange and exploitation that extended across oceans and drove an insatiable hunger for new lands

This bold reconsideration dramatically alters our understanding of American slavery and its role in U.S. expansionism, global capitalism, and the upcoming Civil War Walter Johnson deftly traces the connections between the planters’ pro-slavery ideology, Atlantic commodity markets, and Southern schemes for global ascendency

Using slave narratives, popular literature, legal records, and personal correspondence, he recreates the harrowing details of daily life under cotton’s dark dominion We meet the confidence men and gamblers who made the Valley shimmer with promise, the slave dealers, steamboat captains, and merchants who supplied the markets, the planters who wrung their civilization out of the minds and bodies of their human property, and the true believers who threatened the Union by trying to expand the Cotton Kingdom on a global scale

But at the center of the story are the enslaved people who pulled down the forests, planted the fields, picked the cotton—who labored, suffered, and resisted on the dark underside of the American dream. “Shows how the Cotton Kingdom of the 19th-century Deep South, far from being a backward outpost of feudalism, was a dynamic engine of capitalist expansion built on enslaved labor.” —A O Scott, New York Times “River of Dark Dreams delivers spectacularly on the long-standing mission to write ‘history from the bottom up.’” —Maya Jasanoff, New York Review of Books

As dreams of our technological future have turned into nightmares, some blame harmful algorithms or greedy CEOs for the negative consequences of innovation Behind the Startup takes a different approach

Drawing on 19 months of participant-observation research inside a successful Silicon Valley startup, this book examines how the company was organized to meet the needs of the venture capital investors who funded it Investors push startups to 'scale' as quickly as possible to inflate the value of their asset I show how these demands created organizational problems that managers could only solve by combining high-tech systems with low-wage human labor

With its focus on the financialization of innovation, Behind the Startup explains how the gains generated by Silicon Valley companies are funneled into the pockets of a small cadre of elite investors and entrepreneurs Readers will come away from the book with the understanding that if we want to promote innovation that benefits the many rather than the few, we need to focus less on fixing the technology and more on changing the financial infrastructure that supports it"--

Winner of the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, China Miéville's astonishing Embassytown is an intelligent and immersive exploration of language in an alien world Embassytown: a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the universe Avice is an immerser, a traveller on the immer, the sea of space and time below the everyday, now returned to her birth planet

Here on Arieka, humans are not the only intelligent life, and Avice has a rare bond with the natives, the enigmatic Hosts - who cannot lie Only a tiny cadre of unique human Ambassadors can speak Language, and connect the two communities But an unimaginable new arrival has come to Embassytown And when this Ambassador speaks, everything changes

Catastrophe looms Avice knows the only hope is for her to speak directly to the alien Hosts And that is impossible.

The groundbreaking novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Pastoral that originally propelled its author to literary stardom: told in a continuous monologue from patient to psychoanalyst, this masterpiece draws us into the turbulent mind of one lust-ridden young Jewish bachelor named Alexander Portnoy One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years “Deliciously funny . . . absurd and exuberant, wild and uproarious . . . a brilliantly vivid reading experience”—The New York Times Book Review “Touching as well as hilariously lewd . .

Roth is vibrantly talented”—New York Review of Books Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933- )] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature Spielvogel says: 'Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient's "morality," however, neither fantasy nor act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but rather in overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution, particularly in the form of castration.' (Spielvogel, O. "The Puzzled Penis," Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, Vol XXIV, p. 909.) It is believed by Spielvogel that many of the symptoms can be traced to the bonds obtaining in the mother-child relationship.

Why did Thomas Jefferson write that he would be happy if all dogs went extinct What economic opportunity did attorney John Lord Hayes envision for the newly emancipated during Reconstruction What American workers were mocked by Theodore Roosevelt as “morose, melancholy men” What problems with revenue collection did Congressman James Beauchamp Clark mention when proposing an income tax

Why did Harley O Gable of Armour & Company recommend that his meat-packing business manufacture violin strings Why was Senator Lyndon Johnson angry at the Army and Navy Munitions Board at the start of the Korean War The answers to all these questions involve sheep

From the colonial era through the mid-twentieth century, America’s flocks played a key role in the nation’s development Furthermore, much consternation centered around the sheep the United States lacked, so that dependency on foreign wool—a headache in times of peace—became a full-blown crisis in wartime But more than just providers of wool, sheep were valued for their meat, for their byproducts after slaughter, and even for their efficiency at lawn maintenance

Here is the story of the complex and fascinating relationship between Americans and their sheep Brett Bannor explains how sheep have significantly impacted the broader growth and development of the United States The history of America’s sheep encompasses topics that touch on many cornerstones of the American experience, such as enslavement, warfare, western expansion, industrialization, taxation, feminism, conservation, and labor relations, among others.

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 their lives during Mao’s Cultural Revolution These changes, and the unprecedented and sustained economic growth that followed, transformed China and the world

In this rigorous account, Westad and Chen construct a panorama of catastrophe and progress in China They chronicle China’s gradual opening to the world—the interplay of power in an era of aged and ailing leadership, the people’s rebellion against the earlier government system, and the roles of unlikely characters: overseas Chinese capitalists, American engineers, Japanese professors, and German designers This is a story of revolutionary change that neither foreigners nor the Chinese themselves could have predicted.

While John McPhee was working on his previous book, Rising from the Plains, he happened to walk by the engineering building at the University of Wyoming, where words etched in limestone said: "Strive on--the control of Nature is won, not given." In the morning sunlight, that central phrase--"the control of nature"--seemed to sparkle with unintended ambiguity Bilateral, symmetrical, it could with equal speed travel in opposite directions

For some years, he had been planning a book about places in the world where people have been engaged in all-out battles with nature, about (in the words of the book itself) "any struggle against natural forces--heroic or venal, rash or well advised--when human beings conscript themselves to fight against the earth, to take what is not given, to rout the destroying enemy, to surround the base of Mt. Olympus demanding and expecting the surrender of the gods." His interest had first been sparked when he went into the Atchafalaya--the largest river swamp in North America--and had learned that virtually all of its waters were metered and rationed by a U.S Army Corps of Engineers' project called Old River Control

In the natural cycles of the Mississippi's deltaic plain, the time had come for the Mississippi to change course, to shift its mouth more than a hundred miles and go down the Atchafalaya, one of its distributary branches The United States could not afford that--for New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and all the industries that lie between would be cut off from river commerce with the rest of the nation At a place called Old River, the Corps therefore had built a great fortress--part dam, part valve--to restrain the flow of the Atchafalaya and compel the Mississippi to stay where it is

In Iceland, in 1973, an island split open without warning and huge volumes of lava began moving in the direction of a harbor scarcely half a mile away It was not only Iceland's premier fishing port (accounting for a large percentage of Iceland's export economy) but it was also the only harbor along the nation's southern coast As the lava threatened to fill the harbor and wipe it out, a physicist named Thorbjorn Sigurgeirsson suggested a way to fight against the flowing red rock--initiating an all-out endeavor unique in human history

On the big island of Hawaii, one of the world's two must eruptive hot spots, people are not unmindful of the Icelandic example McPhee went to Hawaii to talk with them and to walk beside the edges of a molten lake and incandescent rivers Some of the more expensive real estate in Los Angeles is up against mountains that are rising and disintegrating as rapidly as any in the world

After a complex coincidence of natural events, boulders will flow out of these mountains like fish eggs, mixed with mud, sand, and smaller rocks in a cascading mass known as debris flow Plucking up trees and cars, bursting through doors and windows, filling up houses to their eaves, debris flows threaten the lives of people living in and near Los Angeles' famous canyons At extraordinary expense the city has built a hundred and fifty stadium-like basins in a daring effort to catch the debris

Taking us deep into these contested territories, McPhee details the strategies and tactics through which people attempt to control nature Most striking in his vivid depiction of the main contestants: nature in complex and awesome guises, and those who would attempt to wrest control from her--stubborn, often ingenious, and always arresting characters.

An intimate and revelatory account of two generations of students in China’s heartland, by an author who has observed the country’s tumultuous changes over the past quarter century More than two decades after teaching English during the early part of China’s economic boom, an experience chronicled in his book River Town, Peter Hessler returned to Sichuan Province to instruct students from the next generation At the same time, Hessler and his wife enrolled their twin daughters in a local state-run elementary school, where they were the only Westerners

Over the years, Hessler had kept in close contact with many of the people he had taught in the 1990s By reconnecting with these individuals—members of China’s “Reform generation,” now in their forties—while teaching current undergrads, Hessler gained a unique perspective on China’s incredible transformation In 1996, when Hessler arrived in China, almost all of the people in his classroom were first-generation college students

They typically came from large rural families, and their parents, subsistence farmers, could offer little guidance as their children entered a brand-new world By 2019, when Hessler arrived at Sichuan University, he found a very different China, as well as a new kind of student—an only child whose schooling was the object of intense focus from a much more ambitious cohort of parents At Sichuan University, many young people had a sense of irony about the regime but mostly navigated its restrictions with equanimity, embracing the opportunities of China’s rise

But the pressures of extreme competition at scale can be grueling, even for much younger children—including Hessler’s own daughters, who gave him an intimate view into the experience at their local school In Peter Hessler’s hands, China’s education system is the perfect vehicle for examining the country’s past, present, and future, and what we can learn from it, for good and ill At a time when anti-Chinese rhetoric in America has grown blunt and ugly, Other Rivers is a tremendous, essential gift, a work of enormous empathy that rejects cheap stereotypes and shows us China from the inside out and the bottom up As both a window onto China and a mirror onto America, Other Rivers is a classic from a master of the form.

Named one of NPR's Best Books of 2021 From the author of Annihilation, a brilliant speculative thriller of dark conspiracy, endangered species, and the possible end of all things Security consultant “Jane Smith” receives an envelope with a key to a storage unit that holds a taxidermied hummingbird and clues leading her to a taxidermied salamander Silvina, the dead woman who left the note, is a reputed ecoterrorist and the daughter of an Argentine industrialist

By taking the hummingbird from the storage unit, Jane sets in motion a series of events that quickly spin beyond her control Soon, Jane and her family are in danger, with few allies to help her make sense of the true scope of the peril Is the only way to safety to follow in Silvina’s footsteps Is it too late to stop

As she desperately seeks answers about why Silvina contacted her, time is running out—for her and possibly for the world Hummingbird Salamander is Jeff VanderMeer at his brilliant, cinematic best, wrapping profound questions about climate change, identity, and the world we live in into a tightly plotted thriller full of unexpected twists and elaborate conspiracy.

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTION • A stunning account of a colossal wildfire and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind from the award-winning, best-selling author of The Tiger and The Golden Spruce • Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, TIME, NPR, Slate, and Smithsonian “Grips like a philosophical thriller, warns like a beacon, and shocks to the core." —Robert Macfarlane, bestselling author of Underland “Riveting, spellbinding, astounding on every page.” —David Wallace-Wells, #1 bestselling author of The Uninhabitable Earth In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil industry and America’s biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon

Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event, but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world Fire has been a partner in our evolution for hundreds of millennia, shaping culture, civilization, and, very likely, our brains Fire has enabled us to cook our food, defend and heat our homes, and power the machines that drive our titanic economy

Yet this volatile energy source has always threatened to elude our control, and in our new age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in previously unimaginable ways With masterly prose and a cinematic eye, Vaillant takes us on a riveting journey through the intertwined histories of North America’s oil industry and the birth of climate science, to the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern forest fires, and into lives forever changed by these disasters John Vaillant’s urgent work is a book for—and from—our new century of fire, which has only just begun.

The Strugatsky brothers' poignant and introspective novel of first contact that inspired the classic film Stalker Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those strange misfits who are compelled by some unknown force to venture illegally into the Zone and, in spite of the extreme danger, collect the mysterious artefacts that the alien visitors left scattered around His life is dominated by the Zone and the thriving black market in the alien products Even the nature of his daughter has been determined by the Zone

And it is for her that Red makes his last, tragic foray into the hazardous and hostile depths Readers can't stop thinking about Roadside Picnic: 'A story of a horrific yet fascinating place, a story of an ordinary and unlikable man just trying to get by, a philosophical interlude on humanity and its significance or lack thereof, of greed and wonder, and the fever dream of the soul scream It still speaks to me' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Such an intriguing setting for me, such an unusual take on alien interaction' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'It is a thought-provoking, hard-to-put down masterpiece, most probably the best introduction to Soviet science fiction

A must read for any sci-fi fan' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'A fantastic and creative exploration of what first contact might be like' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'The tone of the book is akin to that of some noir works, dark, gritty, getting darker and grittier as the tale wears on . . Like many great books, the meaning of the ending is left up to the reader' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'A beautifully depressive and wonderfully atmospheric science fiction novel about life on Earth after an alien "Visitation" that leaves humans with more questions than answers . .

Once I started reading it today, I couldn't stop The story captured my heart and held my attention' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'This is the sort of book that you read and then immediately feel the need to lend it to someone you know so that they can experience and enjoy it themselves . . I was truly astonished-by both the poignancy and the deceptive(?) simplicity of this relatively short novel' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

This book examines the urban fabric of contemporary Tokyo as a valuable demonstration of permeable, inclusive, and adaptive urban patterns that required neither extensive master planning nor corporate urbanism to develop These urban patterns are emergent: that is, they are the combined result of numerous modifications and appropriations of space by small agents interacting within a broader socio-economic ecosystem Together, they create a degree of urban intensity and liveliness that is the envy of the world's cities

This book examines five of these patterns that appear conspicuously throughout Tokyo: yokocho alleyways, multi-tenant zakkyo buildings, undertrack infills, low-rise dense neighborhoods, and the river-like ankyo streets Unlike many of the discussions on Tokyo that emphasise cultural uniqueness, this book aims at transcultural validity, with a focus on empirical analysis of the spatial and social conditions that allow these patterns to emerge The authors of Emergent Tokyo acknowledge the distinct character of Tokyo without essentialising or fetishising it, offering visitors, architects, and urban policy practitioners an unparalleled understanding of Tokyo's urban landscape.

