Odd Lots Recommended Books

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The Moviegoer cover

The Moviegoer

Walker Percy

Open Road Media , 2011 • 184 pages

In this National Book Award–winning novel from a “brilliantly breathtaking writer,” a young Southerner searches for meaning in the midst of Mardi Gras (The New York Times Book Review) On the cusp of his thirtieth birthday, Binx Bolling is a lost soul A stockbroker and member of an established New Orleans family, Binx’s one escape is the movie theater that transports him from the falseness of his life

With Mardi Gras in full swing, Binx, along with his cousin Kate, sets out to find his true purpose amid the excesses of the carnival that surrounds him Buoyant yet powerful, The Moviegoer is a poignant indictment of modern values, and an unforgettable story of a week that will change two lives forever This ebook features an illustrated biography of Walker Percy including rare photos from the author’s estate.
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Black Markets and Militants

Khalid Mustafa Medani

Cambridge University Press , 2022 • 427 pages

Understanding the political and socio-economic factors which give rise to youth recruitment into militant organizations is central to grasping some of the most important issues that affect the contemporary Middle East and Africa In this book, Khalid Mustafa Medani explains why youth are attracted to militant organizations, examining the specific role economic globalization plays in determining how and why militant activists emerge Based on extensive fieldwork, Medani offers an in-depth analysis of the impact of globalization, neoliberal reforms and informal economic networks on the rise and evolution of moderate and militant Islamist movements

In an original contribution to the study of Islamist and ethnic politics, he shows the importance of understanding when and under what conditions religious rather than other forms of identity become politically salient This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
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The Manuscript Found in Saragossa

Jan Potocki

Penguin UK , 2006 • 933 pages

Alphonse, a young Walloon officer, is travelling to join his regiment in Madrid in 1739 But he soon finds himself mysteriously detained at a highway inn in the strange and varied company of thieves, brigands, cabbalists, noblemen, coquettes and gypsies, whose stories he records over sixty-six days The resulting manuscript is discovered some forty years later in a sealed casket, from which tales of characters transformed through disguise, magic and illusion, of honour and cowardice, of hauntings and seductions, leap forth to create a vibrant polyphony of human voices Jan Potocki (1761-1812) used a range of literary styles - gothic, picaresque, adventure, pastoral, erotica - in his novel of stories-within-stories, which, like the Decameron and Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, provides entertainment on an epic scale.
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The Intelligence Intellectuals

Peter C. Grace

Georgetown University Press , 2026 • 235 pages

The untold story of how America's brightest academic minds revolutionized intelligence analysis at the CIA In the early days of the Cold War, the United States faced a crisis in intelligence analysis A series of intelligence failures in 1949 and 1950, including the failure to warn about the North Korean invasion of South Korea, made it clear that gut instinct and traditional practices were no longer sufficient for intelligence analysis in the nuclear age

The new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Walter Bedell Smith, had a mandate to reform it Based on new archival research in declassified documents and the participants' personal papers, The Intelligence Intellectuals reveals the neglected history of how America's brightest academic minds were recruited by the CIA to revolutionize intelligence analysis during this critical period Peter C

Grace describes how the scientifically sound analysis methods that they introduced significantly helped the United States gain an advantage in the Cold War, and these new analysts legitimized the role of the recently created CIA in the national security community Grace demonstrates how these professors—such as William Langer from Harvard, Sherman Kent from Yale, and Max Millikan from MIT—developed systematic approaches to intelligence analysis that shaped the CIA's methodology for decades to come Readers interested in the history of the Cold War and in intelligence, scholars of intelligence studies, Cold War historians, and intelligence practitioners seeking to understand their craft's foundations will all value this insightful history about the place of social science in national security.

Oh, what a Blow that Phantom Gave Me!

Edmund Carpenter, John Bishop, Harald Prins

2003

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The Vanishing Children of Paris

Arlette Farge, Jacques Revel

Harvard University Press , 1993 • 158 pages

In the spring of 1750 children began to disappear from the streets of Paris as they made their way to school, as they ran errands for their parents, even from the presence of their parents-- no child was safe Astonishing rumors quickly spread .. In fact, the police had been given sweeping powers of arrest to control the problems of vagrancy; some were clearly abusing that power

An atmosphere of mounting fear and suspicion between the populace and the police erupted in a two-day series of riots which culminated in the lynching and murder of an alleged abductor The authors use this incident to view broader issues concerning the power of rumor, the logic of mob psychology, and the exercise of authority and the maintenance of peace in Paris under the Ancien Régime.
Money Beyond Borders cover

Money Beyond Borders

Barry Eichengreen

Princeton University Press , 2026 • 344 pages

A 2,500-year history of international currencies that reveals new insights about the future of the U.S. dollar—as well as crypto and central bank digital currencies Doubts about the international dominance of the dollar are only growing amid worries about tariffs, political dysfunction, and fraying international alliances Will the dollar continue to reign supreme In Money Beyond Borders, the leading authority on international currencies, Barry Eichengreen, puts the dollar’s prospects in deep historical perspective by chronicling the entire history of cross-border currencies, from the invention of coins in the seventh century BCE to the cryptocurrencies of today and the central bank digital currencies of tomorrow

Money Beyond Borders recounts how Greek and Roman coins became the first true international currencies It tells how the Florentine gold florin became the “greenback of the Renaissance,” and how it was succeeded by Spanish silver and a Dutch fiat currency

The book explains why the British pound dominated the international economy in the nineteenth century, why the dollar rose to the top during World War II, and why the dollar has survived predictions of the imminent loss of its preeminence since the 1970s The long history of international currencies shows that the same factors that encourage their widespread use eventually lead to their abandonment Money Beyond Borders makes a powerful case that the dollar is now on the downside of this cycle, and it considers who the winners and losers will be when there is flight away from the greenback Revealing important patterns in the life cycles of international currencies over the past 2,500 years, the book offers valuable lessons and insights about how currencies rise—and why they fall.
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The Radical Fund

John Fabian Witt

Simon and Schuster , 2025 • 679 pages

From Pulitzer Prize finalist John Fabian Witt comes the captivating secret history of an epic experiment to remake American democracy Before the dark money of the Koch Brothers, before the billions of the Ford Foundation, there was the Garland Fund In 1922, a young idealist named Charles Garland rejected a million-dollar inheritance

In a world of shocking wealth disparities, shameless racism, and political repression, Garland opted instead to invest in a future where radical ideas—like working-class power, free speech, and equality—might flourish Over the next two decades, the Garland Fund would nurture a new generation of wildly ambi­tious progressive projects The men and women around the Fund were rich and poor, white and Black

They cooperated and bickered; they formed rivalries, fell in and out of love, and made mistakes Yet shared beliefs linked them throughout They believed that Amer­ican capitalism was broken They believed that American democracy (if it had ever existed) stole from those who had the least

And they believed that American institutions needed to be radically remade for the modern age By the time they spent the last of the Fund’s resources, their outsider ideas had become mass movements battling to transform a nation A luminous testament to the power of visionary organizations and a meditation on the vexed role of money in American life, The Radical Fund is a hopeful book for our anxious, angry age—an empowering road map for how people with heretical ideas can bring about audacious change.
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Present at the Creation

Dean Acheson

W. W. Norton & Company , 1970 • 854 pages

The author relates his experiences in the State Department during a period that witnessed World War II, European reconstruction, the Korean War and McCarthyism.
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Economics Rules

Dani Rodrik

National Geographic Books , 2015

A leading economist trains a lens on his own discipline to uncover when it fails and when it works In the wake of the financial crisis and the Great Recession, economic science seems anything but In this sharp, masterfully argued book, Dani Rodrik, a leading critic from within the science, renders a surprisingly upbeat judgment on economics

Sifting through the failings of the discipline, he homes in on its greatest strength: its many—and often contradictory—explanatory frameworks Drawing on the history of the field and his deep experience as a practitioner, Rodrik insists that economic activity defies universal laws But when economists embrace their expertise as a set of tools, not as a grand unified theory, they can improve the world

From successful antipoverty programs in Mexico to growth strategies in Africa and intelligent remedies for domestic inequality, Rodrik highlights the profound positive influence of economics properly applied At once a forceful critique and a defense of the discipline, Economics Rules charts a path toward a more humble but more effective science.
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A Canticle for Leibowitz

Walter M. Miller (Jr.)

Spectra , 1997 • 376 pages

The winner of the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel, Miller's bestselling work is a true landmark of 20th-century literature--a chilling and still-provocative look at a post-apocalyptic future.

The Everywhere Millionaire

Owen Zidar, Eric Zwick

Henry Holt and Company , 2026

From two leading economists comes a groundbreaking new portrait of the hidden fortunes of Main Street business owners—ordinary Americans who built extraordinary wealth and are quietly rewriting the rules of money and power Most people think the path to great wealth runs through Wall Street or Silicon Valley We’re told you must be a Zuckerberg, a Musk, or a Jamie Dimon to get rich

But this story is wrong Drawing on unprecedented data from a decade of research and vivid real-life stories of entrepreneurs—from a self-made hot-dog stand billionaire to the heirs of an auto dealer—Zidar and Zwick reveal a surprising truth: prosperity is more attainable, more widely distributed, and closer to home than we imagine A multitude of Americans have built staggering fortunes by running often unglamorous businesses far from the spotlight

A quiet revolution in the business world—the rise of “pass-through” firms like S-corporations and partnerships—supercharged this wealth, channeling vast income directly to business owners rather than traditional corporations Part economic detective story, part roadmap to riches, this book reveals: —The Hidden 1%: They might be a local beer distributor, a dentist with a regional network of practices, a commercial HVAC contractor with trucks around town, or a restaurateur who keeps opening new locations

For every public company CEO, more than a thousand private business owners each have transformational wealth. — The Blueprint for Wealth: Zidar and Zwick describe where Main Street Millionaires come from, how they grew rich, and how much money they make Their stories suggest the American Dream is not dead and many paths to prosperity remain open today. — Power Brokers: Armed with their fortunes, Main Street Millionaires wield power in city halls, statehouses, and Washington, often bending policy to protect what they’ve built

They are both growing the economic pie and grabbing bigger slices for themselves The Everywhere Millionaire celebrates the stories of entrepreneurs who seized opportunities while asking hard questions about how concentrated wealth and power shape society It is an essential guide to seeing the economy as it really is and recognizing the surprising paths to prosperity—and influence—everywhere.
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Firearms

Kenneth Warren Chase

Cambridge University Press , 2003 • 324 pages

This book is a history of firearms across the world from the 1100s up to the 1700s, from the time of their invention in China to the time when European firearms had become clearly superior It asks why it was the Europeans who perfected firearms when it was the Chinese who had invented them, but it answers this question by looking at how firearms were used throughout the world.
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The Discovery of the Mind

Bruno Snell

Courier Corporation , 2012 • 354 pages

"An illuminating and convincing account of the enormous change in the whole conception of morals and human personality which took place during the centuries covered by Homer, the early lyric poets, the dramatists, and Socrates." — The Times (London) Literary Supplement European thinking began with the Greeks Science, literature, ethics, philosophy — all had their roots in the extraordinary civilization that graced the shores of the Mediterranean a few millennia ago

The rise of thinking among the Greeks was nothing less than a revolution; they did not simply map out new areas for thought and discussion, they literally created the idea of man as an intellectual being — an unprecedented concept that decisively influenced the subsequent evolution of European thought In this immensely erudite book, German classicist Bruno Snell traces the establishment of a rational view of the nature of man as evidenced in the literature of the Greeks — in the creations of epic and lyric poetry, and in the drama

Here are the crucial stages in the intellectual evolution of the Greek world: the Homeric world view, the rise of the individual in the early Greek lyric, myth and reality in Greek tragedy, Greek ethics, the origin of scientific thought, and Arcadia Drawing extensively on the works of Homer, Pindar, Archilochus, Aristophanes, Sappho, Heraclitus, the Greek tragedians, Parmenides, Callimachus, and a host of other writers and thinkers, Snell shows how the Homeric myths provided a blueprint for the intellectual structure the Greeks erected; how the notion of universality in Greek tragedy broadened into philosophical generalization; how the gradual unfolding of the concepts of intellect and soul provided the foundation for philosophy, science, ethics, and finally, religion

Unquestionably one of the monuments of the Geistegeschichte (History of Ideas) tradition, The Discovery of the Mind throws fresh light on many long-standing problems and has had a wide influence on scholars of the Greek intellectual tradition Closely reasoned, replete with illuminating insight, the book epitomizes the best in German classical scholarship — a brilliant exploration of the archetypes of Western thought; a penetrating explanation of how we came to think the way we do.
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Never Turn Back

Julian Gewirtz

Harvard University Press , 2022 • 433 pages

The 1980s saw spirited debate in China, as officials and the public pressed for economic and political liberalization But after Tiananmen, the Communist Party erased the reform debate from memory Julian Gewirtz shows how the leadership expunged alternative visions of China’s future and set the stage for the policing of history under Xi Jinping.
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Feed the People!