A tech insider explains how capitalism and software development make for such a dangerous mix Software was supposed to radically improve society Outdated mechanical systems would be easily replaced; programs like PowerPoint would make information flow more freely; social media platforms like Facebook would bring people together; and generative AI would solve the world’s greatest ills

Yet in practice, few of the systems we looked to with such high hopes have lived up to their fundamental mandate In fact, in too many cases they’ve made things worse, exposing us to immense risk at the societal and the individual levels How did we get to this point In Fatal Abstraction, Darryl Campbell shows that the problem is “managerial software”: programs created and overseen not by engineers but by professional managers with only the most superficial knowledge of technology itself

The managerial ethos dominates the modern tech industry, from its globe-spanning giants all the way down to its trendy startups It demands that corporate leaders should be specialists in business rather than experts in their company’s field; that they manage their companies exclusively through the abstractions of finance; and that profit margins must take priority over developing a quality product that is safe for the consumer and beneficial for society

These corporations rush the development process and package cheap, unproven, potentially dangerous software inside sleek and shiny new devices As Campbell demonstrates, the problem with software is distinct from that of other consumer products, because of how quickly it can scale to the dimensions of the world itself, and because its inner workings resist the efforts of many professional managers to understand it with their limited technical background

A former tech worker himself, Campbell shows how managerial software fails, and when it does what sorts of disastrous consequences ensue, from the Boeing 737 MAX crashes to a deadly self-driving car to PowerPoint propaganda, and beyond Yet just because the tech industry is currently breaking its core promise does not mean the industry cannot change, or that the risks posed by managerial software should necessarily persist into the future Campbell argues that the solution is tech workers with actual expertise establishing industry-wide principles of ethics and safety that corporations would be forced to follow Fatal Abstraction is a stirring rebuke of the tech industry’s current managerial excesses, and also a hopeful glimpse of what a world shaped by good software can offer.

Set in the fourteenth century in Europe's most far-flung outpost, a land of glittering fjords, blasting winds, sun-warmed meadows, and high, dark, mountains, The Greenlanders is the story of one family - proud landowner Asgeir Gunnarsson; his daughter Margret, whose wilful independence leads her into passionate adultery and exile; and his son, Gunnar, whose quest for knowledge is at the compelling centre of this unforgettable book Jane Smiley takes us into this world of farmers, priests, and lawspeakers, of hunts and feasts and long-standing feuds, and by an act of literary magic, makes a remote time, place, and people not only real, but dear to us.

Bringing together foreign and domestic policy, The Poverty of the World aims to offer a new answer to the question of why Americans became obsessed with poverty in the 1960s A history of how American liberals made sense of US power during a period of unprecedented affluence at home, it uses intellectual and political biographies of major figures in postwar US social thought and politics to tell the story of how Americans invented the problem of "global poverty" and executed a war against it.

The inside story, told with “insight, perspective, and stellar reporting,” of how an unassuming civil servant created trillions of dollars from thin air, combatted a public health crisis, and saved the American economy from a second Great Depression (Alan S Blinder, former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve) By February 2020, the U.S. economic expansion had become the longest on record

Unemployment was plumbing half-century lows Stock markets soared to new highs One month later, the public health battle against a deadly virus had pushed the economy into the equivalent of a medically induced coma America’s workplaces—offices, shops, malls, and factories—shuttered

Many of the nation’s largest employers and tens of thousands of small businesses faced ruin Over 22 million American jobs were lost The extreme uncertainty led to some of the largest daily drops ever in the stock market Nick Timiraos, the Wall Street Journal’s chief economics correspondent, draws on extensive interviews to detail the tense meetings, late night phone calls, and crucial video conferences behind the largest, swiftest U.S. economic policy response since World War II

Trillion Dollar Triage goes inside the Federal Reserve, one of the country’s most important and least understood institutions, to chronicle how its plainspoken chairman, Jay Powell, unleashed an unprecedented monetary barrage to keep the economy on life support With the bleeding stemmed, the Fed faced a new challenge: How to nurture a recovery without unleashing an inflation-fueling, bubble-blowing money bomb Trillion Dollar Triage is the definitive, gripping history of a creative and unprecedented battle to shield the American economy from the twin threats of a public health disaster and economic crisis Economic theory and policy will never be the same.

A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF 2024 A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY TOP TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR "Enrigue’s genius lies in his ability to bring readers close to its tangled knot of priests, mercenaries, warriors and princesses while adding a pinch of biting humor." --Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Los Angeles Times “Riotously entertaining.. A triumph of solemnity-busting erudition and mischievous invention that will delight and titillate.” --Financial Times From the visionary author of Sudden Death, a hallucinatory, revelatory colonial revenge story

One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés enters the city of Tenochtitlan – today's Mexico City Later that day, he will meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures Cortés is accompanied by his captains, his troops, his prized horses, and his two translators: Friar Aguilar, a taciturn friar, and Malinalli, an enslaved, strategic Nahua princess

After nearly bungling their entrance to the city, the Spaniards are greeted at a ceremonial welcome meal by the steely Aztec princess Atotoxtli, sister and wife of Moctezuma As they await their meeting with the emperor – who is at a political and spiritual crossroads, and relies on hallucinogens to get by – Cortés and his entourage are ensconced in the labyrinthine palace Soon, one of Cortés’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the place, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed into the city, and wonders at the chances of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire

And what if... they don't You Dreamed of Empires brings Tenochtitlan to life at its height, and reimagines its destiny The incomparably original Álvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counterattack, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.

An incisive account of Erdoğan’s Turkey – showing how its troubling transformation may be short-lived Since coming to power in 2002 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has overseen a radical transformation of Turkey Once a pillar of the Western alliance, the country has embarked on a militaristic foreign policy, intervening in regional flashpoints from Nagorno-Karabakh to Libya And its democracy, sustained by the aspiration to join the European Union, has given way to one-man rule

Dimitar Bechev traces the political trajectory of Erdoğan’s populist regime, from the era of reform and prosperity in the 2000s to the effects of the war in neighboring Syria In a tale of missed opportunities, Bechev explores how Turkey parted ways with the United States and Europe, embraced Putin’s Russia and other revisionist powers, and replaced a frail democratic regime with an authoritarian one Despite this, he argues that Turkey’s democratic instincts are resilient, its economic ties to Europe are as strong as ever, and Erdoğan will fail to achieve a fully autocratic regime.

A new and original history of the forces that shaped the twentieth and twenty-first centuries We thought we knew the story of the twentieth century For many in the West, after the two world conflicts and the long cold war, the verdict was clear: democratic values had prevailed over dictatorship But if the twentieth century meant the triumph of liberalism, as many intellectuals proclaimed, why have the era’s darker impulses—ethnic nationalism, racist violence, and populist authoritarianism—revived

The Project-State and Its Rivals offers a radical alternative interpretation that takes us from the transforming challenges of the world wars to our own time Instead of the traditional narrative of domestic politics and international relations, Charles S Maier looks to the political and economic impulses that propelled societies through a century when territorial states and transnational forces both claimed power, engaging sometimes as rivals and sometimes as allies

Maier focuses on recurring institutional constellations: project-states including both democracies and dictatorships that sought not just to retain power but to transform their societies; new forms of imperial domination; global networks of finance; and the international associations, foundations, and NGOs that tried to shape public life through allegedly apolitical appeals to science and ethics In this account, which draws on the author’s studies over half a century, Maier invites a rethinking of the long twentieth century His history of state entanglements with capital, the decline of public projects, and the fragility of governance explains the fraying of our own civic culture—but also allows hope for its recovery.

On a freezing January afternoon in 1992, Deng Xiaoping, China's former paramount leader and now a revered elder statesman, set off on a month long trip around China's south in defence of the reforms he had set in motion to open up China's economy and transform the country into the political and economic powerhouse we know today In this book Jonathan Chatwin pursues the story of Deng's legendary "Southern Tour" and examines its legacies in the country today

Chatwin recounts the crucial debates and disagreements that characterised Chinese politics in the aftermath of the brutal crackdown of the Tiananmen protests of 1989, and the decisive influence of Deng's journey in establishing an economic blueprint for the 1990s and beyond He explores a nation which has been transformed by large-scale urbanisation - exemplified by the mega-cities of southern China that Deng visited and endorsed - but whose leadership is now conflicted by the pursuit of wealth that Deng legitimized Drawing on historical and contemporary eyewitness accounts, and the author's own 3000 mile journey in Deng's footsteps, The Southern Tour brings to life the story of China's transformation into a 21st-century superpower.

'Provocative and detailed .. Excellent' The Telegraph 'Shocking and meticulous' Danny Dorling 'An eye-opening revelation ... a must-read' Joel Bakan THE TELEGRAPH BEST BOOKS OF 2024 British politicians love to vaunt the benefits of the UK's supposed 'special relationship' with the US But are we really America's economic partner – or its colony

Vassal State lays bare the extent to which US corporations own and control Britain's economy: how American business chiefs decide what we're paid, what we buy, and how we buy it US companies have carved up Britain between them, siphoning off enormous profits, buying up our most lucrative firms and assets, and extracting huge rents from UK PLC – all while paying little or no tax

Meanwhile, policymakers, from Whitehall mandarins to NHS chiefs, shape their decisions to suit the whims of our American corporate overlords Based on his 40 years of business experience, devastating new research, and interviews with the major players, Angus Hanton exposes why Britain has become the poor transatlantic relation – and what we can do to change it.

First Published in 1999 Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The first comprehensive history of the Turkish economy The population and economy of the area within the present-day borders of Turkey has consistently been among the largest in the developing world, yet there has been no authoritative economic history of Turkey until now In Uneven Centuries, Şevket Pamuk examines the economic growth and human development of Turkey over the past two hundred years Taking a comparative global perspective, Pamuk investigates Turkey’s economic history through four periods: the open economy during the nineteenth-century Ottoman era, the transition from empire to nation-state that spanned the two world wars and the Great Depression, the continued protectionism and import-substituting industrialization after World War II, and the neoliberal policies and the opening of the economy after 1980

Making use of indices of GDP per capita, trade, wages, health, and education, Pamuk argues that Turkey’s long-term economic trends cannot be explained only by immediate causes such as economic policies, rates of investment, productivity growth, and structural change Uneven Centuries offers a deeper analysis of the essential forces underlying Turkey’s development—its institutions and their evolution—to make better sense of the country’s unique history and to provide important insights into the patterns of growth in developing countries during the past two centuries.

An accessible introduction to the processes which shape politics and economics in contemporary Turkey.

“Monumental.” —The New York Times Book Review Pulitzer Prize-finalist Stephen Kotkin has written the definitive biography of Joseph Stalin, from collectivization and the Great Terror to the conflict with Hitler's Germany that is the signal event of modern world history In 1929, Joseph Stalin, having already achieved dictatorial power over the vast Soviet Empire, formally ordered the systematic conversion of the world’s largest peasant economy into “socialist modernity,” otherwise known as collectivization, regardless of the cost What it cost, and what Stalin ruthlessly enacted, transformed the country and its ruler in profound and enduring ways

Building and running a dictatorship, with life and death power over hundreds of millions, made Stalin into the uncanny figure he became Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 is the story of how a political system forged an unparalleled personality and vice versa The wholesale collectivization of some 120 million peasants necessitated levels of coercion that were extreme even for Russia, and the resulting mass starvation elicited criticism inside the party even from those Communists committed to the eradication of capitalism

But Stalin did not flinch By 1934, when the Soviet Union had stabilized and socialism had been implanted in the countryside, praise for his stunning anti-capitalist success came from all quarters Stalin, however, never forgave and never forgot, with shocking consequences as he strove to consolidate the state with a brand new elite of young strivers like himself

Stalin’s obsessions drove him to execute nearly a million people, including the military leadership, diplomatic and intelligence officials, and innumerable leading lights in culture While Stalin revived a great power, building a formidable industrialized military, the Soviet Union was effectively alone and surrounded by perceived enemies The quest for security would bring Soviet Communism to a shocking and improbable pact with Nazi Germany

But that bargain would not unfold as envisioned The lives of Stalin and Hitler, and the fates of their respective dictatorships, drew ever closer to collision, as the world hung in the balance Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 is a history of the world during the build-up to its most fateful hour, from the vantage point of Stalin’s seat of power It is a landmark achievement in the annals of historical scholarship, and in the art of biography.