Jan Dutkiewicz, Gabriel N. Rosenberg

Hachette UK , 2026

Why Wendell Berry, Michael Pollan, and other slow-food-loving locavores are wrong about food in America—and why Waffle House can save us all The food industry is a major driver of climate change, pollution, obesity, animal suffering, and workplace exploitation Many food writers blame the industrial food system and tell individual eaters to fix these problems by buying local, artisanal food from small farmers—a solution most Americans can’t afford But, as food policy experts Gabriel Rosenberg and Jan Dutkiewicz remind us, modern technology has made food more affordable, abundant, varied, and tastier than at any other time in history

In Feed the People!, they argue that modern food pleasures like Waffle House waffles, and the industrial systems that make them possible, are actually good With smart technology and commonsense policies, we can make them even better Rosenberg and Dutkiewicz have traveled around the United States to find the people changing the way we make and eat food, from the innovators behind plant-based burgers to the cooks serving free school lunches to the labor organizers unionizing fast food joints

They show that building a food system that works for everyone will take more than just eating your vegetables Feed the People! invites you to sit at the table and join this delicious movement.
Meat cover

Meat

Bruce Friedrich

Simon and Schuster , 2026 • 336 pages

"This packed account makes food science feel like an urgent and essential undertaking." —Publishers Weekly (Top Ten New Release in Science) Good Food Institute founder and president Bruce Friedrich offers a hopeful and rigorously researched exploration of how science, policy, and industry can work together to satisfy the world’s soaring demand for meat, while building a healthier and more sustainable world The human love of meat appears to be hard-wired

The world consumes more than 550 million metric tons of meat and seafood each year That number has been climbing for decades and is expected to continue to rise through at least 2050 What if we could give humanity the meat it craves, but produced differently Plant-based and cultivated meat that are just as delicious as the meat you love, but more affordable and healthier

Think it’s not possible With examples ranging from the “horseless carriage” (car) to the smart phone in your pocket, Meat reminds readers that scientific innovations often move from disbelief or opposition to inevitability and ubiquity, much faster than almost anyone expects Envisioning a future where meat is both a delight and a force for good, Friedrich explores: Humanity’s 12,000-year-old practice of raising animals for meat, and why we need to figure out a better way

The science and scientists behind the efforts to create plant-based and cultivated meat that is indistinguishable from conventional animal meat, but less expensive, more nutritious, and safer How plant-based and cultivated meat can preserve forests and biodiversity, mitigate climate change and ocean pollution, and lower antimicrobial resistance and pandemic risk The economic and food security benefits of making meat more efficiently, which include trillions of dollars in economic output annually, tens of millions of good jobs, and the possibility of a revitalized farm economy Meat offers a vision of the next agricultural revolution that is optimistic, achievable, and delicious.
George Wallace cover

George Wallace

Stephan Lesher

Addison Wesley Publishing Company , 1994 • 632 pages

The first full-scale biography of one of the most pivotal and complex political figures in American history George Wallace formulated the themes that have helped elect every president from Nixon to Clinton and fueled the third-party candidacy of Ross Perot A revealing look that reveals both good and bad.
The Invention of the Future cover

The Invention of the Future

Bruno Carvalho

Princeton University Press , 2026 • 440 pages

A kaleidoscopic and original new history of urbanization—from Lisbon to New York, Paris to Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires to Lagos For the past three centuries, urban dwellers and planners have imagined future cities that would be radically different from those of the past Planners pursued progress, whether focused on flying vehicles above, sewage systems below, or daily life in between Yet, as Bruno Carvalho shows in this original and wide-ranging history, which features some sixty illustrations, modern cities continuously defied predictions

Visionary designs and technological innovations created dramatic, unforeseen outcomes, and the ongoing urban boom is a story of continuity as well as rupture A compelling history of imagined futures and the transformation of urban life, The Invention of the Future also suggests what we might learn from the stories of our cities as we shape them for the twenty-first century Moving between large-scale changes and detailed examples, this captivating narrative tells the story of key moments and turning points: the rebuilding of Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake; the 1811 Commissioners’ Plan for Manhattan; Parisian reforms from 1853 to 1870; Le Corbusier’s plans for South American cities in the 1920s and 1930s; the postwar victory of the car; the utopian capital of Brasília; and urban growth in Africa

In recent decades, Carvalho argues, the capacity to invent urban futures has become increasingly constrained Social and environmental challenges loom large But the story is not over While cities helped create current problems, compact and transit-rich urbanization might be our best hope to combine high living standards with sustainability Sometimes, moving forward can involve reaching back to the future.
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The English Understand Wool

Helen DeWitt

New Directions Publishing , 2022 • 61 pages

A modern amorality play about a 17-year-old girl, the wilder shores of connoisseurship, and the power of false friends Maman was exigeante—there is no English word–and I had the benefit of her training Others may not be so fortunate If some other young girl, with two million dollars at stake, finds this of use I shall count myself justified

Raised in Marrakech by a French mother and English father, a 17-year-old girl has learned above all to avoid mauvais ton ("bad taste" loses something in the translation) One should not ask servants to wait on one during Ramadan: they must have paid leave while one spends the holy month abroad One must play the piano; if staying at Claridge’s, one must regrettably install a Clavinova in the suite, so that the necessary hours of practice will not be inflicted on fellow guests

One should cultivate weavers of tweed in the Outer Hebrides but have the cloth made up in London; one should buy linen in Ireland but have it made up by a Thai seamstress in Paris (whose genius has been supported by purchase of suitable premises) All this and much more she has learned, governed by a parent of ferociously lofty standards But at 17, during the annual Ramadan travels, she finds all assumptions overturned

Will she be able to fend for herself Will the dictates of good taste suffice when she must deal, singlehanded, with the sharks of New York?
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The Mauritius Command

Patrick O'Brian

HarperCollins , 1977 • 286 pages

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are now widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written All eighteen books are being re-issued in hardback by HarperCollins with stunning new jackets Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half-pay without a command -- until his friend, and occasional intelligence agent, Stephen Maturin, arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope, under a Commodore's pennant But the difficulties of carrying out his orders are compounded by two of his own captains -- Lord Clonfert, a pleasure-seeking dilettante, and Captain Corbett, whose severity can push his crews to the verge of mutiny.
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Victorian Psycho

Virginia Feito

HarperCollins UK , 2025 • 167 pages

Jane Eyre meets American Psycho Gloriously outrageous, sensationally unhinged' SUNDAY TIMES ‘Simmering with rage, propulsive and laugh-out-loud funny' CATRIONA WARD 'Weird and wonderful' LUCY MANGAN, GUARDIAN
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Scaffolding

Lauren Elkin

Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2024 • 348 pages

A Best Book of the Year: Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe, The Week, The New Statesman A Must-Read: The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, Marie Claire, Frieze, Literary Hub, The Millions, BBC, Our Culture, i news “Sexy, intelligent . . . biting, too.” —Keziah Weir, Vanity Fair The debut novel by the acclaimed author of Flâneuse and Art Monsters, Lauren Elkin’s Scaffolding is a story of Paris, desire, love, psychoanalysis, and the turbulent affairs of two couples across time Paris, 2019

An apartment in Belleville Following a miscarriage and a breakdown, Anna, a psychoanalyst, finds herself unable to return to work Instead, she obsesses over a kitchen renovation and befriends a new neighbor—a younger woman called Clémentine who has just moved into the building and is part of a radical feminist collective

Paris, 1972 The same apartment in Belleville Florence and Henry are renovating their kitchen She is finishing her degree in psychology, dropping into feminist activities, and devotedly attending the groundbreaking, infamous seminars held by the renowned analyst Jacques Lacan

She is hoping to conceive their first child, though Henry isn’t sure he’s ready for fatherhood Two couples, fifty years apart, face the challenges of marriage, fidelity, and pregnancy They inhabit this same small space in separate but similar times—times charged with political upheaval and intellectual controversy A novel in the key of Éric Rohmer, Lauren Elkin’s Scaffolding is about the way our homes collect and hold our memories and our stories, about the bonds we create and the difficulty of ever fully severing them, about the ways all the people we’ve loved live on in us.
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Creation Lake

Rachel Kushner

Simon and Schuster , 2024 • 416 pages

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 BOOKER PRIZE* *LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD* *LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 PEN FAULKNER AWARD FOR FICTION* *AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* *NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2024 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE ATLANTIC, VULTURE, VOGUE, THE WASHINGTON POST, KIRKUS REVIEWS, NPR, THE ECONOMIST, THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, VOX, and more* From Rachel Kushner, two-time finalist for both the Booker Prize and National Book Award, a “vital” (The Washington Post) and “wickedly entertaining” (The Guardian) novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France—a propulsive page-turner filled with dark humor Creation Lake is a novel about a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics and clean beauty who is sent to do dirty work in France. “Sadie Smith” is how the narrator introduces herself to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to her lover, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian she has met by “cold bump”—making him believe the encounter was accidental

Like everyone she targets, Lucien is useful to her and used by her Sadie operates by strategy and dissimulation, based on what her “contacts”—shadowy figures in business and government—instruct First, these contacts want her to incite provocation Then they want more

In this region of old farms and prehistoric caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who believes that the path to emancipation is not revolt but a return to the ancient past Just as Sadie is certain she’s the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner’s rendition of “noir” is taut and dazzling Creation Lake is Kushner’s finest achievement yet—a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure.
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The Fort Bragg Cartel

Seth Harp

Penguin , 2025 • 369 pages

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER One of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2025 “Probably the most gripping, memorable, eye-opening book I’ve read in months.” —David Wallace-Wells, The New York Times “Propulsive.” —The Washington Post “Engrossing. . . Truly shocking.” —The New Republic “The Fort Bragg Cartel opens like a nonfiction thriller and never lets up A page-turning investigation into the dark side of our forever wars.” —Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars and Directorate S A groundbreaking investigation into a string of unsolved murders at America’s premier special operations base, and what the crimes reveal about drug trafficking and impunity among elite soldiers in today’s military In December 2020, a deer hunter discovered two dead bodies that had been riddled with bullets and dumped in a forested corner of Fort Bragg, North Carolina

One of the dead men, Master Sergeant William “Billy” Lavigne, was a member of Delta Force, the most secretive “black ops” unit in the military A deeply traumatized veteran of America’s classified assassination program, Lavigne had done more than a dozen deployments in his lengthy career, was addicted to crack cocaine, dealt drugs on base, and had committed a series of violent crimes before he was mysteriously killed The other victim, Chief Warrant Officer Timothy Dumas, was a quartermaster attached to the Special Forces who used his proximity to clandestine missions to steal guns and traffic drugs into the United States from abroad, and had written a blackmail letter threatening to expose criminality in the special operations task force in Afghanistan

As soon as Seth Harp, an Iraq war veteran and investigative reporter, begins looking into the double murder, he learns that there have been many more unexplained deaths at Fort Bragg recently, other murders connected to drug trafficking in elite units, and dozens of fatal overdoses Drawing on declassified documents, trial transcripts, police records, and hundreds of interviews, Harp tells a scathing story of narco-trafficking in the Special Forces, drug conspiracies abetted by corrupt police, blatant military cover-ups, American complicity in the Afghan heroin trade, and the pernicious consequences of continuous war.
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On the Calculation of Volume (Book I): Shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize

Solvej Balle

New Directions Publishing , 2024 • 106 pages

Utterly riveting, Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) is the grand opening of her speculative fiction septology, winner of the 2022 Nordic Council Literature Prize (Scandinavia’s most important literary award) for being “a masterpiece of its time.” A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2024 A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF 2024 SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE Tara Selter, the heroine of On the Calculation of Volume, has involuntarily stepped off the train of time: in her world, November eighteenth repeats itself endlessly We meet Tara on her 122nd November 18th: she no longer experiences the changes of days, weeks, months, or seasons

She finds herself in a lonely new reality without being able to explain why: how is it that she wakes every morning into the same day, knowing to the exact second when the blackbird will burst into song and when the rain will begin Will she ever be able to share her new life with her beloved and now chronically befuddled husband And on top of her profound isolation and confusion, Tara takes in with pain how slight a difference she makes in the world. (As she puts it: “That’s how little the activities of one person matter on the eighteenth of November.”) Balle is hypnotic and masterful in her remixing of the endless recursive day, creating curious little folds of time and foreshadowings: her flashbacks light up inside the text like old flash bulbs

The first volume’s gravitational pull—a force inverse to its constriction—has the effect of a strong tranquilizer, but a drug under which your powers of observation only grow sharper and more acute Give in to the book's logic (its minute movements, its thrilling shifts, its slant wit, its slowing of time) and its spell is utterly intoxicating Solvej Balle’s seven-volume novel wrings enthralling and magical new dimensions from time and its hapless, mortal subjects As one Danish reviewer beautifully put it, Balle’s fiction consists of writing that listens. “Reading her is like being caressed by language itself.”
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Underground Asia

Tim Harper

Belknap Press , 2021 • 873 pages

An Economist Best Book of the Year A Financial Times Best Book of the Year A major historian tells the dramatic and untold story of the shadowy networks of revolutionaries across Asia who laid the foundations in the early twentieth century for the end of European imperialism on their continent This is the epic tale of how modern Asia emerged out of conflict between imperial powers and a global network of revolutionaries in the turbulent early decades of the twentieth century

In 1900, European empires had not yet reached their territorial zenith But a new generation of Asian radicals had already planted the seeds of their destruction They gained new energy and recruits after the First World War and especially the Bolshevik Revolution, which sparked utopian visions of a free and communist world order led by the peoples of Asia

Aided by the new technologies of cheap printing presses and international travel, they built clandestine webs of resistance from imperial capitals to the front lines of insurgency that stretched from Calcutta and Bombay to Batavia, Hanoi, and Shanghai Tim Harper takes us into the heart of this shadowy world by following the interconnected lives of the most remarkable of these Marxists, anarchists, and nationalists, including the Bengali radical M N

Roy, the iconic Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, and the enigmatic Indonesian communist Tan Malaka He recreates the extraordinary milieu of stowaways, false identities, secret codes, cheap firearms, and conspiracies in which they worked He shows how they fought with subterfuge, violence, and persuasion, all the while struggling to stay one step ahead of imperial authorities

Underground Asia shows for the first time how Asia’s national liberation movements crucially depended on global action And it reveals how the consequences of the revolutionaries’ struggle, for better or worse, shape Asia’s destiny to this day Previous praise for Tim Harper Praise for Forgotten Wars: “[A] compelling book.”—Philip Delves Broughton, Wall Street Journal “Lucid...majestic.”—Peter Preston, The Observer “Authoritative.”—Pankaj Mishra, New Yorker Praise for Forgotten Armies: “Panoramic.. Vivid.”—Benjamin Schwarz, New York Times Book Review “A spectacular book.”—Martin Jacques, The Guardian
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Roots of Reform

Elizabeth Sanders

University of Chicago Press , 1999 • 552 pages

Offering a revision of the understanding of the rise of the American regulatory state in the late 19th century, this book argues that politically mobilised farmers were the driving force behind most of the legislation that increased national control.
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The Command of the Ocean

N. A. M. Rodger

Allan Lane , 2004 • 1016 pages

The Command of the Ocean describes with unprecedented authority and scholarship the rise of Britain to naval greatness, and the central place of the Navy and naval activity in the life of the nation and government Based on the author's own research in half a dozen languages over nearly a decade, and synthesising a vast quantity of secondary material, it describes not just battles and cruises but how the Navy was manned, how it was supplied with timber, hemp and iron, how its men (and sometimes women) were fed, and above all how it was financed and directed

It was during the century and a half covered by this book that the successful organising of these last three victualling, money and management took the Navy to the heart of the British state It is the great achievement of the book to show how completely integrated and mutually dependent Britain and the Navy then became.
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The Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism

Uma Chakravarti

1996 • 264 pages

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Journey by Moonlight

Antal Szerb

New York Review of Books , 2014 • 321 pages

An NYRB Classics Original The trouble begins in Venice, the first stop on Erzsi and Mihály’s honeymoon tour of Italy Here Erzsi discovers that her new husband prefers wandering back alleys on his own to her company The trouble picks up in Ravenna, where a hostile man zooms up on a motorcycle as the couple are sitting at an outdoor café

It’s János, someone Mihály hasn’t seen for years, and he wants Mihály to come with him in search of Ervin, their childhood friend The trouble comes to a head when Mihály misses the train he and Erzsi are due to take to Rome Off he goes across Italy, wandering from city to city, haunted and accosted by a strange array of figures from the troubled youth that he thought he had left behind: There are the charismatic siblings, Éva and Tamás, whose bizarre amateur theatricals linked sex and death forever in his mind; Ervin, a Jew turned Catholic monk who was his rival for Éva’s love; and again, that ruffian on the motorcycle

Antal Szerb’s dreamlike adventure, like Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, is an intoxicating, utterly individual mix of magic, madness, eros, and menace In the words of the critic Nicholas Lezard, “No one who has read it has failed to love it.”
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The Philosopher in the Valley

Michael Steinberger

Simon & Schuster (UK) , 2025

In the age of big data, no company embodies its promise and its perils more than Palantir This software firm sells some of the most powerful and dangerous technology in the world, ingesting huge quantities of data and spotting patterns, trends, and connections that would likely elude most people Apart from Facebook, you'd be hard-pressed to find another tech company that's making as big of a splash - or fraught with more potential pitfalls

Founded in 2003 to help the US government in the war on terror, Palantir now has more than thirty federal agencies as clients From climate change and terrorism to poverty to immigration, money laundering, and the future of warfare, Palantir is at the nexus of the most critical issues of the 21st century At its helm is cofounder and CEO Alex Karp, an atypical tech boss with a law degree from Stanford and a doctorate in social theory from Germany's Goethe University, yet no background in either computer science or business

Now, in The Philosopher in the Valley, journalist Michael Steinberger delves deeply into Karp and the company he's leading, highlighting the risks to privacy and civil liberties that come with big data Can we get the good without the bad and if not, what are the trade-offs Karp's unique political and philosophical views put him and the company at odds with fellow cofounder Peter Thiel, a big supporter of Donald Trump in Silicon Valley

The technology they created has the potential to shape the global power dynamic and the way individuals interact with governments Urgent and important, this illuminating work shows us what this future might look like.
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Rope

Tim Queeney

Icon Books , 2025 • 321 pages

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The Fabric of Civilization

Virginia Postrel

2021 • 320 pages

From Neanderthal string to 3D knitting, an "expansive" global history that highlights "how textiles truly changed the world" (Wall Street Journal) The story of humanity is the story of textiles--as old as civilization itself Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history

From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world Textiles funded the Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; they gave us banks and bookkeeping, Michelangelo's David and the Taj Mahal The cloth business spread the alphabet and arithmetic, propelled chemical research, and taught people to think in binary code Assiduously researched and deftly narrated, The Fabric of Civilization tells the story of the world's most influential commodity. "We are taken on a journey as epic, and varying, as the Silk Road itself.... [The Fabric of Civilization is] like a swatch of a Florentine Renaissance brocade: carefully woven, the technique precise, the colors a mix of shade and shine and an accurate representation of the whole cloth." --New York Times "Textile-making hasn't gotten enough credit for its own sophistication, and for all the ways it undergirds human technological innovation--an error Virginia Postrel's erudite and complete book goes a long way toward correcting at last." --Wired
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America

Jean Baudrillard

Verso , 1989 • 148 pages

In this, his most accessible and evocative book, France’s leading philosopher of postmodernism takes to the freeways in a collection of traveler’s tales from the land of hyperreality.
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More Heat Than Light

Philip Mirowski

Cambridge University Press , 1991 • 468 pages

The development of the energy concept in Western physics and its subsequent effect on the emergence of neoclassical economics are traced to reveal how economics has sought to emulate physics, especially with regard to the theory of value.
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The Last Days of Budapest

Adam LeBor

Bloomsbury Publishing , 2025 • 546 pages

The Last Days of Budapest tells the powerful story of one of the least-known but most important episodes of the Second World War: life and death in the Hungarian capital from autumn 1940 to early 1945, a gripping story of spies, fanaticism, genocide and military disaster.
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A Marriage at Sea

Sophie Elmhirst

Penguin Group , 2025 • 257 pages

THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER & ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025 A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2025 ALSO NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2025 BY NPR, VOGUE, TIME MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORKER, AND MORE “This is nonfiction that reads like fiction – the best kind Elmhirst’s retelling is a triumph, second only to the seemingly impossible feat of Maurice and Maralyn themselves You won’t be able to put it down.” – USA Today “Remarkable… I found myself, alternately, holding my breath as I read at top speed, wandering rooms in search of someone to read aloud to, and placing the book facedown, arrested by quiet statements that left me reeling with their depth.” – The New York Times “Such an emotionally vivid portrait of a couple in isolation that I was shocked it wasn’t fiction

How could a writer get so deeply into the minds of two real people in such extraordinary circumstances? … So brilliantly depicted.” – Elle “A beautiful meditation on endurance, codependence, and the power of love A dazzling book.” – Patrick Radden Keefe “An enthralling, engrossing story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit.” —Bill Bryson An instant New York Times bestseller, this is the electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits

Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple He’s a loner, awkward and obsessive; she’s charismatic and ambitious But they share a horror of wasting their lives And they dream – as we all dream – of running away from it all

What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away Most of us begin and end with the daydream But in June 1972, Maurice and Maralyn set sail For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank beneath the waves

What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests Although they could run away from the world, they can’t run away from themselves Taut, propulsive, and dazzling, A Marriage at Sea pairs an adrenaline-fueled high seas adventure with a gutting love story that asks why we love difficult people, and who we become under the most extreme conditions imaginable.
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The Thousand-Mile War

Brian Garfield

University of Alaska Press , 2010 • 481 pages

The Thousand-Mile War is a powerful story of the battles of the United States and Japan on the bitter rim of the North Pacific, that has been acclaimed as one of the great accounts of World War II Author Brian Garfield, a novelist and screenwriter whose works have sold some 20 million copies, was searching for a new story when he came upon this "forgotten war" in Alaska He found the history of the brave men who had served in the Aleutians so compelling that he wrote the first full-length history of the Aleutian campaign

The book remains a favorite among Alaskans and WWII history buffs The war in the Aleutians was fought in some of the worst climatic conditions on earth for men, ships, and airplanes The sea was rough, the islands craggy and unwelcoming, but the most fearful enemy was the weather—the savage wind, fog, and rain of the Aleutian chain

The fog seemed to reach even into the minds of the military commanders on both sides, as they directed their men into situations with often had tragic results Frustrating, befuddling, and still the subject of debate, the Aleutian campaign nevertheless marked an important turn of the war in favor of the United States More than half a century after the war ended, more of the fog has been lifted In this updated edition, Garfield supplements his original account drawn from statistics, personal interviews, letters, and diaries, with more recently declassified photographs and significant additional illustrations.
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The Rise and Reign of the Mammals

Steve Brusatte

HarperCollins , 2022 • 574 pages

By the author of the acclaimed bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, a "brilliant" and "beautifully told" new history of mammals, illuminating the lost story of the extraordinary family tree that led to us [New Scientist; The Times UK] National Bestseller • Top 10 Nonfiction of the Year: Kirkus • Best Science Book of the Year: The Times UK We humans are the inheritors of a dynasty that has reigned over the planet for nearly 66 million years, through fiery cataclysm and ice ages: the mammals Our lineage includes saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, armadillos the size of a car, cave bears three times the weight of a grizzly, clever scurriers that outlasted Tyrannosaurus rex, and even other types of humans, like Neanderthals

Indeed humankind and many of the beloved fellow mammals we share the planet with today—lions, whales, dogs—represent only the few survivors of a sprawling and astonishing family tree that has been pruned by time and mass extinctions How did we get here In his acclaimed bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs—hailed as “the ultimate dinosaur biography” by Scientific American—American paleontologist Steve Brusatte enchanted readers with his definitive history of the dinosaurs

Now, picking up the narrative in the ashes of the extinction event that doomed T-rex and its kind, Brusatte explores the remarkable story of the family of animals that inherited the Earth—mammals— and brilliantly reveals that their story is every bit as fascinating and complex as that of the dinosaurs Beginning with the earliest days of our lineage some 325 million years ago, Brusatte charts how mammals survived the asteroid that claimed the dinosaurs and made the world their own, becoming the astonishingly diverse range of animals that dominate today’s Earth

Brusatte also brings alive the lost worlds mammals inhabited through time, from ice ages to volcanic catastrophes Entwined in this story is the detective work he and other scientists have done to piece together our understanding using fossil clues and cutting-edge technology A sterling example of scientific storytelling by one of our finest young researchers, The Rise and Reign of the Mammals illustrates how this incredible history laid the foundation for today’s world, for us, and our future.
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The Gunfighters

Bryan Burrough

Penguin , 2025 • 366 pages

"One of the most important books written on the American West in many years." - True West Magazine From the New York Times bestselling author of The Big Rich and Forget the Alamo comes an epic reconsideration of the time and place that spawned America’s most legendary gunfighters, from Jesse James and Billy the Kid to Butch and Sundance The “Wild West” gunfighter is such a stock figure in our popular culture that some dismiss it all as a corny myth, more a product of dime novels and B movies than a genuinely important American history In fact, as Bryan Burrough shows us in his dazzling and fast-paced new book, there’s much more below the surface