How Chinese characters triumphed over the QWERTY keyboard and laid the foundation for China's information technology successes today Chinese writing is character based, the one major world script that is neither alphabetic nor syllabic Through the years, the Chinese written language encountered presumed alphabetic universalism in the form of Morse Code, Braille, stenography, Linotype, punch cards, word processing, and other systems developed with the Latin alphabet in mind

This book is about those encounters—in particular thousands of Chinese characters versus the typewriter and its QWERTY keyboard Thomas Mullaney describes a fascinating series of experiments, prototypes, failures, and successes in the century-long quest for a workable Chinese typewriter The earliest Chinese typewriters, Mullaney tells us, were figments of popular imagination, sensational accounts of twelve-foot keyboards with 5,000 keys

One of the first Chinese typewriters actually constructed was invented by a Christian missionary, who organized characters by common usage (but promoted the less-common characters for “Jesus" to the common usage level) Later came typewriters manufactured for use in Chinese offices, and typewriting schools that turned out trained “typewriter girls” and “typewriter boys.” Still later was the “Double Pigeon” typewriter produced by the Shanghai Calculator and Typewriter Factory, the typewriter of choice under Mao

Clerks and secretaries in this era experimented with alternative ways of organizing characters on their tray beds, inventing an input method that was the first instance of “predictive text.” Today, after more than a century of resistance against the alphabetic, not only have Chinese characters prevailed, they form the linguistic substrate of the vibrant world of Chinese information technology The Chinese Typewriter, not just an “object history” but grappling with broad questions of technological change and global communication, shows how this happened A Study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute Columbia University

The fascinating, untold story of how the Chinese language overcame unparalleled challenges and revolutionized the world of computing A standard QWERTY keyboard has a few dozen keys How can Chinese—a language with tens of thousands of characters and no alphabet—be input on such a device In The Chinese Computer, Thomas S

Mullaney sets out to resolve this paradox, and in doing so, discovers that the key to this seemingly impossible riddle has given rise to a new epoch in the history of writing—a form of writing he calls “hypography.” Based on fifteen years of research, this pathbreaking history of the Chinese language charts the beginnings of electronic Chinese technology in the wake of World War II up through to its many iterations in the present day Mullaney takes the reader back through the history and evolution of Chinese language computing technology, showing the development of electronic Chinese input methods—software programs that enable Chinese characters to be produced using alphanumeric symbols—and the profound impact they have had on the way Chinese is written

Along the way, Mullaney introduces a cast of brilliant and eccentric personalities drawn from the ranks of IBM, MIT, the CIA, the Pentagon, the Taiwanese military, and the highest rungs of mainland Chinese establishment, to name a few, and the unexpected roles they played in developing Chinese language computing Finally, he shows how China and the non-Western world—because of the hypographic technologies they had to invent in order to join the personal computing revolution—“saved” the Western computer from its deep biases, enabling it to achieve a meaningful presence in markets outside of the Americas and Europe An eminently engaging and artfully told history, The Chinese Computer is a must-read for anyone interested in how culture informs computing and how computing, in turn, shapes culture.

“Mervyn King may well have written the most important book to come out of the financial crisis Agree or disagree, King’s visionary ideas deserve the attention of everyone from economics students to heads of state.” —Lawrence H Summers Something is wrong with our banking system We all sense that, but Mervyn King knows it firsthand; his ten years at the helm of the Bank of England, including at the height of the financial crisis, revealed profound truths about the mechanisms of our capitalist society

In The End of Alchemy he offers us an essential work about the history and future of money and banking, the keys to modern finance The Industrial Revolution built the foundation of our modern capitalist age Yet the flowering of technological innovations during that dynamic period relied on the widespread adoption of two much older ideas: the creation of paper money and the invention of banks that issued credit

We take these systems for granted today, yet at their core both ideas were revolutionary and almost magical Common paper became as precious as gold, and risky long-term loans were transformed into safe short-term bank deposits As King argues, this is financial alchemy—the creation of extraordinary financial powers that defy reality and common sense

Faith in these powers has led to huge benefits; the liquidity they create has fueled economic growth for two centuries now However, they have also produced an unending string of economic disasters, from hyperinflations to banking collapses to the recent global recession and current stagnation How do we reconcile the potent strengths of these ideas with their inherent weaknesses

King draws on his unique experience to present fresh interpretations of these economic forces and to point the way forward for the global economy His bold solutions cut through current overstuffed and needlessly complex legislation to provide a clear path to durable prosperity and the end of overreliance on the alchemy of our financial ancestors.

New York Times Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Foreign Affairs, and Kirkus Reviews Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction) Shortlisted for the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History) A San Francisco Chronicle Holiday Gift Guide Selection A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection A sweeping, "magisterial" history of the Roman Empire from one of our foremost classicists shows why Rome remains "relevant to people many centuries later" (Atlantic) In SPQR, an instant classic, Mary Beard narrates the history of Rome "with passion and without technical jargon" and demonstrates how "a slightly shabby Iron Age village" rose to become the "undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean" (Wall Street Journal)

Hailed by critics as animating "the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life" (Economist) in a way that makes "your hair stand on end" (Christian Science Monitor) and spanning nearly a thousand years of history, this "highly informative, highly readable" (Dallas Morning News) work examines not just how we think of ancient Rome but challenges the comfortable historical perspectives that have existed for centuries With its nuanced attention to class, democratic struggles, and the lives of entire groups of people omitted from the historical narrative for centuries, SPQR will to shape our view of Roman history for decades to come.

A journey through the otherworldly science behind Christopher Nolan’s award-winning film, Interstellar, from executive producer and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Kip Thorne Interstellar, from acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan, takes us on a fantastic voyage far beyond our solar system Yet in The Science of Interstellar, Kip Thorne, the Nobel prize-winning physicist who assisted Nolan on the scientific aspects of Interstellar, shows us that the movie’s jaw-dropping events and stunning, never-before-attempted visuals are grounded in real science

Thorne shares his experiences working as the science adviser on the film and then moves on to the science itself In chapters on wormholes, black holes, interstellar travel, and much more, Thorne’s scientific insights—many of them triggered during the actual scripting and shooting of Interstellar—describe the physical laws that govern our universe and the truly astounding phenomena that those laws make possible Interstellar and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Warner Bros Entertainment Inc. (s14).

The fascinating story of science in pursuit of the ghostly, ubiquitous subatomic particle—the neutrino Isaac Asimov is said to have observed of the neutrino: “The only reason scientists suggested its existence was their need to make calculations come out even And yet the nothing-particle was not a nothing at all.” In fact, as one of the most enigmatic and most populous particles in the universe—about 100 trillion are flying through you every second—the neutrino may hold the clues to some of our deepest cosmic mysteries

In Ghost Particle, Alan Chodos and James Riordon recount the dramatic history of the neutrino—from the initial suggestion that the particle was merely a desperate solution to a puzzle that threatened to undermine the burgeoning field of particle physics to its modern role in illuminating the universe via neutrino telescopes Alan Chodos and James Riordon are deft and engaging guides as they conduct readers through the experiences of intrepid scientists and the challenges they faced, and continue to face, in their search for the ghostly neutrino

Along the way, the authors provide expert insight into the significance of neutrino research from the particle’s first, momentous discovery to recent, revolutionary advances in neutrino detection and astronomy Chodos and Riordon describe how neutrinos may soon provide clues to some of the biggest questions we encounter today, including how to understand the dark matter that makes up most of the universe—and why anything exists in the universe at all.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ‘Sean Carroll has achieved something I thought impossible: a bridge between popular science and the mathematical universe of working physicists Magnificent!’ Brian Clegg, author of Ten Days in Physics that Shook the World Immense, strange and infinite, the world of modern physics often feels impenetrable to the undiscerning eye – a jumble of muons, gluons and quarks, impossible to explain without several degrees and a research position at CERN

But it doesn’t have to be this way Allow world-renowned theoretical physicist and bestselling author Sean Carroll to guide you through the biggest ideas in the universe Elegant and simple, Carroll unravels this web of theories and formulae equation by equation, getting to the heart of the truths they represent. — In Space, Time and Motion, the first book of this landmark trilogy, Carroll delves into the core of classical physics From Euclid to Einstein, Space, Time and Motion explores the ideas which revolutionised science and forever changed our understanding of our place in the cosmos.

The Industrial Revolution meets the quantum-technology revolution A steampunk adventure guide to how mind-blowing quantum physics is transforming our understanding of information and energy Victorian era steam engines and particle physics may seem worlds (as well as centuries) apart, yet a new branch of science, quantum thermodynamics, reenvisions the scientific underpinnings of the Industrial Revolution through the lens of today's roaring quantum information revolution

Classical thermodynamics, understood as the study of engines, energy, and efficiency, needs reimagining to take advantage of quantum mechanics, the basic framework that explores the nature of reality by peering at minute matters, down to the momentum of a single particle In her exciting new book, intrepid Harvard-trained physicist Dr. Nicole Yunger Halpern introduces these concepts to the uninitiated with what she calls "quantum steampunk," after the fantastical genre that pairs futuristic technologies with Victorian sensibilities

While readers follow the adventures of a rag-tag steampunk crew on trains, dirigibles, and automobiles, they explore questions such as, "Can quantum physics revolutionize engines?" and "What deeper secrets can quantum information reveal about the trajectory of time?" Yunger Halpern also describes her own adventures in the quantum universe and provides an insider's look at the work of the scientists obsessed with its technological promise Moving from fundamental physics to cutting-edge experimental applications, Quantum Steampunk explores the field's aesthetic, shares its whimsy, and gazes into the potential of a quantum future The result is a blast for fans of science, science fiction, and fantasy.

A fascinating history of the profitable paradox of the American outdoor experience: visiting nature first requires shopping No escape to nature is complete without a trip to an outdoor recreational store or a browse through online offerings This is the irony of the American outdoor experience: visiting wild spaces supposedly untouched by capitalism first requires shopping With consumers spending billions of dollars on clothing and equipment each year as they seek out nature, the American outdoor sector grew over the past 150 years from a small collection of outfitters to an industry contributing more than 2 percent of the nation's economic output

Rachel S Gross argues that this success was predicated not just on creating functional equipment but also on selling an authentic, anticommercial outdoor identity In other words, shopping for the woods was also about being--or becoming--the right kind of person Demonstrating that outdoor culture is commercial culture, Gross examines Americans' journey toward outdoor expertise by tracing the development of the nascent outdoor goods industry, the influence of World War II on its growth, and the boom years of outdoor businesses.

A New York Times and USA Today Bestseller Winner: 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella Winner: 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novella Winner: 2018 Alex Award Winner: 2018 Locus Award One of the Verge's Best Books of 2017 A murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence. "As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure." In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth The Murderbot Diaries All Systems Red Artificial Condition Rogue Protocol Exit Strategy Network Effect Fugitive Telemetry System Collapse At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

“Few people can communicate how the economy actually works better than Kyla Scanlon.”—Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money An illustrated guide to the mad math and terrible terminology of economics, from one of the internet’s favorite financial educators Is our national debt really a threat What is a “mild” recession, exactly If you’re worried about your bank account balance, job security, or mortgage rate, what data should you be keeping tabs on

For anyone trying to make sense of disorienting headlines, there’s no better interpreter than Kyla Scanlon Through her trademark blend of witty illustrations, creative analogies, and insights from behavioral economics, literature, and philosophy, Scanlon breaks down everything you need to know about how money and markets really work This indispensable handbook reveals the hidden forces driving key economic outcomes, the most common myths to steer clear of, and the dusty, outdated assumptions that constrain our political imagination, offering a bold new path to building a prosperous society that works for everyone.

Is philosophy obsolete Are the ancient questions still relevant in the age of cosmology and neuroscience, not to mention crowd-sourcing and cable news The acclaimed philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein provides a dazzlingly original plunge into the drama of philosophy, revealing its hidden role in today’s debates on religion, morality, politics, and science

At the origin of Western philosophy stands Plato, who got about as much wrong as one would expect from a thinker who lived 2,400 years ago But Plato’s role in shaping philosophy was pivotal On her way to considering the place of philosophy in our ongoing intellectual life, Goldstein tells a new story of its origin, re-envisioning the extraordinary culture that produced the man who produced philosophy

But it is primarily the fate of philosophy that concerns her Is the discipline no more than a way of biding our time until the scientists arrive on the scene Have they already arrived Does philosophy itself ever make progress

And if it does, why is so ancient a figure as Plato of any continuing relevance Plato at the Googleplex is Goldstein’s startling investigation of these conundra She interweaves her narrative with Plato’s own choice for bringing ideas to life—the dialogue Imagine that Plato came to life in the twenty-first century and embarked on a multicity speaking tour

How would he handle the host of a cable news program who denies there can be morality without religion How would he mediate a debate between a Freudian psychoanalyst and a tiger mom on how to raise the perfect child How would he answer a neuroscientist who, about to scan Plato’s brain, argues that science has definitively answered the questions of free will and moral agency

What would Plato make of Google, and of the idea that knowledge can be crowd-sourced rather than reasoned out by experts With a philosopher’s depth and a novelist’s imagination and wit, Goldstein probes the deepest issues confronting us by allowing us to eavesdrop on Plato as he takes on the modern world. (With black-and-white photographs throughout.)

A few numbers came to define Chinese politics, until they did not count what mattered and what they counted did not measure up Seeking Truth argues that the Chinese government adopted a system of limited, quantified vision in order to survive the disasters unleashed by Mao Zedong's ideological leadership, explains how that system worked, and analyzes how problems accumulated in its blind spots leading Xi Jinping to take the regime into a neopolitical turn

Xi's new normal is an attempt fix the problems of the prior system, as well as a hedge against an inability to do so The book argues that while of course dictators stay in power through coercion and cooptation, they also do so by convincing their populations and themselves of their right to rule Quantification is one tool in this persuasive arsenal, but it comes with its own perils"--

11th Subejct: National Security -- United States-- 20th century.

A behind-the-scenes look at how democrats lost their way In the generation after World War II, voters around the world routinely split along economic lines, delivering reliable working-class majorities to parties on the left Today, coalitions are increasingly determined by education rather than by income, driving educated professionals to the left and pushing blue-collar voters to the right In Left Adrift historian Timothy Shenk provides a new perspective on this extraordinary shift by taking readers inside a debate that unfolded in a tiny circle of elite political strategists over how leftwing parties could win again

At the center of this argument was the question of whether the left could once again become the party of workers Built around accounts of individuals struggling against tectonic political changes--and featuring a cast of characters that includes Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Nelson Mandela, and Benjamin Netanyahu--Left Adrift tells the story of how leftwing parties fought to hold onto the working class while reinventing themselves for a new era.

How creditors came to wield unprecedented power over heavily indebted countries—and the dangers this poses to democracy The European debt crisis has rekindled long-standing debates about the power of finance and the fraught relationship between capitalism and democracy in a globalized world Why Not Default? unravels a striking puzzle at the heart of these debates—why, despite frequent crises and the immense costs of repayment, do so many heavily indebted countries continue to service their international debts

In this compelling and incisive book, Jerome Roos provides a sweeping investigation of the political economy of sovereign debt and international crisis management He takes readers from the rise of public borrowing in the Italian city-states to the gunboat diplomacy of the imperialist era and the wave of sovereign defaults during the Great Depression He vividly describes the debt crises of developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s and sheds new light on the recent turmoil inside the Eurozone—including the dramatic capitulation of Greece’s short-lived anti-austerity government to its European creditors in 2015

Drawing on in-depth case studies of contemporary debt crises in Mexico, Argentina, and Greece, Why Not Default? paints a disconcerting picture of the ascendancy of global finance This important book shows how the profound transformation of the capitalist world economy over the past four decades has endowed private and official creditors with unprecedented structural power over heavily indebted borrowers, enabling them to impose painful austerity measures and enforce uninterrupted debt service during times of crisis—with devastating social consequences and far-reaching implications for democracy.

A woman seduces her landlord to extort the family farm Gamblers recruit a wily prostitute to get a rich young man back in the game Silver counterfeiters wreak havoc for traveling merchants A wealthy widow is drugged and robbed by a lodger posing as a well-to-do student

Vengeful judges and corrupt clerks pervert the course of justice Cunning soothsayers spur on a plot to overthrow the emperor Yet good sometimes triumphs, as when amateur sleuths track down a crew of homicidal boatmen or a cold-case murder is exposed by a frog These are just a few of the tales of crime and depravity appearing in More Swindles from the Late Ming, a book that offers a panorama of vice—and words of warning—from one seventeenth-century writer

This companion volume to The Book of Swindles: Selections from a Late Ming Collection presents sensational stories of scams that range from the ingenious to the absurd to the lurid, many featuring sorcery, sex, and extreme violence Together, the two volumes represent the first complete translation into any language of a landmark Chinese anthology, making an essential contribution to the global literature of trickery and fraud An introduction explores the geography of grift, the role of sex and family relations, and the portrayal of Buddhist clergy and others claiming supernatural powers Opening a window onto the colorful world of crime and deception in late imperial China, this book testifies to the enduring popularity of stories about scoundrels and their schemes.

This is an age of deception Con men ply the roadways Bogus alchemists pretend to turn one piece of silver into three Devious nuns entice young women into adultery Sorcerers use charmed talismans for mind control and murder

A pair of dubious monks extorts money from a powerful official and then spends it on whoring A rich student tries to bribe the chief examiner, only to hand his money to an imposter A eunuch kidnaps boys and consumes their "essence" in an attempt to regrow his penis These are just a few of the entertaining and surprising tales to be found in this seventeenth-century work, said to be the earliest Chinese collection of swindle stories

The Book of Swindles, compiled by an obscure writer from southern China, presents a fascinating tableau of criminal ingenuity The flourishing economy of the late Ming period created overnight fortunes for merchants—and gave rise to a host of smooth operators, charlatans, forgers, and imposters seeking to siphon off some of the new wealth

The Book of Swindles, which was ostensibly written as a manual for self-protection in this shifting and unstable world, also offers an expert guide to the art of deception Each story comes with commentary by the author, Zhang Yingyu, who expounds a moral lesson while also speaking as a connoisseur of the swindle This volume, which contains annotated translations of just over half of the eighty-odd stories in Zhang's original collection, provides a wealth of detail on social life during the late Ming and offers words of warning for a world in peril.

One Step Ahead in China is a groundbreaking book, unique in its detailed coverage of Guangdong, the first socialist dragon to follow in the path of South Korea and Taiwan. 6 maps, 7 tables.

The Evolution of a New Industry traces the emergence and growth of the Israeli hi-tech sector to provide a new understanding of industry evolution In the case of Israel, the authors reveal how the hi-tech sector built an entrepreneurial culture with a capacity to disseminate intergenerational knowledge of how to found new ventures, as well as an intricate network of support for new firms Following the evolution of this industry from embryonic to mature, Israel Drori, Shmuel Ellis, and Zur Shapira develop a genealogical approach that relies on looking at the sector in the way that one might consider a family tree

The principles of this genealogical analysis enable them to draw attention to the dynamics of industry evolution, while relating the effects of the parent companies' initial conditions to their respective corporate genealogies and imprinting potential The text suggests that genealogical evolution is a key mechanism for understanding the rate and extent of founding new organizations, comparable to factors such as opportunity structures, capabilities, and geographic clusters.

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST An epic, riveting history of New York City on the edge of disaster—and an anatomy of the austerity politics that continue to shape the world today When the news broke in 1975 that New York City was on the brink of fiscal collapse, few believed it was possible How could the country’s largest metropolis fail How could the capital of the financial world go bankrupt

Yet the city was indeed billions of dollars in the red, with no way to pay back its debts Bankers and politicians alike seized upon the situation as evidence that social liberalism, which New York famously exemplified, was unworkable The city had to slash services, freeze wages, and fire thousands of workers, they insisted, or financial apocalypse would ensue

In this vivid account, historian Kim Phillips-Fein tells the remarkable story of the crisis that engulfed the city With unions and ordinary citizens refusing to accept retrenchment, the budget crunch became a struggle over the soul of New York, pitting fundamentally opposing visions of the city against each other

Drawing on never-before-used archival sources and interviews with key players in the crisis, Fear City shows how the brush with bankruptcy permanently transformed New York—and reshaped ideas about government across America At once a sweeping history of some of the most tumultuous times in New York's past, a gripping narrative of last-minute machinations and backroom deals, and an origin story of the politics of austerity, Fear City is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the resurgent fiscal conservatism of today.

Despite the destabilizing potential of governing of a vast territory and a large multicultural population, the centralized government of the People's Republic of China has held together for decades, resisting efforts at local autonomy By analyzing Beijing's strategies for maintaining control even in the reformist post-Mao era, Centrifugal Empire reveals the unique thinking behind China's approach to local governance, its historical roots, and its deflection of divergent interests

Centrifugal Empire examines the logic, mode, and instrument of local governance established by the People's Republic, and then compares the current system to the practices of its dynastic predecessors The result is an expansive portrait of Chinese leaders' attitudes toward regional autonomy and local challenges, one concerned with territory-specific preoccupations and manifesting in constant searches for an optimal design of control Jae Ho Chung reveals how current communist instruments of local governance echo imperial institutions, while exposing the Leninist regime's savvy adaptation to contemporary issues and its need for more sophisticated inter-local networks to keep its unitary rule intact He casts the challenges to China's central–local relations as perennial, since the dilution of the system's "socialist" or "Communist" character will only accentuate its fundamentally Chinese—or centrifugal—nature.

In The Ripple Effect, Enze Han argues that a focus on the Chinese state alone is not sufficient for a comprehensive understanding of China's influence in Southeast Asia Instead, we must look beyond the Chinese state, to non-state actors from China, such as private businesses and Chinese migrants These actors affect people's perception of China in a variety of ways, and they often have wide-ranging as well as long-lasting effects on bilateral relations Han proposes that to understand this increasingly globalized China, we need more conceptual flexibility regarding which Chinese actors are important to China's relations, and how they wield this influence, whether intentional or not.

In The Latecomer's Rise, Muyang Chen reveals the nature and impact of a rapidly growing form of international lending: Chinese development finance Over the past few decades, China has become the world's largest provider of bilateral development finance Through its two national policy banks, the China Development Bank (CDB) and the Export-Import Bank of China (China Exim), it has funded infrastructure and industrial projects in numerous emerging markets and developing countries

Yet this very surge and magnitude of capital has raised questions about the characteristics of Chinese bilateral lending and its repercussions on the international order Drawing on a variety of novel Chinese primary sources, including interviews and official bank documents, Chen pinpoints the distinctiveness of Chinese bilateral development finance, explains its origins, and analyzes its effects She compares Chinese policy banks with their foreign counterparts to show that the CDB and China Exim, while state-supported, are in fact also market-oriented—they are as much government organs as they are profit-driven financial agencies that serve both state and firms' interests

This approach, which emerged out of China's particular economic history, suggests that Chinese overseas lending is not merely a tool of economic statecraft that challenges Western-led economic regimes Instead, China's responses to extant rules, norms, and practices across given issue areas have varied between contestation and convergence Rich with empirical detail and penetrating insights, The Latecomer's Rise demystifies the little-known workings of Chinese development finance to revise our conceptions of China's role in the international financial system.

An authoritative account of Xi Jinping's worldview and how it drives Chinese behaviour both domestically and on the world stage In his new book, On Xi Jinping, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd provides an authoritative account of the ideological worldview driving Chinese behaviour both domestically and on the world stage--that of President Xi Jinping, who now hold near-total control over the Chinese Communist Party and is now, in effect, president-for-life

Rudd argues that Xi's worldview differs significantly from those of the leaders who preceded him, and that this ideological shift is reflected in the real world of Chinese policy and behaviour Focusing on China's domestic politics, political economy, and foreign policy, Rudd characterises Xi Jinping's ideological framing of the world as "Marxist-Leninist nationalism." According to Rudd, Xi's notion of Leninism has taken the party and Chinese politics further to the left in comparison to his predecessors

Also, his Marxism has also taken Chinese economic thinking to the left-in a more decisively more statist direction and away from the historical dynamism of the private sector However, Chinese nationalism under Xi has moved further to the right- towards a much, harder-edged, foreign policy vision of China and a new determination to change the international status quo Xi's worldview is an integrated one, where his national ideological vision for China's future is ultimately inseparable from his view on China's position in the region and the world

These changes in worldview are also reflected in Xi's broader rehabilitation of the concept of "struggle" as a legitimate concept for the conduct of both Chinese domestic and foreign policy--a struggle that need not necessarily always be peaceful Finally, Xi's ideological worldview also exhibits a new level of nationalist self-confidence about China's future--derived from China's historical and civilizational strengths but reinforced by his Marxist-Leninist concept of historical determinism and the belief that the tides of history are now on firmly China's side A powerful analysis of the worldview of arguably the most consequential world leader of our era, this will be essential reading for anyone interested in how Xi is transforming both China and the international order, and, most importantly, why?

2020 Gourmand Award in Spirits Gold Medal winner in the Independent Book Publishers Awards China is one of the world's leading producers and consumers of liquor, with alcohol infusing all aspects of its culture, from religion and literature to business and warfare Yet to the outside world, China's most famous spirit, baijiu, remains a mystery This is about to change, as baijiu is now being served in cocktail bars beyond its borders

Drunk in China follows Derek Sandhaus's journey of discovery into the world's oldest drinking culture He travels throughout the country and around the globe to meet with distillers, brewers, snake-oil salesmen, archaeologists, and ordinary drinkers He examines the many ways in which alcohol has shaped Chinese society and its rituals

He visits production floors, karaoke parlors, hotpot joints, and speakeasies Along the way he uncovers a tradition spanning more than nine thousand years and explores how recent economic and political developments have conspired to push Chinese alcohol beyond the nation's borders for the first time As Chinese society becomes increasingly international, its drinking culture must also adapt to the times

Can the West also adapt and clink glasses with China Read Drunk in China and find out.

One of America's foremost philosophers challenges the lost generation of the American Left to understand the role it might play in the great tradition of democratic intellectual labor that started with writers such as Walt Whitman and John Dewey.

Winner of the Hugo Award In A Psalm for the Wild-Built, bestselling Becky Chambers's delightful new Monk and Robot series, gives us hope for the future It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend

One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how They're going to need to ask it a lot

Becky Chambers's new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Economic theory may be speculative, but its impact is powerful and real Since the 1970s, it has been closely associated with a sweeping change around the world--the "market turn." This is what Avner Offer and Gabriel Soderberg call the rise of market liberalism, a movement that, seeking to replace social democracy, holds up buying and selling as the norm for human relations and society Our confidence in markets comes from economics, and our confidence in economics is underpinned by the Nobel Prize in Economics, which was first awarded in 1969

Was it a coincidence that the market turn and the prize began at the same time The Nobel Factor, the first book to describe the origins and power of the most important prize in economics, explores this and related questions by examining the history of the prize, the history of economics since the prize began, and the simultaneous struggle between market liberals and social democrats in Sweden, Europe, and the United States The Nobel Factor tells how the prize, created by the Swedish central bank, emerged from a conflict between central bank orthodoxy and social democracy

The aim was to use the halo of the Nobel brand to enhance central bank authority and the prestige of market-friendly economics, in order to influence the future of Sweden and the rest of the developed world And this strategy has worked, with sometimes disastrous results for societies striving to cope with the requirements of economic theory and deregulated markets

“A startling glimpse into the meatpacking industry’s abuse of undocumented and incarcerated workers.” —The New York Times Book Review Winner of the J Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, an explosive exposé of the toxic labor practices at the largest meatpacking company in America and the immigrant workers who had the courage to fight back On June 27, 2011, a deadly chemical accident took place inside the Tyson Foods chicken processing plant in Springdale, Arkansas, where the company is headquartered

The company quickly covered it up although the spill left their employees injured, sick, and terrified Over the years, Arkansas-based reporter Alice Driver was able to gain the trust of the immigrant workers who survived the accident They rewarded her persistence by giving her total access to their lives

Having spent hours in their kitchens and accompanying them to doctor’s appointments, Driver has memorialized in these pages the dramatic lives of husband and wife Plácido and Angelina, who liked to spend weekends planting seeds from their native El Salvador in their garden; father and son Martín and Gabriel, who migrated from Mexico at different times and were trying to patch up their relationship; and many other immigrants who survived the chemical accident in Springdale that day During the course of Alice’s reporting, the COVID-19 pandemic struck the community, and the workers were forced to continue production in unsafe conditions, watching their colleagues get sick and die one by one

These essential workers, many of whom only speak Spanish and some of whom are illiterate—all of whom suffer the health consequences of Tyson’s negligence—somehow found the strength and courage to organize and fight back, culminating in a lawsuit against Tyson Foods, the largest meatpacking company in America Richly detailed, fiercely honest, and deeply reported, Life and Death of the American Worker will forever change the way we think about the people who prepare our food.