For three decades at the end of the 1800s, a big swath of the American West was a crucible of change, with the highest murder rate per capita in American history The reasons behind this boil down to one word: Texas Texas was born in violence, on two fronts, with Mexico to the south and the Comanche to the north

The Colt revolver first caught on with the Texas Rangers Southern dueling culture transformed into something wilder and less organized in the Lone Star State The collapse of the Confederacy and the presence of a thin veneer of Northern occupiers turned the heat up further And the explosion in the cattle business after the war took that violence and pumped it out from Texas across the whole of the West

The stampede of longhorn cattle brought with it an assortment of rustlers, hustlers, gamblers, and freelance lawmen who carried a trigger-happy honor culture into a widening gyre, a veritable blood meridian When the first newspapermen and audiences discovered what good copy this all was, the flywheel of mythmaking started spinning It’s never stopped

The Gunfighters brilliantly sifts the lies from the truth, giving both elements their due And the truth is sufficiently wild for any but the most unhinged tastes All the legendary figures are here, and their escapades are told with great flair—good, bad, and ugly Like all great stories, this one has a rousing end—as the railroads and the settlers close off the open spaces for good, the last of the breed, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, really do get on a boat for South America, ending their era in a blaze of glory

Burrough knits these histories together into something much deeper and more provocative than simply the sum of its parts To understand the truth of the Wild West is to understand a crucial dimension of the American story.
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The Army of Ptolemaic Egypt 323–204 BC

Paul Johstono

Pen and Sword Military , 2020 • 488 pages

A study reconstructed through a wide range of ancient sources, from histories to documentary papyri and inscriptions to archaeological finds The Ptolemaic Dynasty ruled Egypt and much of the eastern Mediterranean basin for nearly 300 years As a Macedonian dynasty, they derived much of their legitimacy from military activity

As an Egyptian dynasty, they derived much of their real wealth and power from maintaining a secure hold on their new homeland As lords of a far-flung empire, they maintained much of their authority through garrisons and the threat of military action To achieve this they devoted much of their activity to the development and maintenance of a large army and navy

This work focuses on the period of the first four Ptolemies, from the acquisition of Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great to the great battle of Raphia more than a century later It offers a study of the Ptolemaic army as an institution, and of its military operations, both reconstructed through a wide range of ancient sources, from histories to documentary papyri and inscriptions to archaeological finds It examines the reasons for Ptolemaic successes and failures, the causes and nature of military change and reform, and the particular details of the Ptolemaic army's soldier classes, unit organization, equipment, tactics, and the Ptolemaic state's strategy to compile a military history of the golden age of one of the classical world's significant forces.
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Fifth Sun

Camilla Townsend

2019 • 337 pages

Fifth Sun offers a comprehensive history of the Aztecs, spanning the period before conquest to a century after the conquest, based on rarely-used Nahuatl-language sources written by the indigenous people.
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I Deliver Parcels in Beijing

Hu Anyan

Astra Publishing House , 2025 • 338 pages

An Economist Best Book of 2025 A Financial Times Best Book of 2025 A Sunday Times Best Book of 2025 "Hu Anyan’s I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, translated by Jack Hargreaves, offers an unvarnished dispatch from the front lines of the gig economy...The Cinderella bit of it is that now he can add a new title: internationally best-selling author." —Leah Greenblatt, The New York Times Book Review A runaway bestseller in China, sold in 20+ countries, this delightfully honest and humorous account gives a face and voice to the future of work—as if Nomadland met Nickel and Dimed In 2023, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing became the literary sensation of the year in China

Hu Anyan’s story, about short-term jobs in various anonymous megacities, hit a nerve with a generation of young people who feel at odds with an ever-growing pressure to perform and succeed Hu started posting essays about his experiences online during COVID lockdowns His recollection of night shifts in a huge logistics center in the south of China went viral: his nights were so hot that he could drink three liters of water without taking a toilet break; his days were spent searching for affordable rooms with proper air-conditioning; and his few moments of leisure were consumed by calculations of the amount of alcohol needed to sleep but not feel drowsy a few hours later

Hu Anyan tells us about brutal work, where there is no real future in sight But Hu is armed with deadpan humor and a strong idea of self He moves on when he feels stuck—from logistics in the south, to parcel delivery in Beijing, to other impossible jobs Along the way, he turns to reading and writing for strength and companionship I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is an honest and startling first-person portrait of Hu Anyan's struggle against the dehumanizing nature of our contemporary global work system—and his discovery of the power of sharing a story.
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Global Heartland

Peter Simons

U of Minnesota Press , 2025 • 211 pages

Highlighting the critical role of midwestern farmers in the creation of the American Century Though often left out of the story of the making of the American Century, the farmers of the Midwest were at its center, fueling the nation’s growing power in the midtwentieth century In Global Heartland, Peter Simons explores how, after decades of slipping to the margins of an urbanizing economy, these farmers assumed renewed strategic and cultural importance as they produced essential sustenance for overseas troops and food rations for a domestic population

During the mid-1900s, once-isolationist midwestern farmers came to see the continental interior not as an insulated space but as an environmentally rich landscape that mandated them to accept a larger stake in global affairs Simons traces this transformation from an older agrarian internationalism rooted in religion and ties to family abroad to illuminate the increasing influence of the U.S. agricultural community during the Cold War Examining regional political parties, Lend-Lease programs, wartime mass media, and farmer-led relief programs, and interspersing this history with vignettes revisiting the Mercy Wheat campaign of 1947, the postwar International Farm Youth Exchange, and the Flying Farmers organization, Simons offers an enlightening consideration of midwestern farmers’ involvement in America’s international ascent Unique in its focus on farmers and their work rather than the more common attention to food or agricultural commodities, Global Heartland complicates and expands ideas of the farm industry’s role in American history.
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Darfur

Millard Burr, Robert O. Collins

2008 • 376 pages

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
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The Eagle and the Hart

Helen Castor

Simon and Schuster , 2024 • 576 pages

From an acclaimed historian comes an epic tale of power and betrayal: the dual biography of Richard II and Henry IV, two cousins whose tumultuous reigns shaped the course of English history Richard of Bordeaux and Henry of Bolingbroke, cousins born just three months apart, were ten years old when Richard became king of England They were thirty-two when Henry deposed him and became king in his place

Now, the story behind one of the strangest and most fateful events in English history (and the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s most celebrated history plays) is brought to vivid life by the acclaimed author of Blood and Roses, Helen Castor Castor showcases the enigmatic Richard II, a king who clung to his divine right to rule but lacked the leadership to sustain his throne His reign, marred by narcissism and disdain for constitutional principles, spiraled into chaos, ultimately leading to his downfall at the hands of his cousin

Enter Henry IV—a stark contrast Castor portrays him as a chivalric hero, a leader who inspired loyalty and camaraderie Yet, his journey to the throne was anything but smooth, plagued by rebellion and political turmoil What makes Castor’s account so compelling is her ability to weave these personal stories into the bigger picture

She explores the turbulent themes of masculinity, identity, and the fragile nature of power, offering a timely reminder of the perils of self-obsessed rulers—and the challenges faced by those who follow in their wake Richly researched and beautifully written, The Eagle and the Hart isn’t just a history book—it’s a gripping tale of leadership, legacy, and the timeless struggle for power For anyone fascinated by medieval England or the universal dynamics of power and ambition, this is not to be missed.
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Rivers of Empire

Donald Worster

1992 • 420 pages

The American West, blessed with an abundance of earth and sky but cursed with a scarcity of life's most fundamental need, has long dreamed of harnessing all its rivers to produce unlimited wealth and power In Rivers of Empire, award-winning historian Donald Worster tells the story of this dream and its outcome He shows how, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Mormons were the first attempting to make that dream a reality, damming and diverting rivers to irrigate their land

He follows this intriguing history through the 1930s, when the federal government built hundreds of dams on every major western river, thereby laying the foundation for the cities and farms, money and power of today's West Yet while these cities have become paradigms of modern American urban centers, and the farms successful high-tech enterprises, Worster reminds us that the costs have been extremely high Along with the wealth has come massive ecological damage, a redistribution of power to bureaucratic and economic elites, and a class conflict still on the upswing As a result, the future of this "hydraulic West" is increasingly uncertain, as water continues to be a scarce resource, inadequate to the demand, and declining in quality.
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The Emergence of Globalism

Or Rosenboim

Princeton University Press , 2017 • 349 pages

How competing visions of world order in the 1940s gave rise to the modern concept of globalism During and after the Second World War, public intellectuals in Britain and the United States grappled with concerns about the future of democracy, the prospects of liberty, and the decline of the imperial system Without using the term "globalization," they identified a shift toward technological, economic, cultural, and political interconnectedness and developed a "globalist" ideology to reflect this new postwar reality

The Emergence of Globalism examines the competing visions of world order that shaped these debates and led to the development of globalism as a modern political concept Shedding critical light on this neglected chapter in the history of political thought, Or Rosenboim describes how a transnational network of globalist thinkers emerged from the traumas of war and expatriation in the 1940s and how their ideas drew widely from political philosophy, geopolitics, economics, imperial thought, constitutional law, theology, and philosophy of science

She presents compelling portraits of Raymond Aron, Owen Lattimore, Lionel Robbins, Barbara Wootton, Friedrich Hayek, Lionel Curtis, Richard McKeon, Michael Polanyi, Lewis Mumford, Jacques Maritain, Reinhold Niebuhr, H G Wells, and others Rosenboim shows how the globalist debate they embarked on sought to balance the tensions between a growing recognition of pluralism on the one hand and an appreciation of the unity of humankind on the other An engaging look at the ideas that have shaped today's world, The Emergence of Globalism is a major work of intellectual history that is certain to fundamentally transform our understanding of the globalist ideal and its origins.
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Winters in the World

Eleanor Parker

Reaktion Books , 2023 • 267 pages

Interweaving literature, history, and religion, an exquisite meditation on the turning of the seasons in medieval England—now in paperback Winters in the World is a beautifully observed journey through the cycle of the year in Anglo-Saxon England, exploring the festivals, customs, and traditions linked to the different seasons

Drawing on a wide variety of source material, including poetry, histories, and religious literature, Eleanor Parker investigates how Anglo-Saxons felt about the annual passing of the seasons and the profound relationship they saw between human life and the rhythms of nature Many of the festivals celebrated in the United Kingdom today have their roots in the Anglo-Saxon period, and this book traces their surprising history while unearthing traditions now long forgotten It celebrates some of the finest treasures of medieval literature and provides an imaginative connection to the Anglo-Saxon world.
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The Death of the French Atlantic

Alan Forrest

Oxford University Press , 2020 • 351 pages

The Death of the French Atlantic examines the sudden and irreversible decline of France's Atlantic empire in the Age of Revolution, and shows how three major forces undermined the country's competitive position as an Atlantic commercial power The first was war, especially war at sea against France's most consistent enemy and commercial rival in the eighteenth century, Great Britain A series of colonial wars, from the Seven Years' War and the War of American Independence to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars did much to drive France out of the North Atlantic

The second was anti-slavery and the rise of a new moral conscience which challenged the right of Europeans to own slaves or to sacrifice the freedom of others to pursue national economic advantage The third was the French Revolution itself, which not only raised French hopes of achieving the Rights of Man for its own citizens but also sowed the seeds of insurrection in the slave societies of the New World, leading to the loss of Saint-Domingue and the creation of the first black republic in Haiti at the beginning of the nineteenth century

This proved critical to the economy of the French Caribbean, driving both colons and slaves from Saint-Domingue to seek shelter across the Atlantic world, and leaving a bitter legacy in the French Caribbean It has also created an uneasy memory of the slave trade in French ports like Nantes, La Rochelle, and Bordeaux, and has left an indelible mark on race relations in France today.
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How We Disappear

Thomas S. Mullaney

W. W. Norton & Company , 2026

A brilliant foray into the nature of information, of history, and of making meaning in the face of death and decay Our lives are collections of information—from mundane official documents, poignant family photos, and random artifacts to the cues embodied in our genes Never is this more evident than in the wake of a parent’s death

Yet from all these elusive, even evanescent, data points, history is written and a future is made This information is stored on clay tablets and wood pulp; in vinyl grooves, compact discs, and magnetic patterns; and relayed over undersea cables and satellite cell networks But all information decays Everything that we put “in formation” eventually collapses into randomness

In this wide–ranging examination of the micro and macro, world–renowned scholar Thomas S Mullaney reflects on the deaths of his parents, and on how human lives “disappear.” Lyrical and poignant, his erudite, inspiring meditation offers eye–opening insight on the miracle of existence, and on what it means to forge meaning from a chaotic universe.
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Pirate Imperialism

Manuel Barcia

Yale University Press , 2026 • 177 pages

This first truly global history of the suppression of piracy links maritime raiding to empire building in the nineteenth century In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, imperial powers around the world came into direct confrontation with local resistance in the form of maritime raiding From the Atlantic basin to the western Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf and the east coast of Africa, and Southeast Asia and China, imperial powers claimed that progress was being held back by the barbarity and greed of pirates, who repeatedly attacked imperial vessels