A magnificent new biography that revolutionizes our understanding of Stalin and his world It has the quality of myth: a poor cobbler’s son, a seminarian from an oppressed outer province of the Russian empire, reinvents himself as a top leader in a band of revolutionary zealots When the band seizes control of the country in the aftermath of total world war, the former seminarian ruthlessly dominates the new regime until he stands as absolute ruler of a vast and terrible state apparatus, with dominion over Eurasia

While still building his power base within the Bolshevik dictatorship, he embarks upon the greatest gamble of his political life and the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted: the collectivization of all agriculture and industry across one sixth of the earth Millions will die, and many more millions will suffer, but the man will push through to the end against all resistance and doubts Where did such power come from

In Stalin, Stephen Kotkin offers a biography that, at long last, is equal to this shrewd, sociopathic, charismatic dictator in all his dimensions The character of Stalin emerges as both astute and blinkered, cynical and true believing, people oriented and vicious, canny enough to see through people but prone to nonsensical beliefs We see a man inclined to despotism who could be utterly charming, a pragmatic ideologue, a leader who obsessed over slights yet was a precocious geostrategic thinker—unique among Bolsheviks—and yet who made egregious strategic blunders

Through it all, we see Stalin’s unflinching persistence, his sheer force of will—perhaps the ultimate key to understanding his indelible mark on history Stalin gives an intimate view of the Bolshevik regime’s inner geography of power, bringing to the fore fresh materials from Soviet military intelligence and the secret police Kotkin rejects the inherited wisdom about Stalin’s psychological makeup, showing us instead how Stalin’s near paranoia was fundamentally political, and closely tracks the Bolshevik revolution’s structural paranoia, the predicament of a Communist regime in an overwhelmingly capitalist world, surrounded and penetrated by enemies

At the same time, Kotkin demonstrates the impossibility of understanding Stalin’s momentous decisions outside of the context of the tragic history of imperial Russia The product of a decade of intrepid research, Stalin is a landmark achievement, a work that recasts the way we think about the Soviet Union, revolution, dictatorship, the twentieth century, and indeed the art of history itself Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 will be published by Penguin Press in October 2017

Two eminent political scientists show that America's great conflicts, from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror, were fought not for ideals, or even geopolitical strategy, but for the individual gain of the presidents who waged them It's striking how many of the presidents Americans venerate-Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D Roosevelt, and John F

Kennedy, to name a few-oversaw some of the republic's bloodiest years Perhaps they were driven by the needs of the American people and the nation Or maybe they were just looking out for themselves

This revealing and entertaining book puts some of America's greatest leaders under the microscope, showing how their calls for war, usually remembered as brave and noble, were in fact selfish and convenient In each case, our presidents chose personal gain over national interest while loudly evoking justice and freedom The result is an eye-opening retelling of American history, and a call for reforms that may make the future better

Bueno de Mesquita and Smith demonstrate in compelling fashion that wars, even bloody and noble ones, are not primarily motivated by democracy or freedom or the sanctity of human life When our presidents risk the lives of brave young soldiers, they do it for themselves.

"In the 1960s, the Soviet Union found itself unexpectedly challenged from within by a cohort of dissidents who eventually achieved global fame Their struggle for the rule of law and human rights made them instant heroes in the West, where they appeared as democracy's surrogate soldiers behind the iron curtain But, as historian Benjamin Nathans argues, theirs was a homegrown phenomenon; activists built the anti-totalitarian movement on fundamental concepts from within the communist pantheon

And their goal was not to topple the Soviet state (a feat they could scarcely imagine) but to exercise a kind of containment of Soviet power from within Still, the movement was in many ways improbable: a half-century after Lenin launched the world's first socialist society, and a generation after Stalin liquidated millions of "enemies of the people," there was not supposed to be any internal opposition left What kind of people became dissidents, and how were they able to invent new techniques of social activism, eventually forming the socialist world's first civil and human rights movement

To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause-a title borrowed from the dissidents' favorite toast, pronounced with glasses raised in countless apartments across the USSR's eleven time-zones-tells the story of the people and the ideas that made the movement Weaving together KGB interrogation and surveillance records with diaries, letters, and an extraordinary number of memoirs, Nathans explains how a movement grew from a chain reaction of individual acts of resistance

He explains its origins in the counterintuitive idea of "civil obedience"-the conviction that human rights could be achieved if only the Soviet regime followed its own constitution and that citizens had to act as if the constitution was the law of the land in the absence of compliance within the governing class Nathans constructs in detail the lives and struggles of numerous dissidents, including Andrei Sakharov, Anatoly (Natan) Sharansky, and Alexander Volpin

He describes the many show trials of activists, the extra-legal tactics of the KGB's Fifth Directorate, the international networks of activism and journalism that fueled the movement at key moments, and the gradual incorporation of dissident ideals into mainstream Soviet political culture This book offers a definitive history of the group of dissenters who worked from within the Soviet system against the post-Stalinist regime, bringing to life the stories of drama, conflict, tangled relationships, personal sacrifice, and extraordinary devotion to a seemingly impossible cause"--

The astonishing life of the modest New Jersey businessman who anonymously gave away 10 billion dollars and inspired the "giving while living" movement In this bestselling book, Conor O'Clery reveals the inspiring life story of Chuck Feeney, known as the "James Bond of philanthropy." Feeney was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to a blue-collar Irish-American family during the Depression

After service in the Korean War, he made a fortune as founder of Duty Free Shoppers, the world's largest duty-free retail chain By 1988, he was hailed by Forbes Magazine as the twenty-fourth richest American alive But secretly Feeney had already transferred all his wealth to his foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies

Only in 1997 when he sold his duty free interests, was he "outed" as one of the greatest and most mysterious American philanthropists in modern times, who had anonymously funded hospitals and universities from San Francisco to Limerick to New York to Brisbane His example convinced Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to give away their fortunes during their lifetime, known as the giving pledge.

A provocative, original, and richly entertaining group biography of the Jewish immigrants who were the moving forces behind the creation of America's motion picture industry The names Harry Cohn, William Fox, Carl Laemmle, Louis B Mayer, Jack and Harry Warner, and Adolph Zucker are giants in the history of contemporary Hollywood, outsiders who dared to invent their own vision of the American Dream

Even to this day, the American values defined largely by the movies of these émigrés endure in American cinema and culture Who these men were, how they came to dominate Hollywood, and what they gained and lost in the process is the exhilarating story of An Empire of Their Own.

Shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize • Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize From the internationally best-selling writer, a masterful account of the epic revolution that sparked the decolonization of the modern world On a sunny Friday morning in August 1945, a handful of people raised a homemade cotton flag and, on behalf of 68 million compatriots, announced the birth of a new nation With the fourth largest population in the world, inhabiting islands that span an eighth of the globe, Indonesia became the first country to rid itself of colonial rule after World War II

In this vivid history, renowned scholar and celebrated author of Congo David Van Reybrouck captures a period of extraordinary tumult and chaos to tell the story of Indonesia’s momentous revolution, known as the “Revolusi.” Encompassing several hundred years of history, he details the formation of the Dutch East Indies, the Japanese invasion that followed, and the young rebels who engaged in armed resistance once the occupation ended British and Dutch troops were sent to restore order and keep peace, but instead ignited the first modern war of decolonization

America, too, became embroiled with the Indonesians’ fierce struggle for freedom That struggle inspired independence movements in Asia, Africa, and the Arab world, especially in the wake of Indonesia’s monumental 1955 Bandung Conference, the first global conference without the West The whole world had become involved in Revolusi, and the whole world was changed by it

Drawing on hundreds of interviews and eyewitness testimonies, David Van Reybrouck turns this vast and complex story into an utterly gripping narrative, written with remarkable historical clarity and filled with tragedy and passion A landmark history, Revolusi cements Indonesia’s struggle for independence as one of the defining dramas of the twentieth century and entirely reframes our understanding of post-colonialism.

“An extraordinary story of bravery and insanity on the high seas. . . One of the most gripping sea stories I have ever read.” — Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm In the tradition of Into Thin Air and The Perfect Storm, comes a breathtaking oceanic adventure about an obsessive desire to test the limits of human endurance In 1968 nine sailors set off on the most daring race ever held and never before completed: to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe nonstop

Ten months later, only one of the nine men would cross the finish line and earn fame, wealth, and glory For the others, the reward was madness, failure, and death Gorgeously written and meticulously researched by author Peter Nichols, this extraordinary book chronicles the contest of the individual against the sea, waged at a time before cell phones, satellite dishes, and electronic positioning systems A Voyage for Madmen is a tale of sailors driven by their own dreams and demons, of horrific storms, and of those riveting moments when a decision means the difference between life and death.

From the Yangtze to the Yellow River, China is traversed by great waterways, which have defined its politics and ways of life for centuries Water has been so integral to China’s culture, economy, and growth and development that it provides a window on the whole sweep of Chinese history In The Water Kingdom, renowned writer Philip Ball opens that window to offer an epic and powerful new way of thinking about Chinese civilization

Water, Ball shows, is a key that unlocks much of Chinese culture In The Water Kingdom, he takes us on a grand journey through China’s past and present, showing how the complexity and energy of the country and its history repeatedly come back to the challenges, opportunities, and inspiration provided by the waterways

Drawing on stories from travelers and explorers, poets and painters, bureaucrats and activists, all of whom have been influenced by an environment shaped and permeated by water, Ball explores how the ubiquitous relationship of the Chinese people to water has made it an enduring metaphor for philosophical thought and artistic expression From the Han emperors to Mao, the ability to manage the waters ? to provide irrigation and defend against floods ? was a barometer of political legitimacy, often resulting in engineering works on a gigantic scale

It is a struggle that continues today, as the strain of economic growth on water resources may be the greatest threat to China’s future The Water Kingdom offers an unusual and fascinating history, uncovering just how much of China’s art, politics, and outlook have been defined by the links between humanity and nature.

From a MacArthur "Genius," a bold new perspective on the history of Asia, highlighting the long quest to tame its waters Asia's history has been shaped by her waters In Unruly Waters, historian Sunil Amrith reimagines Asia's history through the stories of its rains, rivers, coasts, and seas -- and of the weather-watchers and engineers, mapmakers and farmers who have sought to control them Looking out from India, he shows how dreams and fears of water shaped visions of political independence and economic development, provoked efforts to reshape nature through dams and pumps, and unleashed powerful tensions within and between nations

Today, Asian nations are racing to construct hundreds of dams in the Himalayas, with dire environmental impacts; hundreds of millions crowd into coastal cities threatened by cyclones and storm surges In an age of climate change, Unruly Waters is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Asia's past and its future.

A sociologist and former fashion model takes readers inside the elite global party circuit of "models and bottles" to reveal how beautiful young women are used to boost the status of men Million-dollar birthday parties, megayachts on the French Riviera, and $40,000 bottles of champagne In today's New Gilded Age, the world's moneyed classes have taken conspicuous consumption to new extremes In Very Important People, sociologist, author, and former fashion model Ashley Mears takes readers inside the exclusive global nightclub and party circuit—from New York City and the Hamptons to Miami and Saint-Tropez—to reveal the intricate economy of beauty, status, and money that lies behind these spectacular displays of wealth and leisure

Mears spent eighteen months in this world of "models and bottles" to write this captivating, sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking narrative She describes how clubs and restaurants pay promoters to recruit beautiful young women to their venues in order to attract men and get them to spend huge sums in the ritual of bottle service These "girls" enhance the status of the men and enrich club owners, exchanging their bodily capital for as little as free drinks and a chance to party with men who are rich or aspire to be

Though they are priceless assets in the party circuit, these women are regarded as worthless as long-term relationship prospects, and their bodies are constantly assessed against men's money A story of extreme gender inequality in a seductive world, Very Important People unveils troubling realities behind moneyed leisure in an age of record economic disparity.

From a New York Times bestselling author and investigative journalist comes The Social Network for the video game industry, a riveting examination of Blizzard Entertainment's rise and shocking downfall For video game fans, the name Blizzard Entertainment was once synonymous with perfection The renowned company behind classics like Diablo and World of Warcraft was known to celebrate the joy of gaming over all else

What was once two UCLA students' simple mission — to make games they wanted to play — launched an empire with thousands of employees, millions of fans, and billions of dollars But when Blizzard cancelled a buzzy project in 2013, it gave Bobby Kotick, the infamous CEO of corporate parent Activision, the excuse he needed to start cracking down on Blizzard's proud autonomy Activision began invading Blizzard from the inside

Glitchy products, PR disasters, mass layoffs, and a staggering lawsuit marred the company's reputation and led to its ultimate reckoning Based on firsthand interviews with more than 300 current and former employees, Play Nice chronicles the creativity, frustration, beauty, and betrayal across the epic 33-year saga of Blizzard Entertainment, showing us what it really means to "bleed Blizzard blue." Full of colorful personalities and dramatic twists, this is the story of what happens when the ruthless pursuit of profit meets artistic idealism.

A remarkable look at how the growth, technology, and politics of high-frequency trading have altered global financial markets In today’s financial markets, trading floors on which brokers buy and sell shares face-to-face have increasingly been replaced by lightning-fast electronic systems that use algorithms to execute astounding volumes of transactions Trading at the Speed of Light tells the story of this epic transformation Donald MacKenzie shows how in the 1990s, in what were then the disreputable margins of the US financial system, a new approach to trading—automated high-frequency trading or HFT—began and then spread throughout the world

HFT has brought new efficiency to global trading, but has also created an unrelenting race for speed, leading to a systematic, subterranean battle among HFT algorithms In HFT, time is measured in nanoseconds (billionths of a second), and in a nanosecond the fastest possible signal—light in a vacuum—can travel only thirty centimeters, or roughly a foot That makes HFT exquisitely sensitive to the length and transmission capacity of the cables connecting computer servers to the exchanges’ systems and to the location of the microwave towers that carry signals between computer datacenters

Drawing from more than 300 interviews with high-frequency traders, the people who supply them with technological and communication capabilities, exchange staff, regulators, and many others, MacKenzie reveals the extraordinary efforts expended to speed up every aspect of trading He looks at how in some markets big banks have fought off the challenge from HFT firms, and how exchanges sometimes engineer technical systems to favor certain types of algorithms over others Focusing on the material, political, and economic characteristics of high-frequency trading, Trading at the Speed of Light offers a unique glimpse into its influence on global finance and where it could lead us in the future.

This book is the first comprehensive account of the rules and practices─the microstructure─of the Dojima Security Exchange (DSE), the world’s first futures market Despite worldwide interest in the DSE and its relevance to modern financial markets, it is only briefly touched upon as the earliest example of a futures market in most of the existing literature in English Until the publication of this book, there has been no comprehensive account in English of the rules and practices of the DSE

The DSE emerged in Osaka, Japan, around the turn of the eighteenth century In Tokugawa Japan (1603–1867), the shogunate and local lords levied taxes in rice and exchanged rice for currency in rice markets to finance their expenditures Osaka had the biggest rice market in Japan throughout the Tokugawa period, and most local lords stored rice in their own warehouses in Osaka, selling rice at auctions

Successful bidders received “rice certificates” instead of rice itself, and each rice certificate could be exchanged for a pre-specified quantity of rice any time before its expiration at the issuer’s warehouse These certificates and the futures contracts based on them were actively traded in a market located in Dojima, an area in Osaka This market was officially approved by the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1730 as the Dojima Rice Exchange

Despite its official name, no rice was actually traded in this market This historical fact is emphasized by referring to it as the “Dojima Security Exchange” (DSE) in the proposed book.

The first Westerner to meet Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communist leaders in 1936, Edgar Snow came away with the first authorised account of Mao's life, as well as a history of the famous Long March and the men and women who were responsible for the Chinese revolution Out of that experience came Red Star Over China, a classic work that remains one of the most important books ever written about the birth of the Communist movement in China This edition includes extensive notes on the military and political developments in China, further interviews with Mao Tse-tung, a chronology covering 125 years of Chinese revolution and nearly a hundred detailed biographies of the men and women who were instrumental in making China what it is today.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A spirited new history of Chinese food told through an account of the remarkable life of Fu Pei-mei, the woman who brought Chinese cooking to the world In 1949, a young Chinese housewife arrived in Taiwan and transformed herself from a novice to a natural in the kitchen She launched a career as a cookbook author and television cooking instructor that would last four decades

Years later, in America, flipping through her mother’s copies of Fu Pei-mei’s Chinese cookbooks, historian Michelle T King discovered more than the recipes to meals of her childhood She found, in Fu’s story and in her food, a vivid portal to another time, when a generation of middle-class, female home cooks navigated the tremendous postwar transformations taking place across the world

In Chop Fry Watch Learn, King weaves together stories from her own family and contemporary oral history to present a remarkable argument for how understanding the story of Fu’s life enables us to see Chinese food as both an inheritance of tradition and a truly modern creation, influenced by the historical phenomena of the postwar era These include a dramatic increase in the number of women working outside the home, a new proliferation of mass media, the arrival of innovative kitchen tools, and the shifting diplomatic fortunes of China and Taiwan

King reveals how and why, for audiences in Taiwan and around the world, Fu became the ultimate culinary touchstone: the figure against whom all other cooking authorities were measured And Fu’s legacy continues Her cookbooks have become beloved emblems of cultural memory, passed from parent to child, wherever diasporic Chinese have landed

Informed by the voices of fans across generations, King illuminates the story of Chinese food from the inside: at home, around the family dinner table The result is a revelatory work, a rich banquet of past and present tastes that will resonate deeply for all of us looking for our histories in the kitchen.

Indoctrinating the Youth examines how the Guomindang (GMD or Nationalists) sought to maintain control of middle-school students and cultivate their political loyalty over the trajectory of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese Civil War, and postwar Taiwan During the Sino-Japanese War the Nationalists managed middle-school refugee students by merging schools, publishing and distributing updated textbooks, and assisting students as they migrated to the interior with their principals and teachers

In Taiwan, the China Youth Corps (CYC) became a symbol of the regime’s successful establishment Tracing Nationalist efforts to indoctrinate ideology and martial spirit, Jennifer Liu investigates how GMD leaders Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo tried to build support among young people in their efforts to stabilize Taiwanese society under their rule By comparing two key youth organizations—the Three People’s Principles Youth Corps in China, and the CYC on Taiwan—Liu uses education as a lens to analyze state-building in modern China

Liu’s careful analysis of the inner workings of GMD youth organizations also illuminates the day-to-day operations of military training in gender-segregated upper-middle schools—including how the government selected instructors and the skills taught to students According to Liu, mandatory military training contributed to preventing major protest against the government but the policy was not without critics Intellectuals, parents, and students voiced their dissent at what they perceived as excessive control by a repressive government and a waste of resources interfering with academics

The government-mandated civics curriculum, including government-approved textbooks and standards, reveals the characteristics and duties GMD officials believed modern citizens of the next generation should possess Through provisions for refugee students, youth organizations, military training, and civics classes, GMD secondary education policy played a critical role in the process of state building in both modern China and Taiwan Skillfully combining archival work in Nanjing and Taipei, along with oral interviews with former students and CYC administrators, instructors, and members, Liu offers a unique perspective toward a balanced assessment of Nationalist Party rule.

Formosa Betrayed is the authoritative account of the Kuomintang takeover of Taiwan and the 1947 "228 Incident" in which tens of thousands of Taiwanese people - an entire generation of intellectuals and leaders - were massacred by the new government Kerr was there, knew Taiwan well, and paints a compelling picture of Taiwan's tragic past.

Introduction : empires and indigenous peoples, global transformation and the limits of international society -- From wet diplomacy to scorched earth : the Taiwan expedition, the Guardline and the Wushe rebellion -- The long durée and the short circuit : gender, language and territory in the making of indigenous Taiwan -- Tangled up in red : textiles, trading posts and ethnic bifurcation in Taiwan -- The geobodies within a geobody : the visual economy of race-making and indigeneity

"What does it mean to be Taiwanese This question sits at the heart of Taiwan’s modern history and its place in the world

In contrast to the prevailing scholarly focus on Taiwan after 1987, Becoming Taiwanese examines the important first era in the history of Taiwanese identity construction during the early twentieth century, in the place that served as the crucible for the formation of new identities: the northern port city of Jilong (Keelung) Part colonial urban social history, part exploration of the relationship between modern ethnicity and nationalism, Becoming Taiwanese offers new insights into ethnic identity formation

Evan Dawley examines how people from China’s southeastern coast became rooted in Taiwan; how the transfer to Japanese colonial rule established new contexts and relationships that promoted the formation of distinct urban, ethnic, and national identities; and how the so-called retrocession to China replicated earlier patterns and reinforced those same identities Based on original research in Taiwan and Japan, and focused on the settings and practices of social organizations, religion, and social welfare, as well as the local elites who served as community gatekeepers, Becoming Taiwanese fundamentally challenges our understanding of what it means to be Taiwanese."

The INSTANT New York Times bestseller Instant Los Angeles Times bestseller “In Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobsen gives us a vivid picture of what could happen if our nuclear guardians fail…Terrifying.”—Wall Street Journal There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear missile inbound toward the United States

Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have

Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made Nuclear War: A Scenario examines the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch It is essential reading, and unlike any other book in its depth and urgency.

This book, a bestseller in China with over a million copies sold, depicts the role played by the Chinese government in China‘s economic development It explains how the Chinese government has gradually established and improved market mechanisms while promoting economic growth

The book particularly points out that the Chinese government not only governs the economy through policy guidance but also directly participates in the process of urbanization and industrialization as part of the market It also introduces the specific mechanisms of government involvement in economic activities, which forms a bridge between economic theory and the reality of China This book, a winner of the Wenjin Book Award by the National Library of China, will be an invaluable reference for scholars seeking to understand China‘s economic policy and government system reform in the years to come.

How Bulgaria transformed the computer industry behind the Iron Curtain—and the consequences of that transformation for a society that dreamt of a brighter future Bulgaria in 1963 was a communist country led by a centralized party trying to navigate a multinational Cold War The state needed money, and it sought prestige

By cultivating a burgeoning computer industry, Bulgaria achieved both but at great cost to the established order In Balkan Cyberia, Victor Petrov elevates a deeply researched, local story of ambition into an essential history of global innovation, ideological conflict, and exchange Granted tremendous freedom by the Politburo and backed by a concerted state secret intelligence effort, a new, privileged class of technical intellectuals and managers rose to prominence in Bulgaria in the 1960s

Plugged in to transnational business and professional networks, they strove to realize the party’s radical dreams of utopian automation, and Bulgaria would come to manufacture up to half of the Eastern Bloc’s electronics Yet, as Petrov shows, the export-oriented nature of the industry also led to the disruption of party rule Technicians, now thinking with and through computers, began to recast the dominant intellectual discourse within a framework of reform, while technocratic managers translated their newfound political clout into economic power that served them well before and after the revolutions of 1989

Balkan Cyberia reveals the extension of economic and political networks of influence far past the reputed fall of communism, along with the pivotal role small countries played in geopolitical games at the time Through the prism of the Bulgarian computer industry, the true nature of the socialist international economy, and indeed the links between capitalism and communism, emerge.

In Liberalism Disavowed, Beng Huat Chua examines the rejection of Western-style liberalism in Singapore since the nation’s expulsion from Malaysia and formal independence as a republic in 1965 The People’s Action Party, which has ruled Singapore since 1959, has forged an independent non-Western ideology that is evident in various government policies that Chua analyzes, among them multiracialism, public housing, and widespread social distributions to the citizenry

Singapore is prosperous and peaceful, it’s highly advanced on various metrics of economic development, it has a great deal of regional influence, it is home to sophisticated industries and a large financial service sector, and it features what are by Western standards unusually low levels of social inequality Paradoxically, however, it is no beacon of political liberalism Chua sets forth ample evidence that the dominance of the People’s Action Party is based on a combination of economic success and media control, limits on public protests, libel suits against political opponents, and severely curtailed civil liberties.

Pontusson's book does an excellent job in taking a critical look at Swedish investment politics. . . On the whole, this book is the best overall explanation of Swedish investment politics It gives the reader a clear basis for understanding the rise of Swedish social democracy and provides a detailed examination of the developments of industrial policy, codetermination, and wage-earner funds.'--Contemporary Sociology

This Element details how elites provide policy concessions when they face credible threats of revolution Specifically, the authors discuss how the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent formation of Comintern enhanced elites' perceptions of revolutionary threat by affecting the capacity and motivation of labor movements as well as the elites' interpretation of information signals These developments incentivized elites to provide policy concessions to urban workers, notably reduced working hours and expanded social transfer programs

The authors assess their argument by using original qualitative and quantitative data First, they document changes in perceptions of revolutionary threat and strategic policy concessions in early inter-war Norway by using archival and other sources Second, they code, for example, representatives at the 1919 Comintern meeting to proxy for credibility of domestic revolutionary threat in cross-national analysis States facing greater threats expanded various social policies to a larger extent than other countries, and some of these differences persisted for decades.

The Japanese term, "sanpaku", describes a condition in the eye that connotes a grave state of physical and spiritual imbalance. "Macrobiotics", is the simple, natural means of correcting the dangerous "sanpaku" condition and creating a state of health, harmony and well-being, within and without This book describes the condition, symptoms, and means of repair for the human body and soul via macrobiotics. **Lightning Print On Demand Title

In this groundbreaking book, renowned global economist David McWilliams unlocks the mysteries and the awesome power of money: what it is, how it works, and why it matters The story of money is the story of our desires, our genius, and our downfalls Money is power—and power beguiles Nothing we’ve invented as a species has defined our own evolution so thoroughly and changed the direction of our planet’s history so dramatically

Money has shaped the very essence of what it means to be human We can’t hope to understand ourselves without it And yet despite money’s primacy, most of us don’t truly understand it As economist David McWilliams states, money is everything. “Money defines the relationship between worker and employer, buyer and seller, merchant and producer

But not only that: it also defines the bond between the governed and the governor, the state and the citizen Money unlocks pleasure, puts a price on desire, art and creativity It motivates us to strive, achieve, invent and take risks Money also brings out humanity’s darker side, invoking greed, envy, hatred, violence and, of course, colonialism.” Money isn’t just paper or coins or virtual currency

Money is humanity Leading economics expert, David McWilliams answers these questions and more in Money, an epic, breathlessly entertaining journey across the world through the present and the past, from the birthplace of money in ancient Babylon to the beginning of trade along the silk road to China, from Marrakech markets to Wall Street and the dawn of cryptocurrency By tracking its history, McWilliams uncovers our relationship with money, transforming our perspective on its impact on the world right now

McWilliams is no dusty economist; he is a communicator at the highest level, a highly telegenic and marketable expert who is as comfortable in front of a large audience talking about his favourite subject as he is appearing on podcasts, social media, and even in stand-up comedy He’s been called Ireland’s most important economist and is ranked among the leading economists working today

The story of money is the story of earth’s most inventive, destructive, and dangerous animal: Homo sapiens It is our story.

Forty years after his death, Mao remains a totemic, if divisive, figure in contemporary China Though he retains an immense symbolic importance within China's national mythology, the rise of a capitalist economy has seen the ruling class become increasingly ambivalent towards him And while he continues to be a highly visible and contentious presence in Chinese public life, Mao's enduring influence has been little understood in the West

In China and the New Maoists, Kerry Brown and Simone van Nieuwenhuizen look at the increasingly vocal elements who claim to be the true ideological heirs to Mao, ranging from academics to cyberactivists, as well as at the state's efforts to draw on Mao's image as a source of legitimacy This is a fascinating portrait of a country undergoing dramatic upheavals while still struggling to come to terms with its past.