The suppression of piracy, justified under the banner of spreading civilization and free trade and abolishing slavery and the slave trade, provided both western and non-western powers with a back door for territorial expansion and the enforcement of imperialist agendas Historian Manuel Barcia tells the story of these conflicts, showing how imperialist powers frequently used anti–maritime raiding efforts as excuses to cement western supremacy in various parts of the world, while simultaneously resorting to violent means that were indistinguishable from the methods of those they accused of being pirates.
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The Torqued Man

Peter Mann

HarperCollins , 2022 • 351 pages

“A damn good read.”—Alan Furst A brilliant debut novel, at once teasing literary thriller and a darkly comic blend of history and invention, The Torqued Man is set in wartime Berlin and propelled by two very different but equally mesmerizing voices: a German spy handler and his Irish secret agent, neither of whom are quite what they seem Berlin—September, 1945 Two manuscripts are found in rubble, each one narrating conflicting versions of the life of an Irish spy during the war

One of them is the journal of a German military intelligence officer and an anti-Nazi cowed into silence named Adrian de Groot, charting his relationship with his agent, friend, and sometimes lover, an Irishman named Frank Pike In De Groot’s narrative, Pike is a charismatic IRA fighter sprung from prison in Spain to assist with the planned German invasion of Britain, but who never gets the chance to consummate his deal with the devil

Meanwhile, the other manuscript gives a very different account of the Irishman’s doings in the Reich Assuming the alter ego of the Celtic hero Finn McCool, Pike appears here as the ultimate Allied saboteur His mission: an assassination campaign of high-ranking Nazi doctors, culminating in the killing of Hitler’s personal physician The two manuscripts spiral around each other, leaving only the reader to know the full truth of Pike and De Groot’s relationship, their ultimate loyalties, and their efforts to resist the fascist reality in which they are caught.
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The Exorcist

William Peter Blatty

Random House , 2007 • 370 pages

Father Damien Karras: 'Where is Regan'Regan MacNeil: 'In here With us'.The terror begins unobtrusively Noises in Regan's room, an odd smell, the displacement of furniture, an icy chill Easy explanations are offered Then frightening changes start in
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The Electrification of Russia, 1880–1926

Jonathan Coopersmith

Cornell University Press , 2016 • 392 pages

The Electrification of Russia, 1880–1926 is the first full account of the widespread adoption of electricity in Russia, from the beginning in the 1880s to its early years as a state technology under Soviet rule Jonathan Coopersmith has mined the archives for both the tsarist and the Soviet periods to examine a crucial element in the modernization of Russia Coopersmith shows how the Communist Party forged an alliance with engineers to harness the socially transformative power of this science-based enterprise

A centralized plan of electrification triumphed, to the benefit of the Communist Party and the detriment of local governments and the electrical engineers Coopersmith’s narrative of how this came to be elucidates the deep-seated and chronic conflict between the utopianism of Soviet ideology and the reality of Soviet politics and economics.
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Sincerity and Authenticity

Lionel Trilling

Harvard University Press , 1973 • 201 pages

Trilling is concerned with the process by which the arduous enterprise of sincerity, of being true to one’s self, came to occupy a place of supreme importance in the moral life—and the further shift which finds that place now usurped by the darker and still more strenuous modern ideal of authenticity.
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Cue the Sun!

Emily Nussbaum

Random House , 2024 • 465 pages

The rollicking saga of reality television, a “sweeping” (The Washington Post) cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning New Yorker writer—“a must-read for anyone interested in television or popular culture” (NPR) “Passionate, exquisitely told . . With muscular prose and an exacting eye for detail . . . [Nussbaum] knits her talents for sharp analysis and telling reportage well.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice) In development as a docuseries from the studio behind Spencer and Spotlight ONE OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE AND THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe FINALIST FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION Who invented reality television, the world’s most dangerous pop-culture genre

And why can’t we look away In this revelatory, deeply reported account of the rise of “dirty documentary”—from its contentious roots in radio to the ascent of Donald Trump—Emily Nussbaum unearths the origin story of the genre that ate the world, as told through the lively voices of the people who built it At once gimlet-eyed and empathetic, Cue the Sun! explores the morally charged, funny, and sometimes tragic consequences of the hunt for something real inside something fake

In sharp, absorbing prose, Nussbaum traces the jagged fuses of experimentation that exploded with Survivor at the turn of the millennium She introduces the genre’s trickster pioneers, from the icy Allen Funt to the shambolic Chuck Barris; Cops auteur John Langley; cynical Bachelor ringmaster Mike Fleiss; and Jon Murray and Mary-Ellis Bunim, the visionaries behind The Real World—along with dozens of stars from An American Family, The Real World, Big Brother, Survivor, and The Bachelor

We learn about the tools of the trade—like the Frankenbite, a deceptive editor’s best friend—and ugly tales of exploitation But Cue the Sun! also celebrates reality’s peculiar power: a jolt of emotion that could never have come from a script What happened to the first reality stars, the Louds—and why won’t they speak to the couple who filmed them

Which serial killer won on The Dating Game Nussbaum explores reality TV as a strike-breaker, the queer roots of Bravo, the dark truth behind The Apprentice, and more A shrewd observer who adores television, Nussbaum is the ideal voice for the first substantive history of the genre that, for better or worse, made America what it is today.
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Quantitative History of China

Zhiwu Chen, Cameron Campbell, Debin Ma

Springer Nature , 2025 • 354 pages

This Open Access book marks the beginning of a new era in the study of Chinese history Since the beginning of the computer age, quantitative techniques have been increasingly used to study specific topics like family, population, and living standards in China's past

However, sample sizes have usually been small due to either historical archives' availability constraints or limited human processing capacity With much increased computing power and machine-assisted reading/processing capacity, many big historical databases have become available, offering quantitative historians and social scientists great opportunities to study China's past development experience This volume showcases a collection of new findings concerning China's political, social, and economic history and typically based on newly constructed large historical datasets

Most of the work has involved an interdisciplinary team of economists, sociologists, political scientists, historians and econometricians, demonstrating how new big data and quantitative methods may be brought to bear on some of the biggest questions related to China's development over the past three millennia and on the implications of distant past events on contemporary China Topics covered range from the roles of war, state formation, religion, culture, finance and institutions in long-run development and technological innovations, to regicide history, to the organization and capacity of the bureaucracy

Contributors include leading figures in the quantitative study of China's long-run socioeconomic and political history This volume will be of value to anyone with an interest in Chinese economic, political, social and/or institutional history as well as anyone interested in quantitative history more generally.
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A Scandal in Königsberg

Christopher Clark

Penguin Group , 2026

Named a Best Book of the Year by TheTimes (London) As told by one of our greatest historians, the story of the scandal that took down two Lutheran preachers in the heart of nineteenth-century Prussia—a chamber piece of cultish esotericism, pseudoscience, and political resistance that conjures up Europe at the end of the age of reason and presages our current age of misinformation In 1835, Johannes Ebel and Georg Heinrich Diestel were tried for having started a cult Worse: It was a cult that encouraged scandalous sexual behavior in women, including the daughters of prestigious Prussian families—causing the deaths of two young women from sexual exhaustion

The trial would absorb and polarize the city of Königsberg for half a decade and ruin the lives and careers of its defendants, despite their eventual legal exoneration The historical moment it encapsulates—a Europe reeling from the triumph and horror of a new industrial, imperial era, struggling to decide which principles will reign in the aftermath of Enlightenment reason—is a fable for our present time of political, social, and existential disquiet

The great Cambridge historian Christopher Clark—known for The Sleepwalkers, his monumental, defining study of the causes of the First World War—came across the files containing this story three decades ago; it has been swirling in his mind ever since In gripping, narrative prose, Clark immerses us in a Königsberg scarred by the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars, where Immanuel Kant had recently inaugurated the theory of consciousness that completely reshaped humanity’s understanding of itself—but where the distinction between reason and fanaticism was now up for grabs

A Scandal in Königsberg is a European history in exquisite miniature—and a peerless lesson in the theological and philosophical debates that animated the Western world at one of its great moments of transformation Rich and provocative, A Scandal in Königsberg articulates an unsettling antecedent for our most fiercely litigated contemporary questions of sexual identity, freedom of thought, and who gets to decide what constitutes the truth.
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The Elusive Body

Alexandra Sifferlin

Penguin Group , 2026

A compelling, necessary, and timely investigation into the diagnosis crisis in the American healthcare system, from the patients living with undiagnosed illnesses, to the doctors searching for answers, and what their quests reveal about our flawed medical system An estimated tens of millions of Americans live with conditions that elude diagnosis, often navigating a healthcare system that fails to recognize or effectively address their suffering Journalist Alexandra Sifferlin has spent years investigating the diagnosis crisis in America—what it means to live without a diagnosis and how both medical and patient communities are working to improve the diagnostic process

The National Institute of Health’s Undiagnosed Diseases Network, a series of clinics of last resort where physicians work tirelessly to solve some of medicine’s most confounding cases, is at the forefront of change, showing what’s possible when healthcare providers and scientists are freed from the bureaucracy of a system beholden to insurance companies, and encouraged to work together with the aim of solving some of medicine’s most perplexing mysteries A correct diagnosis is more than a label; it’s a lifeline that opens doors to treatment options, financial support, and an understanding community Weaving the profound, maddening, and uplifting stories of patients seeking answers to unexplainable symptoms, the doctors trying to help them, and the latest research on diagnosis, The Elusive Body illuminates the diagnostic journey, revealing why diagnoses matter and how they have the power to transform lives, the medical system, and even society, one case at a time.
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Idolatry

Moshe Halbertal, Avishai Margalit

Harvard University Press , 1992 • 318 pages

Ranging with authority from the Talmud to Maimonides, from Marx to Nietzsche and on to G.E Moore, this account of a subject central to our culture also has much to say about metaphor, myth, and the application of philosophical analysis to religious concepts and sensibilities.
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The Reckoning

David Halberstam

1986 • 786 pages

Two copies in Circulation.
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From Frontiers to Borders

Kerry Goettlich

Cambridge University Press , 2025

How did modern territoriality emerge and what are its consequences This book examines these key questions with a unique global perspective Kerry Goettlich argues that linear boundaries are products of particular colonial encounters, rather than being essentially an intra-European practice artificially imposed on colonized regions

He reconceptualizes modern territoriality as a phenomenon separate from sovereignty and the state, based on expert practices of delimitation and demarcation Its history stems from the social production of expertise oriented towards these practices Employing both primary and secondary sources, From Frontiers to Borders examines how this expertise emerged in settler colonies in North America and in British India - cases which illuminate a range of different types of colonial rule and influence It also explores some of the consequences of the globalization of modern territoriality, exposing the colonial origins of Boundary Studies, and the impact of boundary experts on the Paris Peace Conference of 1919-20.
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Into the Bright Sunshine

Samuel G. Freedman

Oxford University Press , 2023 • 517 pages

Hubert Humphrey, a fallen hero and a dying man, rose on rickety legs to approach the podium of the Philadelphia Convention Hall, his pulpit for the commencement address at the University of Pennsylvania He clutched a sheaf of paper with his speech for the occasion, typed and double-spaced by an assistant from his extemporaneous dictation, and then marked up in pencil by Humphrey himself A note on the first page, circled to draw particular attention, read simply, "30 years ago--Here." In this place, at that time, twenty-nine years earlier to be precise, he had made history

From the dais now, Humphrey beheld five thousand impending graduates, an ebony sea of gowns and mortarboards, broken by one iconoclast in a homemade crown, two in ribboned bonnets, and another whose headgear bore the masking-tape message HI MA PA In the horseshoe curve of the arena's double balcony loomed eight thousand parents and siblings, children, and friends Wearing shirtsleeves and cotton shifts amid the stale heat, they looked like pale confetti from where Humphrey stood, and their flash cameras flickered away, a constellation of pinpricks"--
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The Age of Confiscation

Nicholas Mulder

Random House , 2026

A sweeping, resonant, revelatory history of how the expropriation of property made the modern world, by a brilliant young historian Expropriation – the forced transfer of property rights – is usually associated with dictators, unstable countries, and violent revolution But in fact, it has been integral to the political and economic history of the West, enabling everything from the abolition of serfdom and slavery to decolonization, Allied victory in two world wars and the birth of the modern welfare state

For better and for worse, much of our modern world was built through coercive acquisition of property In this groundbreaking international history of expropriation, Nicholas Mulder charts a gripping course from the eighteenth century to the present, ranging from the French Revolution to the Russo-Ukrainian War, from colonial companies to railway empires, from sales of church land to oil nationalizations, and from the confiscation of patents to asset freezing in the Eurodollar market