For decades, the small, quiet town of Hamlet, North Carolina, thrived thanks to the railroad But by the 1970s, it had become a postindustrial backwater, a magnet for businesses in search of cheap labor and almost no oversight Imperial Food Products was one of those businesses The company set up shop in Hamlet in the 1980s

Workers who complained about low pay and hazardous working conditions at the plant were silenced or fired But jobs were scarce in town, so workers kept coming back, and the company continued to operate with impunity Then, on the morning of September 3, 1991, the never-inspected chicken-processing plant a stone's throw from Hamlet's city hall burst into flames

Twenty-five people perished that day behind the plant's locked and bolted doors It remains one of the deadliest accidents ever in the history of the modern American food industry Eighty years after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, industrial disasters were supposed to have been a thing of the past in the United States

However, as award-winning historian Bryant Simon shows, the pursuit of cheap food merged with economic decline in small towns across the South and the nation to devalue laborers and create perilous working conditions The Hamlet fire and its aftermath reveal the social costs of antiunionism, lax regulations, and ongoing racial discrimination Using oral histories, contemporary news coverage, and state records, Simon has constructed a vivid, potent, and disturbing social autopsy of this town, this factory, and this time that exposes how cheap labor, cheap government, and cheap food came together in a way that was destined to result in tragedy.

The period between 1867 and 1914 remains the greatest watershed in human history since the emergence of settled agricultural societies: the time when an expansive civilization based on synergy of fuels, science, and technical innovation was born At its beginnings in the 1870s were dynamite, the telephone, photographic film, and the first light bulbs Its peak decade - the astonishing 1880s - brought electricity - generating plants, electric motors, steam turbines, the gramophone, cars, aluminum production, air-filled rubber tires, and prestressed concrete

And its post-1900 period saw the first airplanes, tractors, radio signals and plastics, neon lights and assembly line production This book is a systematic interdisciplinary account of the history of this outpouring of European and American intellect and of its truly epochal consequences It takes a close look at four fundamental classes of these epoch-making innovations: formation, diffusion, and standardization of electric systems; invention and rapid adoption of internal combustion engines; the unprecedented pace of new chemical syntheses and material substitutions; and the birth of a new information age These chapters are followed by an evaluation of the lasting impact these advances had on the 20th century, that is, the creation of high-energy societies engaged in mass production aimed at improving standards of living.

THE *INSTANT* NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER USA TODAY BESTSELLER An exhilarating, thoughtful, and beautifully written memoir by musician, songwriter, and lead singer-lyricist of Grammy award-winning metal band, System Of A Down, Serj Tankian Serj Tankian will be the first to admit that his band, System Of A Down, was “unlikely a chart-topper as had ever existed in modern music history: a band of Armenian-Americans playing a practically unclassifiable clash of wildly aggressive metal riffs, unconventional tempo-twisting rhythms, and Armenian folk melodies, with me alternately growling, screaming, and crooning lyrics that could pivot from avant-garde silliness to raging socio-political rants in the space of a single line.” After all, as Serj concedes, “it’s not easy listening.” Even so, there’s no doubt that System’s music had struck a chord with millions of listeners across the globe ever since they burst on the scene in the mid-1990s

With nearly 40 million album sales, three albums topping the Billboard charts, and a devoted legion of fans, the band dominated the alt-rock and metal scenes just as the world hurtled into a new millennium, redefining the very idea of what rockstars could and couldn’t talk about, could and couldn’t do, could and couldn’t represent In DOWN WITH THE SYSTEM, Serj presents readers with a memoir that is far more than just a rock 'n' roll fable It's an immigrant's tale, it’s an activist's awakening, and it's a spiritual journey from darkness toward light

And all of this comes down to the fact that Serj himself has had the chance to live an extraordinary life—thanks to a combination of luck, circumstance, struggle, talent, and spiritual awakening Born to Armenian parents in Beirut, Serj grows up hearing bombs drop outside his childhood home during the country’s civil war, before moving to Los Angeles at the age of seven As a young man, he is immersed in the SoCal community of “Little Armenia,” learning more and more about the brutal genocide faced by his ancestors while helping his parents adapt to the constraints and contradictions of the American Dream

Then, during a pivotal drive home from an LSAT class, Serj decides to turn away from a promising future in business and law to make music instead—a decision that leads him to touring five continents as the lead singer of a hugely popular rock band, hitting number #1 on the Billboard album charts the morning of 9/11, and then having the hit single from the same album banned from radio two days later In the years that follow, his uniquely singular story continues, as he evades glass bottles hurled at a cancelled show by angry Slayer fans, teams up with Tom Morello to push social justice causes on unsuspecting metalheads, argues with LAPD officers over the best way to quell rioting fans, and defines new sounds and singing tactics with Rick Rubin

Braiding together Serj’s thought-provoking insight with heartfelt and poetic prose, DOWN WITH THE SYSTEM retraces Serj’s remarkable and unlikely journey, and explores what it’s taught him—about music, about art, about activism, and about himself It’s an unforgettable ride that will leave you breathless—and an absolute delight for new fans and old ones alike.

From a pioneer in the field of complexity science and chaos theory, a plan for solving the world's most pressing problems "Farmer convincingly argues that by using big data and today's more powerful computers, we can build more realistic models and simulations of the global economy. . . Farmer's vision will undoubtedly be significant in how economics evolves."--Tej Parikh, Financial Times, "Best New Books on Economics" "Both a manifesto for a revolution in economics and a memoir of an unusual career."--Ed Ballard, Wall Street Journal We live in an age of increasing complexity--an era of accelerating technology and global interconnection that holds more promise, and more peril, than any other time in human history

The fossil fuels that have powered global wealth creation now threaten to destroy the world they helped build Automation and digitization promise prosperity for some, unemployment for others Financial crises fuel growing inequality, polarization, and the retreat of democracy At heart, all these problems are rooted in the economy, yet the guidance provided by economic models has often failed

Many books have been written about J Doyne Farmer and his work, but this is the first in his own words It presents a manifesto for how to do economics better In this tale of science and ideas, Farmer fuses his profound knowledge and expertise with stories from his life to explain how we can bring a scientific revolution to bear on the economic conundrums facing society

Using big data and ever more powerful computers, we are now able for the first time to apply complex systems science to economic activity, building realistic models of the global economy The resulting simulations and the emergent behavior we observe form the cornerstone of the science of complexity economics, allowing us to test ideas and make significantly better economic predictions--to better address the hard problems facing the world.

“This—THIS—is the cutting edge of science fiction.” —Richard K Morgan, author of Altered Carbon How do you stage a mutiny when you're only awake one day in a million How do you conspire when your tiny handful of potential allies changes with each job shift How do you engage an enemy that never sleeps, that sees through your eyes and hears through your ears, and relentlessly, honestly, only wants what's best for you

Trapped aboard the starship Eriophora, Sunday Ahzmundin is about to discover the components of any successful revolution: conspiracy, code—and unavoidable casualties Note from the publisher: The red letters in the print edition (highlighted letters in the e-book) indicate special bonus content.

How and why China has pursued information-age weapons to gain leverage against its adversaries How can states use military force to achieve their political aims without triggering a catastrophic nuclear war Among the states facing this dilemma of fighting limited wars, only China has given information-age weapons such a prominent role While other countries have preferred the traditional options of threatening to use nuclear weapons or fielding capabilities for decisive conventional military victories, China has instead chosen to rely on offensive cyber operations, counterspace capabilities, and precision conventional missiles to coerce its adversaries

In Under the Nuclear Shadow, Fiona Cunningham examines this distinctive aspect of China's post-Cold War deterrence strategy, developing an original theory of "strategic substitution." When crises with the United States highlighted the inadequacy of China's existing military capabilities, Cunningham argues, China pursued information-age weapons that promised to rapidly provide credible leverage against adversaries Drawing on hundreds of original Chinese language sources and interviews with security experts in China, Cunningham provides a rare and candid glimpse from Beijing into the information-age technologies that are reshaping how states gain leverage in the twenty-first century

She offers unprecedented insights into the trajectory of China's military modernization, as she details the strengths and weaknesses of China's strategic substitution approach Under the Nuclear Shadow also looks ahead at the uncertain future of China's strategic substitution approach and briefly explores too how other states might seize upon the promise of emerging technologies to address weaknesses in their own military strategies.

Few gave tiny Singapore much chance of survival when independence was thrust upon it in 1965 Today the former British trading post is a thriving Asian metropolis with one of the world’s highest per capita income

The story of that transformation is told here by Singapore’s charismatic, controversial founding father Lee Kuan Yew From Third World To First continues where the best-selling first volume, The Singapore Story, left off, and brings up to date the story of Singapore’s dramatic rise It was first published in 2000

Delving deep into his own meticulous notes and previously unpublished papers and cabinet records, Lee details the extraordinary efforts it took for an island city-state in Southeast Asia to survive, with just “a razor’s edge” to manoeuvre in, as Albert Winsemius, Singapore’s economic advisor in the 1960s, put it.We read how a young man of 42 and his cabinet colleagues finished off the communist threat to the fledging state’s security, and began the long, hard work of building a nation: creating an army from scratch, stamping out corruption, providing mass public housing, and masterminding a national airline and airport Lee writes frankly about his trenchant approach to political opponents and his often unorthodox views on human rights, democracy and inherited intelligence, aiming always “to be correct, not politically correct”

Nothing about Singapore escaped his watchful eye: whether choosing shrubs for roadsides, restoring the romance of historic Raffles Hotel of persuading young men to marry women as well-educated as themselves Today’s safe, tidy Singapore certainly bears his stamp, but as he writes, “If this is a nanny state, I am proud to have fostered one.”

The classic guide to quantitative investing—expanded and updated for today’s increasingly complex markets From Bruce Jacobs and Ken Levy—two pioneers of quantitative equity management—the go-to guide to stock selection has been substantially updated to help you build portfolios in today’s transformed investing landscape A powerful combination of in-depth research and expert insights gained from decades of experience, Equity Management, Second Edition includes 24 new peer-reviewed articles that help leveraged long-short investors and leverage-averse investors navigate today’s complex and unpredictable markets

Retaining all the content that made an instant classic of the first edition—including the authors’ innovative approach to disentangling the many factors that influence stock returns, unifying the investment process, and integrating long and short portfolio positions—this new edition addresses critical issues Among them-- • What’s the best leverage level for long-short and leveraged long-only portfolios? • Which behavioral characteristics explain the recent financial meltdown and previous crises? • What is smart beta—and why should you think twice about using it? • How do option-pricing theory and arbitrage strategies lead to market instability? • Why are factor-based strategies on the rise

Equity Management provides the most comprehensive treatment of the subject to date More than a mere compilation of articles, this collection provides a carefully structured view of modern quantitative investing You’ll come away with levels of insight and understanding that will give you an edge in increasingly complex and unpredictable markets

Well-established as two of today’s most innovative thinkers, Jacobs and Levy take you to the next level of investing Read Equity Management and design the perfect portfolio for your investing goals.

From the leading authorities in their field—the newest, most effective tools for avoiding common pitfalls while maximizing profits through active portfolio management Whether you’re a portfolio manager, financial adviser, or investing novice, this important follow-up to the classic guide to active portfolio management delivers everything you need to beat the market at every turn Advances in Active Portfolio Management gets you fully up to date on the issues, trends, and challenges in the world of active management—and shows how to apply advances in the Grinold and Kahn’s legendary approach to meet current challenges

Composed of articles published in today’s leading management publications—including several that won Journal of Portfolio Management’s prestigious Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy Award—this comprehensive guide is filled with new insights into: • Dynamic Portfolio Management • Signal Weighting • Implementation Efficiency • Holdings-based attribution • Expected returns • Risk management • Portfolio construction • Fees Providing everything you need to master active portfolio management in today’s investing landscape, the book is organized into three sections: the fundamentals of successful active management, advancing the authors’ framework, and applying the framework in today’s investing landscape The culmination of many decades of investing experience and research, Advances in Active Portfolio Managementmakes complex issues easy to understand and put into practice It’s the one-stop resource you need to succeed in the world of investing today.

A History of Interest Rates, Fourth Edition presents a readable account of interest rate trends and lending practices spanning over four millennia of economic history Filled with in-depth insights and illustrative charts and tables, this unique resource provides a broad perspective on interest rate movements - from which financial professionals can evaluate contemporary interest rate and monetary developments - and applies analytical tools, such as yield-curve averaging and decennial averaging, to the data available." "A History of Interest Rates, Fourth Edition offers a highly detailed analysis of money markets and borrowing practices in major economies It places the rates and corresponding credit forms in context by summarizing the political and economic events and financial customs of particular times and places." "To help you stay as current as possible, this revised and updated Fourth Edition contains a new chapter of contemporary material as well as added discussions of interest rate developments over the past ten years."--BOOK JACKET.

This book contends that Indo-European languages came to Greece, central Europe, southern Scandinavia and northern Italy no earlier than ca. 1600 BC, brought by the first military men whom Europeans had seen That the Greek, Keltic, Italic and Germanic sub-groups of Indo-European originated in the middle of the second millennium BC is a controversial idea Most Indo-Europeanists date the origin a thousand years earlier, and some archaeologists would place it before 5000 BC, as agriculture spread through Europe Here Robert Drews argues that the Indo-European languages came into Europe via military conquests, and that militarism – a man’s pride in his weapons and in his status as a warrior - began with the employment of horse-drawn chariots in battle.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more Sequels, reboots, franchises, and songs that remake old songs—does it feel like everything new in popular culture is just derivative of something old

Contrary to popular belief, the reason is not audiences or marketing, but Wall Street In this book, Andrew deWaard shows how the financial sector is dismantling the creative capacity of cultural industries by upwardly redistributing wealth, consolidating corporate media, harming creative labor, and restricting our collective media culture

Moreover, financialization is transforming the very character of our mediascapes for branded transactions Our media are increasingly shaped by the profit-extraction techniques of hedge funds, asset managers, venture capitalists, private equity firms, and derivatives traders Illustrated with examples drawn from popular culture, Derivative Media offers readers the critical financial literacy necessary to understand the destructive financialization of film, television, and popular music—and provides a plan to reverse this dire threat to culture.