He shows how all kinds of political movements – liberal and nationalist, socialist and fascist, imperialist and anticolonial – both dissolved and redistributed property rights Successful state-building did not depend on extinguishing the confiscatory state, but on capitalists mastering its powers and redeploying them for their own purposes

Drawing on a vast range of sources and data across history, politics, and economics, Mulder unfolds a bold revisionist history of how property was made and unmade, transferred and converted, stolen and restored The Age of Confiscation reveals how much expropriation has been part of our recent past, and how amid rising geopolitical competition, growing inequality, and climate change, it will mark our future.
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Bunker Hill

Nathaniel Philbrick

Penguin , 2013 • 418 pages

The bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea, Mayflower, and In the Hurricane's Eye tells the story of the Boston battle that ignited the American Revolution, in this "masterpiece of narrative and perspective." (Boston Globe) In the opening volume of his acclaimed American Revolution series, Nathaniel Philbrick turns his keen eye to pre-Revolutionary Boston and the spark that ignited the American Revolution In the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party and the violence at Lexington and Concord, the conflict escalated and skirmishes gave way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill

It was the bloodiest conflict of the revolutionary war, and the point of no return for the rebellious colonists Philbrick gives us a fresh view of the story and its dynamic personalities, including John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and George Washington With passion and insight, he reconstructs the revolutionary landscape—geographic and ideological—in a mesmerizing narrative of the robust, messy, blisteringly real origins of America.
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Blue Lard

Vladimir Sorokin

New York Review of Books , 2024 • 367 pages

The Russian master's most infamous novel, a dystopian fever dream about cloning, alternative histories, and world domination Blue Lard is an act of desecration Blue Lard is what's left after the towering masterpieces of Russian literature have been blown to smithereens, the most graphic, shocking, controversial, and celebrated book to be published in Russia since the end of Communism

Denounced as an abomination on publication in 1999—a crowd of angry Putin supporters gathered in front of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater to toss shredded copies of Sorokin’s books into an enormous papier-mâché toilet—this ferocious takedown of Russian greatness has since found its way into the canon of Russian literature itself The book begins in a futuristic laboratory where genetic scientists speak in a dialect of Russian mixed with Chinese There they work to clone famous Russian writers, who are then made to produce texts in the style of their forebears

The goal of this “script-process” is not the texts themselves but the blue lard that collects in the small of their backs as they write This substance is to be used to power reactors on the moon—that is, until a sect of devout nationalists breaks in to steal the blue lard, planning to send it back in time to an alternate version of the Soviet Union, one that exists on the margins of a Europe conquered by a long-haired Hitler with the ability to shoot electricity from his hands

What will come of this blue lard Who will finally make use of its mysterious powers Max Lawton’s translation of Blue Lard, the first into English, captures this key work in all its grotesque, havoc-making, horrifying, visceral intensity.
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Opus

Gareth Gore

Simon and Schuster , 2024 • 448 pages

A thrilling exposé recounting how members of Opus Dei—a secretive, ultra-conservative Catholic sect—pushed its radical agenda within the Church and around the globe, using billions of dollars siphoned from one of the world’s largest banks For over half a century, Banco Popular was one of the most profitable banks in the world—until one day, in 2017, when the Spanish bank suddenly collapsed overnight When investigative journalist Gareth Gore was dispatched to report on the story, he expected to find yet another case of unbridled capitalist ambition gone wrong

Instead, he uncovered decades of deception that hid one of the most brazen cases of corporate pillaging in history, perpetrated by a group of men sworn to celibacy and self-flagellation who had secretly controlled Popular and abused their positions there to help spread Opus Dei to every corner of the world Drawing on unparalleled access to bank records, insider accounts, and exclusive interviews with whistle-blowers from within Opus Dei, Gore reveals how money from the bank was used to lure unsuspecting recruits—some of them only children—into a life of servitude

He also tracks the ascent of Opus Dei within the United States, exposing its role in bankrolling many right-wing causes, including the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade In an era of disinformation and deep fakes, here is a real-life conspiracy which hid in plain sight for more than sixty years

Gore tells a shocking story of money and power that spans decades and continents Documenting Opus Dei’s secret history for the first time, this thrilling work of investigative storytelling raises important questions about the dark forces that shape our society.
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Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City

Jonathan Soffer

Columbia University Press , 2012 • 526 pages

In 1978, Ed Koch assumed control of a city plagued by filth, crime, bankruptcy, and racial tensions By the end of his mayoral run in 1989 and despite the Wall Street crash of 1987, his administration had begun rebuilding neighborhoods and infrastructure Unlike many American cities, Koch's New York was growing, not shrinking

Gentrification brought new businesses to neglected corners and converted low-end rental housing to coops and condos Nevertheless, not all the changes were positive--AIDS, crime, homelessness, and violent racial conflict increased, marking a time of great, if somewhat uneven, transition For better or worse, Koch's efforts convinced many New Yorkers to embrace a new political order subsidizing business, particularly finance, insurance, and real estate, and privatizing public space

Each phase of the city's recovery required a difficult choice between moneyed interests and social services, forcing Koch to be both a moderate and a pragmatist as he tried to mitigate growing economic inequality Throughout, Koch's rough rhetoric (attacking his opponents as "crazy," "wackos," and "radicals") prompted charges of being racially divisive The first book to recast Koch's legacy through personal and mayoral papers, authorized interviews, and oral histories, this volume plots a history of New York City through two rarely studied yet crucial decades: the bankruptcy of the 1970s and the recovery and crash of the 1980s.
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The Power of Peasant Consumers

Luis Almenar Fernández

Cambridge University Press , 2025

The long-held view of the peasantry as a passive social group has gradually been replaced by a positive narrative that stresses peasant agency in economic, social, and even political terms Contributing to this shift, Luis Almenar Fernández explores the objects that peasants used to store, cook, and serve their food in late medieval Valencia

Drawing on a range of archival, visual, material, and literary evidence from c. 1280 to c. 1460, the book examines the materiality of food to shed light on the consumer behaviour of agriculturalists during pivotal economic, social, and material transformation It builds on discussions about changes in living standards, consumption patterns, and material culture in pre-industrial European societies The materiality of food improved significantly among Valencian peasants during this period This phenomenon had widespread implications for the economy and underpinned the development of new industries, contributing to the economic growth of this prominent Mediterranean polity.
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General Purpose Technologies and Economic Growth

Elhanan Helpman

MIT Press , 1998 • 348 pages

Traditionally, economists have considered the accumulation of conventional inputs such as labour and capital to be the primary force behind economic growth In the late-1990s however, many economists place technological progress at the centre of the growth process This shift is due to theoretical developments that allow researchers to link microeconomic outcomes.
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Mirrors of Empire

Muzaffar Alam, Sanjay Subrahmanyam

State University of New York Press , 2026 • 532 pages

Approaches the history of the Mughal Empire at the level of human experience, through a diverse group of autobiographical narratives Starting from 1526, the Mughals ruled over much of India for three centuries, perhaps the most important Islamic empire in the early modern world This period saw the production of a fascinating variety of memoirs and autobiographies in which residents of the empire reflected on their own lives, on Islam in a Hindu context, and on the relationship of individual subjects to their new rulers

Those written by Mughal royalty—especially Babur and Jahangir—are well known This book considers the less well-known writings of diverse others, from the poet laureate Faizi to those who were not part of elite society but a few notches below it, such as the lowly envoy Asad Beg and characters like Mirza Nathan and Abdul Latif, who lived dangerously on the Bengal frontier Also considered are prolific Hindu writers, such as Bhimsen Saksena and the witty Anand Ram Mukhlis, who lived in Delhi through the turbulent 1730s and 1740s

Together, they offer an original and differently critical perspective on the empire—its religious, social, and political tensions, as well as its strategies for overcoming them Covering over two centuries of such materials, Mirrors of Empire is a work of cultural history that is also firmly rooted in social history It incorporates extensive translations from Persian, including materials that are little-known even to historians and specialists, and shows the transformation of the empire from its difficult emergence, to its expansive height, to its phase of disintegration in the middle of the eighteenth century Gracefully written, the book approaches the Mughal Empire at the level of human experience, rendering it accessible and not a mere abstraction.
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Crossing the Bay of Bengal

Sunil S. Amrith

Harvard University Press , 2013 • 325 pages

For centuries the Bay of Bengal served as a maritime highway between India and China, and as a battleground for European empires, while being shaped by monsoons and human migration Integrating environmental history and mining a wealth of sources, Sunil S Amrith offers insights to the many challenges facing Asia in the decades ahead.
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Ways and Means

Roger Lowenstein

Penguin , 2022 • 449 pages

“Captivating . . . [Lowenstein] makes what subsequently occurred at Treasury and on Wall Street during the early 1860s seem as enthralling as what transpired on the battlefield or at the White House.” —Harold Holzer, Wall Street Journal “Ways and Means, an account of the Union’s financial policies, examines a subject long overshadowed by military narratives . . Lowenstein is a lucid stylist, able to explain financial matters to readers who lack specialized knowledge.” —Eric Foner, New York Times Book Review From renowned journalist and master storyteller Roger Lowenstein, a revelatory financial investigation into how Lincoln and his administration used the funding of the Civil War as the catalyst to centralize the government and accomplish the most far-reaching reform in the country’s history Upon his election to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln inherited a country in crisis

Even before the Confederacy’s secession, the United States Treasury had run out of money The government had no authority to raise taxes, no federal bank, no currency But amid unprecedented troubles Lincoln saw opportunity—the chance to legislate in the centralizing spirit of the “more perfect union” that had first drawn him to politics

With Lincoln at the helm, the United States would now govern “for” its people: it would enact laws, establish a currency, raise armies, underwrite transportation and higher education, assist farmers, and impose taxes for them Lincoln believed this agenda would foster the economic opportunity he had always sought for upwardly striving Americans, and which he would seek in particular for enslaved Black Americans Salmon Chase, Lincoln’s vanquished rival and his new secretary of the Treasury, waged war on the financial front, levying taxes and marketing bonds while desperately battling to contain wartime inflation

And while the Union and Rebel armies fought increasingly savage battles, the Republican-led Congress enacted a blizzard of legislation that made the government, for the first time, a powerful presence in the lives of ordinary Americans The impact was revolutionary The activist 37th Congress legislated for homesteads and a transcontinental railroad and involved the federal government in education, agriculture, and eventually immigration policy

It established a progressive income tax and created the greenback—paper money While the Union became self-sustaining, the South plunged into financial free fall, having failed to leverage its cotton wealth to finance the war Founded in a crucible of anticentralism, the Confederacy was trapped in a static (and slave-based) agrarian economy without federal taxing power or other means of government financing, save for its overworked printing presses

This led to an epic collapse Though Confederate troops continued to hold their own, the North’s financial advantage over the South, where citizens increasingly went hungry, proved decisive; the war was won as much (or more) in the respective treasuries as on the battlefields Roger Lowenstein reveals the largely untold story of how Lincoln used the urgency of the Civil War to transform a union of states into a nation Through a financial lens, he explores how this second American revolution, led by Lincoln, his cabinet, and a Congress studded with towering statesmen, changed the direction of the country and established a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
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The Rouse

China Miéville

Pan Macmillan , 2026

COMING SEPTEMBER 2026 From the bestselling and award-winning master of speculative fiction comes a deeply moving, decade- and continent-spanning epic: forced to investigate a devastating personal tragedy, an ordinary woman stumbles on dark conspiracies, and provokes the attention of uncanny forces.
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Rejection

Tony Tulathimutte

HarperCollins , 2024 • 259 pages

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "A master comedian with a virtuoso prose style has produced an audacious, original and highly disturbing book . . . an incandescent satire." —Giles Harvey, The New York Times Magazine From the Whiting and O Henry–winning author of Private Citizens (“the first great millennial novel,” New York Magazine), an electrifying novel-in-stories that follows a cast of intricately linked characters as rejection throws their lives and relationships into chaos

Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex, relationships, identity, and the internet In “The Feminist,” a young man’s passionate allyship turns to furious nihilism as he realizes, over thirty lonely years, that it isn’t getting him laid

A young woman’s unrequited crush in “Pics” spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of her sense of self And in “Ahegao; or, The Ballad of Sexual Repression,” a shy late bloomer’s flailing efforts at a first relationship leads to a life-upending mistake As the characters pop up in each other’s dating apps and social media feeds, or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms, they reveal the ways our delusions can warp our desire for connection

These brilliant satires explore the underrated sorrows of rejection with the authority of a modern classic and the manic intensity of a manifesto Audacious and unforgettable, Rejection is a stunning mosaic that redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers, friends, society, and oneself. "Rejection is unrelentingly brutal and gut-bustingly funny and spares no one—not you, not me Tulathimutte is a pervert and a madman and a stone-cold genius." —Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties “One of the foremost fiction writers exploring the subject of his own generation.” —Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker
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Treason in the Blood