He was one of the most extraordinary figures in America's political history, a great natural politician who had become, at the time of his assassination, a serious rival to Franklin D Roosevelt for the presidency.

In Darfur: The Long Road to Disaster, Burr and Collins have updated their original 1999 volume with additional chapters The new title is not a publisher's gimmick: this is indeed the prehistory of Darfur's tragedy, and it is essential, if difficult, reading for any serious student of the crisis.. Not only does it provide an account of a history indispensable for understanding Darfur, but it is a salutary reminder of how intractable conflicts in the Chad basin can be. --African Studies Review Millard Burr and Robert Collins' book documents the twists and turns in this long-running saga...

This edition brings the story almost up to date. - Times Higher Education Supplement A lively and informative study.. The authors consider ethnic, religious, cultural, technological, geographic, and meteorological variables and present brief enlightening political portraits of the stories' protagonists. - Foreign Affairs Review a timely, useful contribution... well documented and lucidly written. - International Journal of Middle East Studie

A Nobel laureate reveals the often surprising rules that govern a vast array of activities -- both mundane and life-changing -- in which money may play little or no role If you've ever sought a job or hired someone, applied to college or guided your child into a good kindergarten, asked someone out on a date or been asked out, you've participated in a kind of market Most of the study of economics deals with commodity markets, where the price of a good connects sellers and buyers

But what about other kinds of "goods," like a spot in the Yale freshman class or a position at Google This is the territory of matching markets, where "sellers" and "buyers" must choose each other, and price isn't the only factor determining who gets what Alvin E Roth is one of the world's leading experts on matching markets

He has even designed several of them, including the exchange that places medical students in residencies and the system that increases the number of kidney transplants by better matching donors to patients In Who Gets What -- And Why, Roth reveals the matching markets hidden around us and shows how to recognize a good match and make smarter, more confident decisions.

The story of the U.S Department of Defense's extraordinary effort, in the period from 1983 to 1993, to achieve machine intelligence.

1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER It was never supposed to be this close And of course she was supposed to win How Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump is the riveting story of a sure thing gone off the rails For every Comey revelation or hindsight acknowledgment about the electorate, no explanation of defeat can begin with anything other than the core problem of Hillary's campaign--the candidate herself

Through deep access to insiders from the top to the bottom of the campaign, political writers Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes have reconstructed the key decisions and unseized opportunities, the well-intentioned misfires and the hidden thorns that turned a winnable contest into a devastating loss Drawing on the authors' deep knowledge of Hillary from their previous book, the acclaimed biography HRC, Shattered offers an object lesson in how Hillary herself made victory an uphill battle, how her difficulty articulating a vision irreparably hobbled her impact with voters, and how the campaign failed to internalize the lessons of populist fury from the hard-fought primary against Bernie Sanders Moving blow-by-blow from the campaign's difficult birth through the bewildering terror of election night, Shattered tells an unforgettable story with urgent lessons both political and personal, filled with revelations that will change the way readers understand just what happened to America on November 8, 2016.

Within the English revolution of the mid-seventeenth century which resulted in the triumph of the protestant ethic - the ideology of the propertied class - there threatened another, quite different, revolution Its success might have established communal property, a far wider democracy in political and legal institutions, might have disestablished the state church and rejected the protestant ethic In The World Turned Upside Down Christopher Hill studies the beliefs of such radical groups as the Diggers, the Ranters, the Levellers and others, and the social and emotional impulses that gave rise to them The relations between rich and poor classes, the part played by wandering 'masterless' men, the outbursts of sexual freedom, the great imaginative creations of Milton and Bunyan - these and many other elements build up into a marvellously detailed and coherent portrait of this strange, sudden effusion of revolutionary beliefs.

How bankers created the modern consumer credit economy and destroyed financial stability in the process American households are awash in expensive credit card debt But where did all this debt come from In this history of the rise of postwar American finance, Sean H Vanatta shows how bankers created our credit card economy and, with it, the indebted nation we know today

America's consumer debt machine was not inevitable In the years after World War II, state and federal regulations ensured that many Americans enjoyed safe banks and inexpensive credit Bankers, though, grew restless amid restrictive rules that made profits scarce They experimented with new services and new technologies

They settled on credit cards, and in the 1960s mailed out reams of high-interest plastic to build a debt industry from scratch In the 1960s and '70s consumers fought back, using federal and state policy to make credit cards safer and more affordable But bankers found ways to work around local rules Beginning in 1980, Citibank and its peers relocated their card plans to South Dakota and Delaware, states with the weakest consumer regulations, creating "on-shore" financial havens and drawing consumers into an exploitative credit economy over which they had little control We live in the world these bankers made.

An exploration of how China's Belt and Road Initiative seeks to reshape international order and how it has catalyzed a new era of infrastructural geopolitics Over the past decade China has put infrastructural and urban development at the heart of a strategy aimed at nothing less than the transformation of international order The Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to revitalize and reconnect the ancient Silk Roads that linked much of the world before the rise of the West, is an attempt to place China at the center of this new international order, one shaped by Chinese power, norms, and values

It seeks to do so, in part, by shaping our shared urban future Simon Curtis and Ian Klaus explore how China's specific investments in urban development--cities, roads, railways, ports, digital and energy connectivity--are directly linked to its foreign policy goals Curtis and Klaus examine the implications of these developments as they evolve across the vast Afro-Eurasian region The distinctive model of international order and urban life emerging with the rise of Chinese power and influence offers a potential rival to the one that has accompanied the rise and zenith of Western power, marking a new age of infrastructural geopolitics and Great Power competition.

Hungarian-born George Soros is unquestionably one of the world's most powerful and profitable investors Dubbed "The Man Who Moves Markets," Soros is an investment wizard, speculator extraordinaire and magnanimous philanthropist This book chronicles Soros' life - how his family evaded capture by the Nazis, and how Soros used his business acumen to become a billionaire

His fame took a quantum leap in 1992 when he amassed over $1 billion in profits with the collapse of the British pound No need to hedge your bets, this book will entertain and enlighten readers on the life of one of the most fascinating financial gurus of our time."--BOOK JACKET.

Victor Sebestyen's riveting biography of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin—the first major biography in English in nearly two decades—is not only a political examination of one of the most important historical figures of the twentieth century but also a fascinating portrait of Lenin the man Brought up in comfort and with a passion for hunting and fishing, chess, and the English classics, Lenin was radicalized after the execution of his brother in 1887 Sebestyen traces the story from Lenin's early years to his long exile in Europe and return to Petrograd in 1917 to lead the first Communist revolution in history

Uniquely, Sebestyen has discovered that throughout Lenin's life his closest relationships were with his mother, his sisters, his wife, and his mistress The long-suppressed story told here of the love triangle that Lenin had with his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and his beautiful, married mistress and comrade, Inessa Armand, reveals a more complicated character than that of the coldly one-dimensional leader of the Bolshevik Revolution With Lenin's personal papers and those of other leading political figures now available, Sebestyen gives is new details that bring to life the dramatic and gripping story of how Lenin seized power in a coup and ran his revolutionary state

The product of a violent, tyrannical, and corrupt Russia, he chillingly authorized the deaths of thousands of people and created a system based on the idea that political terror against opponents was justified for a greater ideal An old comrade what had once admired him said that Lenin "desired the good . . . but created evil." This included his invention of Stalin, who would take Lenin's system of the gulag and the secret police to horrifying new heights In Lenin, Victor Sebestyen has written a brilliant portrait of this dictator as a complex and ruthless figure, and he also brings to light important new revelations about the Russian Revolution, a pivotal point in modern history. (With 16 pages of black-and-white photographs)

After Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) is the man most associated with communism and its influence and reach around the world Lenin was the leader of the communist Bolshevik party during the October 1917 revolution in Russia, and he subsequently headed the Soviet state until 1924, bringing stability to the region and establishing a socialist economic and political system In Lenin, Lars T

Lih presents a striking new interpretation of Lenin’s political beliefs and strategies Until now, Lenin has been portrayed as a pessimist with a dismissive view of the revolutionary potential of the workers

However, Lih reveals that underneath the sharp polemics, Lenin was actually a romantic enthusiast rather than a sour pragmatist, one who imposed meaning on the whirlwind of events going on around him This concise and unique biography is based on wide-ranging new research that puts Lenin into the context both of Russian society and of the international socialist movement of the early twentieth century It also sets the development of Lenin’s political outlook firmly within the framework of his family background and private life

In addition, the book’s images, which are taken from contemporary photographs, posters, and drawings, illustrate the features of Lenin’s world and time A vivid, non-ideological portrait, Lenin is an essential look at one of the key figures of modern history.

One of the great works of modern historical writing, the classic account of the ideas, people, and politics that led to the Bolshevik Revolution Edmund Wilson's To the Finland Station is intellectual history on a grand scale, full of romance, idealism, intrigue, and conspiracy, that traces the revolutionary ideas that shaped the modern world from the French Revolution up through Lenin's arrival at Finland Station in St. Petersburg in 1917 Fueled by Wilson's own passionate engagement with the ideas and politics at play, it is a lively and vivid, sweeping account of a singular idea—that it is possible to construct a society based on justice, equality, and freedom—gaining the power to change history

Vico, Michelet, Bakunin, and especially Marx—along with scores of other anarchists, socialists, nihilists, utopians, and more—all come to life in these pages And in Wilson's telling, their stories and their ideas remain as alive, as provocative, as relevant now as they were in their own time.

The absurdly brilliant far-future satire from “the Borges of scientific culture” (Time) The year is 3149, and a vast paper destroying blight—papyralysis—has obliterated much of the planet’s written history Fortunately, these rare memoirs, preserved for centuries in a volcanic rock, record the strange life of a man trapped in a hermetically sealed underground community . .

From the Kafka Prize–winning author of Solaris, this is an entertaining and thought-provoking blend of politics, philosophy, humor, and science fiction Translated by Michael Kandel and Christine Rose

They come to Amberleaf Fair -- toymakers, storytellers, conjurers, and adventurers They bring song and dance, gifts of love, and tales of far places But in the midst of celebration, the high wizard Talmar is stricken with what appears to be the Choking Glory, his brother Torin the toymaker has been rejected by his lady love, and a fabulous necklace from across the sea has been stolen -- and Torin is the chief suspect

This year Amberleaf Fair promises to be more than a place of marvels, a crossroads for magic, mysteries, and fabulous wealth This year the fair promises to be much more interesting ... and dangerous!

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction Shortlisted for the Ursula K Le Guin Prize for Fiction A singular new novel from Betty Trask Prize-winner Samantha Harvey, Orbital is an eloquent meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of six astronauts circling the earth in 24 hours "Ravishingly beautiful." — Joshua Ferris, New York Times A slender novel of epic power, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space

Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude

Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate Profound and contemplative, Orbital is a moving elegy to our environment and planet.

In the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, the Western powers were anxious to prevent the spread of Bolshevism across Europe Lenin and Trotsky were equally anxious that the Communist vision they were busy introducing in Russia should do just that But neither side knew anything about the other The revolution and Russia’s withdrawal from the First World War had ensured a diplomatic exodus from Moscow and the usual routes to vital information had been closed off

Into this void stepped an extraordinary collection of opportunists, journalists and spies – sometimes indeed journalists who were spies and vice versa: in Moscow Britain’s Arthur Ransome, the American John Reed and Sidney Reilly – ‘Ace of Spies’ – all traded information and brokered deals between Russia and the West; in Berlin, Paris and London, the likes of Maxim Litvinov, Adolf Ioffe and Kamenev tried to infiltrate the political elite and influence foreign policy to the Bolshevik’s advantage Robert Service, acclaimed historian and one of our finest commentators on matters Soviet, turns his meticulous eye to this ragtag group of people and, with narrative flair and impeccable research, reveals one of the great untold stories of the twentieth century.

Explores the contrasts between the genteel, aristocratic side of 18th century British society and criminal elements characterized by raucous public hangings marked by insubordination and riot.

"The most important book to read about the AI boom" (Wired): The "gripping" (New Yorker) true story of the first time machines came for human jobs—and how the Luddite uprising explains the power, threat, and toll of big tech and AI today Named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker, Wired, and the Financial Times • A Next Big Idea Book Club "Must-Read" 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 Today, technology imperils millions of jobs, robots are crowding factory floors, and artificial intelligence will soon pervade every aspect of our economy How will this change the way we live And what can we do about it

The answers lie in Blood in the Machine Brian Merchant intertwines a lucid examination of our current age with the story of the Luddites, showing how automation changed our world—and is shaping our future.

A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER THE POSTHUMOUS MASTERWORK FROM "ONE OF THE GREATEST AND MOST INFLUENTIAL MODERN WRITERS" (JAMES WOOD, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW) Composed in the last years of Roberto Bolaño's life, 2666 was greeted across Europe and Latin America as his highest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness, beauty, and scope Its throng of unforgettable characters includes academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student and her widowed, mentally unstable father Their lives intersect in the urban sprawl of SantaTeresa—a fictional Juárez—on the U.S.-Mexico border, where hundreds of young factory workers, in the novel as in life, have disappeared.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK “This summer’s hottest debut.” —Cosmopolitan • “Witty, sexy escapist fiction [that] packs a substantial punch...Fresh and thrilling.” —Los Angeles Times • “Electric...I loved every second.” —Emily Henry “Utterly winning...Imagine if The Time Traveler’s Wife had an affair with A Gentleman in Moscow...Readers, I envy you: There’s a smart, witty novel in your future.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on

A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.

This second volume of the trilogy is a self-contained account of the great struggle between Stalin and Trotsky that followed the end of the civil war in Russia in 1921 and the death of Lenin.

This third volume of the trilogy is a self-contained narrative of Trotsky's years in exile and of his murder in Mexico in 1940.

This first volume of the trilogy traces Trotsky's political development.