Anthony Cave Brown

1994 • 734 pages

Kim Philby has been called "one of the most remarkable double-agents to have been exposed in our time" Harry St. John Bridger Philby, Kim Philby's father and mentor, was one of the most intriguing intellectuals and adventurers of our time, a manipulator who played a key role in establishing the modern Middle East In this dual biography, Anthony Cave Brown, tells the extraordinary story of two men whose lives were directly opposed to the establishment into which they were born and for which they were bred

St. John, the brilliant Arabist, became a Moslem and political adviser to King Ibn Saud He was the middleman in the U.S. acquisition of the Saudi oil concession, called by the State Department "the greatest commercial prize in the history of the planet" And as St. John turned to Mecca, Kim turned to the Kremlin, serving as a secret agent against the Anglo-American intelligence services for fifty-three years.
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Maintenance of Everything

Stewart Brand

Stripe Press , 2026 • 272 pages

The first in-depth exploration of maintenance—and a powerful argument for its civilizational importance—from the author of How Buildings Learn and creator of the Whole Earth Catalog Maintenance is what keeps everything going It’s what keeps life going Yet it’s also easy to shirk or defer—until the thing breaks, the system falters, and everything stops

The apparent paradox is profound: Maintenance is absolutely necessary and maintenance is optional The first in a multi-volume work, Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One offers a comprehensive overview of the civilizational importance of maintenance

The book begins with a dramatic contest of maintenance styles under life-critical conditions: the Golden Globe around-the-world solo sailboat race of 1968 It goes on to explore the insights that can be gleaned from vehicle maintenance, from the zeal of motorcycle maintainers to the maintenance philosophies that fought for dominance of the auto industry to the state of electric vehicle manufacturing today, with absorbing detours into the evolution of precision in manufacturing, the enduring importance of manuals, sustainment in the military, and the never-ending battle against corrosion

Maintenance: Of Everything is a wide-ranging and provocative call to expand what we mean by “maintenance”—not just the tiresome preventative tasks but the whole grand process of keeping a thing going It invites us to understand not only the profound impact maintenance has on our daily lives but also why taking responsibility for maintaining something—whether a motorcycle, a monument, or our very planet—can be a radical act. “No one else but Stewart Brand is talking about the art and science of maintenance and how to do it well This will be an instant classic.” —Kevin Kelly, founding executive editor of Wired “A deliciously good book.” —Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist
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Perfection

Vincenzo Latronico

New York Review of Books , 2025 • 137 pages

A New York Times Notable Book of 2025 A 2025 International Booker Prize Shortlist Nominee Longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature Winner of AIRMAIL's Inaugural Tom Wolfe Literary Prize for Fiction A scathing, provocative novel about contemporary existence by a rising star in Italian literature Anna and Tom, an expat couple, have fashioned a dream life for themselves in Berlin They are young digital "creatives" exploring the excitements of the city, freelancers without too many constraints, who spend their free time cultivating house plants and their images online

At first, they reasonably deduce that they've turned their passion for aesthetics into a viable, even enviable career, but the years go by, and Anna and Tom grow bored As their friends move back home or move on, so their own work and sex life—and the life of Berlin itself—begin to lose their luster An attempt to put their politics into action fizzles in embarrassed self-doubt

Edging closer to forty, they try living as digital nomads only to discover that, wherever they go, "the brand of oat milk in their flat whites was the same." Perfection—Vincenzo Latronico's first book to be translated into English—is a scathing novel about contemporary existence, a tale of two people gradually waking up to find themselves in various traps, wondering how it all came to be Was it a lack of foresight, or were they just born too late?
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Tom's Crossing

Mark Z. Danielewski

Random House , 2025 • 1233 pages

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of House of Leaves comes a magisterial novel about two friends determined to rescue a pair of horses set for slaughter. “This is an amazing work of fiction I absolutely loved it At the heart you’ll find a blood-drenched story of pursuit and two brave and resourceful children

But there’s so much more I immersed myself Have never read anything like it.” —Stephen King Hard to figure how so much awful horror could've started out with just them two horses and not a one yet named.. While folks still like to focus on the crimes that shocked the small city of Orvop, Utah, back in the fall of 1982, not to mention the trials that followed, far more remember the adventure that took place beyond municipal lines

For sure no one expected the dead to rise, but they did No one expected the mountain to fall either, but it did No one expected an act of courage so great, and likewise so appalling, that it still staggers the heart and mind of anyone who knows anything about the Katanogos massif, to say nothing of Pillars Meadow As one Orvop high school teacher described that extraordinary feat just days before she died, Fer sure no one expected Kalin March to look Old Porch in the eye and tell him: You get what you deserve when you ride with cowards.
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Billiards at Half-past Nine

Heinrich Böll

McGraw-Hill Companies , 1962 • 296 pages

Three-generation story of a family of German architects who, in rebuilding their destroyed abbey, personify the alternate destruction and rebuilding of their country.
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The House of Wisdom

Jim Al-Khalili

Penguin Press HC , 2011 • 302 pages

Challenges popular misconceptions to reveal the unrecognized scientific accomplishments of medieval Islam, profiling innovations that played significant roles in bridging the ancient and modern worlds while promoting the European Renaissance.
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1929

Andrew Ross Sorkin

Random House , 2025 • 753 pages

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “It is one of the best narrative histories I’ve read.” —The Wall Street Journal Named a Most Anticipated Book by New York Times Books Review, TIME, Washington Post, Associated Press, Town & Country, New York Post, and more From the bestselling author of Too Big to Fail, “the definitive history of the 2008 banking crisis,” (The Atlantic) comes a riveting narrative of the most infamous stock market crash in history—one with ripple effects that still shape our society today In 1929, the world watched in shock as the unstoppable Wall Street bull market went into a freefall, wiping out fortunes and igniting a depression that would reshape a generation

But behind the flashing ticker tapes and panicked traders, another drama unfolded—one of visionaries and fraudsters, titans and dreamers, euphoria and ruin With unparalleled access to historical records and newly uncovered documents, New York Times bestselling author Andrew Ross Sorkin takes readers inside the chaos of the crash, behind the scenes of a raging battle between Wall Street and Washington and the larger-than-life characters whose ambition and naivete in an endless boom led to disaster

The dizzying highs and brutal lows of this era eerily mirror today’s world—where markets soar, political tensions mount, and the fight over financial influence plays out once again This is not just a story about money. 1929 is a tale of power, psychology, and the seductive illusion that this time is different It’s about disregarded alarm bells, financiers who fell from grace, and skeptics who saw the crash coming—only to be dismissed until it was too late

Hailed as a landmark book, Too Big to Fail reimagined how financial crises are told Now, with 1929, Sorkin delivers an immersive, electrifying account of the most pivotal market collapse of all time—with lessons that remain as urgent as ever More than just a history, 1929 is a crucial blueprint for understanding the cycles of speculation, the forces that drive financial upheaval, and the warning signs we ignore at our peril.
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Mind, Body and Culture

Geoffrey Samuel

Cambridge University Press , 1990 • 206 pages

The author draws on his background in physics to suggest a scientific approach to aspects of human behaviour which have been traditionally described as cultural or social.
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Luminous

Silvia Park

Simon and Schuster , 2025 • 400 pages

Prescient yet timeless, perfect for fans of Klara and the Sun and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, this highly anticipated, sweeping debut set in a unified Korea tells the story of three estranged siblings—two human, one robot—as they collide against the backdrop of a murder investigation to settle old scores and make sense of their shattered childhood. “I once had a family At least, the earliest version of me had a family.” In a reunified Korea of the near future, the sun beats down on a junkyard filled with abandoned robots, broken down for parts

Eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through the scraps, searching for a piece that might support her failing body There among the piles of trash, something catches her eye: a robot boy—so lifelike and strange, unlike anything she’s ever seen before Siblings Jun and Morgan haven’t spoken for years When they were children, their brother Yoyo disappeared suddenly, leaving behind only distant memories of his laughter and near-human warmth

Yoyo—an early prototype of a humanoid robot designed by their father—was always bound for something darker and more complex Now Morgan makes robots for a living and is on the verge of losing control of her most important creation Jun is a detective with the Robot Crimes Unit whose investigation is digging up truths that want to stay buried

And whether they like it or not, Ruijie’s discovery will thrust their family back together in ways they could have never imagined At once a thrilling work of speculative fiction and a poignant exploration of what it really means to be human, Luminous is an unforgettably brilliant debut.
Homeland cover

Homeland

Richard Beck

Crown , 2024 • 593 pages

A groundbreaking history of how the decades-long war on terror changed virtually every aspect of American life, from the erosion of citizenship down to the cars we bought and TV we watched—by an acclaimed n+1 writer “Richard Beck, like many people alive today, has spent his adult life living in the shadow of 9/11, and Homeland is a devastating inquiry into the new world that day created.”—Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR For twenty years after September 11, the war on terror was simultaneously everywhere and nowhere With all of the military violence occurring overseas even as the threat of sudden mass death permeated life at home, Americans found themselves living in two worlds at the same time

In one of them, soldiers fought overseas so that nothing at home would have to change at all In the other, life in the United States took on all kinds of unfamiliar shapes, changing people’s sense of themselves, their neighbors, and the strangers they sat next to on airplanes In Homeland, Richard Beck delivers a gripping exploration of how much the war changed life in the United States and explains why there is no going back

Though much has been made of the damage that Donald Trump did to the American political system, Beck argues that it was the war on terror that made Trump’s presidency possible, fueling and exacerbating a series of crises that all came to a head with his rise to power Homeland brilliantly isolates and explores four key issues: the militarism that swept through American politics and culture; the racism and xenophobia that boiled over in much of the country; an economic crisis that, Beck convincingly argues, connects the endurance of the war on terror to at least the end of the Second World War; and a lack of accountability that produced our “impunity culture”—the government-wide inability or refusal to face consequences that has transformed how the U.S. government relates to the people it governs

To see American life through the lens of Homeland’s sweeping argument is to understand the roots of our current condition In its startling analysis of how the war on terror hollowed out the very idea of citizenship in the United States, Beck gives the most compelling explanation yet offered for the ongoing disintegration of America’s social, political, and cultural fabric.
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Peasant Metropolis

David L. Hoffmann

Cornell University Press , 2018 • 307 pages

During the 1930's, 23 million peasants left their villages and moved to Soviet cities, where they comprised almost half the urban population and more than half the nation's industrial workers Drawing on previously inaccessible archival materials, David L Hoffmann shows how this massive migration to the cities—an influx unprecedented in world history—had major consequences for the nature of the Soviet system and the character of Russian society even today.Hoffmann focuses on events in Moscow between the launching of the industrialization drive in 1929 and the outbreak of war in 1941

He reconstructs the attempts of Party leaders to reshape the social identity and behavior of the millions of newly urbanized workers, who appeared to offer a broad base of support for the socialist regime The former peasants, however, had brought with them their own forms of cultural expression, social organization, work habits, and attitudes toward authority Hoffmann demonstrates that Moscow's new inhabitants established social identities and understandings of the world very different from those prescribed by Soviet authorities

Their refusal to conform to the authorities' model of a loyal proletariat thwarted Party efforts to construct a social and political order consistent with Bolshevik ideology The conservative and coercive policies that Party leaders adopted in response, he argues, contributed to the Soviet Union's emergence as an authoritarian welfare state.
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Kingdoms of Faith

Brian A. Catlos

Oxford University Press , 2018 • 498 pages

Prior accounts have portrayed Islamic Spain either as a paradise of enlightened tolerance, or as the site where civilisations clashed Award-winning historian Brian A Catlos taps a wide array of original sources to paint a more complex picture, showing how Muslims, Christians, and Jews together built a sophisticated civilisation that transformed the Western world, even as they waged relentless war against each other and amongst themselves Religion was often the language of conflict, but seldom its cause--a lesson we would do well to learn in our own time.Kingdoms of Faith rewrites Spain's Islamic past from the ground up, evoking the cultural splendour of al-Andalus and the many forces that shaped it.
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The Matter Factory

Peter J. T. Morris

Reaktion Books , 2015 • 504 pages

White coats, Bunsen burners, beakers, flasks, and pipettes—the furnishings of the chemistry laboratory are familiar to most of us from our school days, but just how did these items come to be the crucial tools of science Examining the history of the laboratory, Peter J T Morris offers a unique way to look at the history of chemistry itself, showing how the development of the laboratory helped shape modern chemistry

Chemists, Morris shows, are one of the leading drivers of innovation in laboratory design and technology He tells of fascinating lineages of invention and innovation, for instance, how the introduction of coal gas into Robert Wilhelm Bunsen’s laboratory led to the eponymous burner, which in turn led to the development of atomic spectroscopy Comparing laboratories across eras, from the furnace-centered labs that survived until the late eighteenth century to the cleanrooms of today, he shows how the overlooked aspects of science—the architectural design and innovative tools that have facilitated its practice—have had a profound impact on what science has been able to do and, ultimately, what we have been able to understand.
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English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980

Martin J. Wiener

Cambridge University Press , 2004 • 242 pages

Drawing upon a wide array of sources, Martin Wiener explores the English ambivalence to modern industrial society.
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The Sublime Post

Choon Hwee Koh

Yale University Press , 2024 • 272 pages

A history of the postal system that once connected the Ottoman Empire Before the advent of steamships or the telegraph, the premier technology for long-distance communication was the horse-run relay system Every empire had one--including the Ottoman Empire In The Sublime Post, Choon Hwee Koh examines how the vast Ottoman postal system worked across three centuries by tracking the roles of eight small-scale actors--the Courier, the Tatar, Imperial Decrees, the Bookkeeper, the Postmaster, the Villager, Money, and the Horse

There are stories of price-gouging postmasters; of murdered couriers and their bereaved widows; of moonlighting officials transporting merchandise; of neighboring villages engaged in long-running feuds; of bookkeepers calculating the annual costs of horseshoes, halters, and hay; of Tatar couriers and British travelers sharing drunken nights at post stations; of swimming with horses across rivers; and of hiding from marauding bandits in the desert By weaving together chronicles, sharia court records, fiscal registers, collective petitions, appointment contracts, and imperial decrees from the Ottoman archive, this study of a large-scale communications infrastructure reveals the interdependence of an empire and its diverse imperial subjects Koh traces this evolving interdependence between 1500 and 1840 to tell the history of the Ottoman Empire and its changing social order.
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Moving Crops and the Scales of History

Francesca Bray, Barbara Hahn, John Bosco Lourdusamy, Tiago Saraiva

Yale University Press , 2023 • 353 pages

A bold redefinition of historical inquiry based on the "cropscape"--the people, creatures, technologies, ideas, and places that surround a crop Human efforts to move crops from one place to another have been a key driving force in history Crops have been on the move for millennia, from wildlands into fields, from wetlands to dry zones, from one imperial colony to another This book is a bold but approachable attempt to redefine historical inquiry based on the "cropscape": the assemblage of people, places, creatures, technologies, and other elements that form around a crop

The cropscape is a method of reconnecting the global with the local, the longue durée with microhistory, and people, plants, and places with abstract concepts such as tastes, ideas, skills, politics, and economic forces Through investigating a range of contrasting cropscapes spanning millennia and the globe, the authors break open traditional historical structures of period, geography, and direction to glean insight into previously invisible actors and forces.
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Agents of Empire

Noel Malcolm

Penguin UK , 2015 • 855 pages

In the second half of the sixteenth century, most of the Christian states of Western Europe were on the defensive against a Muslim superpower - the Empire of the Ottoman sultans There was violent conflict, from raiding and corsairing to large-scale warfare, but there were also many forms of peaceful interaction across the surprisingly porous frontiers of these opposing power-blocs Agents of Empire describes the paths taken through the eastern Mediterranean and its European hinterland by members of a Venetian-Albanian family, almost all of them previously invisible to history

They include an archbishop in the Balkans, the captain of the papal flagship at the Battle of Lepanto, the power behind the throne in the Ottoman province of Moldavia, and a dragoman (interpreter) at the Venetian embassy in Istanbul Through the life-stories of these adventurous individuals over three generations, Noel Malcolm casts the world between Venice, Rome and the Ottoman Empire in a fresh light, illuminating subjects as diverse as espionage, diplomacy, the grain trade, slave-ransoming and anti-Ottoman rebellion

He describes the conflicting strategies of the Christian powers, and the extraordinarily ambitious plans of the sultans and their viziers Few works since Fernand Braudel's classic account of the sixteenth-century Mediterranean, published more than sixty years ago, have ranged so widely through this vital period of Mediterranean and European history A masterpiece of scholarship as well as story-telling, Agents of Empire builds up a panoramic picture, both of Western power-politics and of the interrelations between the Christian and Ottoman worlds.
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That Most Precious Merchandise

Hannah Barker

University of Pennsylvania Press , 2019 • 323 pages

The history of the Black Sea as a source of Mediterranean slaves stretches from ancient Greek colonies to human trafficking networks in the present day At its height during the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, the Black Sea slave trade was not the sole source of Mediterranean slaves; Genoese, Venetian, and Egyptian merchants bought captives taken in conflicts throughout the region, from North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, the Balkans, and the Aegean Sea

Yet the trade in Black Sea slaves provided merchants with profit and prestige; states with military recruits, tax revenue, and diplomatic influence; and households with the service of women, men, and children Even though Genoa, Venice, and the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt and Greater Syria were the three most important strands in the web of the Black Sea slave trade, they have rarely been studied together Examining Latin and Arabic sources in tandem, Hannah Barker shows that Christian and Muslim inhabitants of the Mediterranean shared a set of assumptions and practices that amounted to a common culture of slavery

Indeed, the Genoese, Venetian, and Mamluk slave trades were thoroughly entangled, with wide-ranging effects Genoese and Venetian disruption of the Mamluk trade led to reprisals against Italian merchants living in Mamluk cities, while their participation in the trade led to scathing criticism by supporters of the crusade movement who demanded commercial powers use their leverage to weaken the force of Islam Reading notarial registers, tax records, law, merchants' accounts, travelers' tales and letters, sermons, slave-buying manuals, and literary works as well as treaties governing the slave trade and crusade propaganda, Barker gives a rich picture of the context in which merchants traded and enslaved people met their fate.
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Shadow Ticket

Thomas Pynchon

Penguin , 2025 • 305 pages

A New York Times Bestseller • A New York Times, Washington Post, and Associated Press Notable Book • Named a Best Book of the Year by The Los Angeles Times, Vulture, TIME, The Guardian, The New Republic, and LitHub The new novel from Thomas Pynchon, author of Gravity's Rainbow, The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland, and Inherent Vice. “A masterpiece.” —The Telegraph “Bonkers and brilliant fun.” —The Washington Post “Late Pynchon at his finest Dark as a vampire’s pocket, light-fingered as a jewel thief, Shadow Ticket capers across the page with breezy, baggy-pants assurance — and then pauses on its way down the fire escape just long enough to crack your heart open.” —The Los Angeles Times Milwaukee 1932, the Great Depression going full blast, repeal of Prohibition just around the corner, Al Capone in the federal pen, the private investigation business shifting from labor-management relations to the more domestic kind

Hicks McTaggart, a onetime strikebreaker turned private eye, thinks he’s found job security until he gets sent out on what should be a routine case, locating and bringing back the heiress of a Wisconsin cheese fortune who’s taken a mind to go wandering Before he knows it, he’s been shanghaied onto a transoceanic liner, ending up eventually in Hungary where there’s no shoreline, a language from some other planet, and enough pastry to see any cop well into retirement—and of course no sign of the runaway heiress he’s supposed to be chasing

By the time Hicks catches up with her he will find himself also entangled with Nazis, Soviet agents, British counterspies, swing musicians, practitioners of the paranormal, outlaw motorcyclists, and the troubles that come with each of them, none of which Hicks is qualified, forget about being paid, to deal with Surrounded by history he has no grasp on and can’t see his way around in or out of, the only bright side for Hicks is it’s the dawn of the Big Band Era and as it happens he’s a pretty good dancer Whether this will be enough to allow him somehow to Lindy-hop his way back again to Milwaukee and the normal world, which may no longer exist, is another question.
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The Unwinding

George Packer

Faber & Faber , 2013 • 490 pages

America is in crisis In the space of a generation, it has become more than ever a country of winners and losers, as industries have failed, institutions have disappeared and the country's focus has shifted to idolise celebrity and wealth George Packer narrates the story of America over the past three decades, bringing to the task his empathy with people facing difficult challenges, his sharp eye for detail and a gift for weaving together engaging narratives

The Unwinding moves deftly back and forth through the lives of its people, including Dean Price, the son of tobacco farmers who becomes an evangelist for a new economy in the rural South; Tammy Thomas, a factory worker in the industrial Midwest attempting to survive the collapse of her city; Jeff Connaughton, a political careerist in Washington; and Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire Their stories are interspersed with biographical sketches of the era's leading public figures, from Oprah Winfrey to Steve Jobs, to create a rich, wise and very human portrait of the USA in these hard times

The Unwinding portrays a superpower coming apart at the seams, its elites and institutions no longer working, leaving ordinary people to improvise their own schemes for salvation George Packer is also the author of The Assassin's Gate, which was named one of the ten best books of 2005 by the New York Times and won the Helen Bernstein Book Award. 'A tour de force . . A fascinating journey through an America that has largely remained hidden from view There are echoes of Don DeLillo's Underworld in the scope of Packer's vision and his deft eye for language and detail.' Sunday Business Post
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Boundaries of Belonging

Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer

Cambridge University Press , 2026

Examining sectarian divergence in the early modern Middle East, this study provides a fresh perspective on the Sunni-Shi'i division Drawing on Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and European sources, Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer explores the paradox of an Ottoman state that combined rigid ideological discourses with pragmatic governance Through an analysis of key figures, events, periods, and policies, it reveals how political, economic, and religious forces intersected, challenging simplistic sectarian binaries

Baltacıoğlu-Brammer provides a comprehensive historical account of Ottoman governance during the 'long sixteenth century', focusing on its relationship with non-Sunni Muslim subjects, particularly the Qizilbash As both the founders of the Safavid Empire and the largest Shiʿi-affiliated group within the Ottoman realm, the Qizilbash occupied a crucial yet often misunderstood position Boundaries of Belonging examines their role within the empire, challenging the notion that they were merely persecuted outsiders by highlighting their agency in shaping imperial policies, negotiating their status, and influencing the Ottoman-Safavid rivalry in Anatolia, Kurdistan, and Mesopotamia.
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The Disappearance of Childhood

Neil Postman

Vintage , 1994 • 194 pages

From the vogue for nubile models to the explosion in the juvenile crime rate, this modern classic of social history and media traces the precipitous decline of childhood in America today−and the corresponding threat to the notion of adulthood Deftly marshaling a vast array of historical and demographic research, Neil Postman, author of Technopoly, suggests that childhood is a relatively recent invention, which came into being as the new medium of print imposed divisions between children and adults

But now these divisions are eroding under the barrage of television, which turns the adult secrets of sex and violence into popular entertainment and pitches both news and advertising at the intellectual level of ten-year-olds Informative, alarming, and aphorisitc, The Disappearance of Childhood is a triumph of history and prophecy.
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Misconceiving Canada

Kenneth McRoberts

Oxford University Press Canada , 1997 • 424 pages

This book examines the relationship between Quebec and the rest of Canada, from its historical roots, the roles of governments such as Trudeau and Mulroney, issues of official bilingualism, multiculturalism, the 1995 Quebec Referendum and the impact Quebec separatism would have on the future of Canada.
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The Warmth of Other Suns

Isabel Wilkerson

Random House , 2010 • 641 pages

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY “A brilliant and stirring epic . . Ms. Wilkerson does for the Great Migration what John Steinbeck did for the Okies in his fiction masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath; she humanizes history, giving it emotional and psychological depth.”—John Stauffer, The Wall Street Journal “What she’s done with these oral histories is stow memory in amber.”—Lynell George, Los Angeles Times WINNER: The Mark Lynton History Prize • The Anisfield-Wolf Award for Nonfiction • The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize • The Hurston-Wright Award for Nonfiction • The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism • NAACP Image Award for Best Literary Debut • Stephen Ambrose Oral History Prize FINALIST: The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction • Dayton Literary Peace Prize ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times • USA Today • Publishers Weekly • O: The Oprah Magazine • Salon • Newsday • The Daily Beast ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker • The Washington Post • The Economist •Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • Entertainment Weekly • Philadelphia Inquirer • The Guardian • The Seattle Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Christian Science Monitor In this beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson presents a definitive and dramatic account of one of the great untold stories of American history: the Great Migration of six million Black citizens who fled the South for the North and West in search of a better life, from World War I to 1970

Wilkerson tells this interwoven story through the lives of three unforgettable protagonists: Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper’s wife, who in 1937 fled Mississippi for Chicago; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, and Robert Foster, a surgeon who left Louisiana in 1953 in hopes of making it in California Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous cross-country journeys by car and train and their new lives in colonies in the New World

The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is a modern classic.
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Male Fantasies: Women, floods, bodies, history

Klaus Theweleit

U of Minnesota Press , 1987 • 546 pages

First of this two-volume work providing an imaginative interpretation of the image of women in the collective unconscious of the fascist "warrior" through a study of the fantasies of the men centrally involved in the rise of Nazism.
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This Divided Island

Samanth Subramanian

Macmillan + ORM , 2015 • 259 pages

Samanth Subramanian has written about politics, culture, and history for the New York Times and the New Yorker Now, Subramanian takes on a complex topic that touched millions of lives in This Divided Island In the summer of 2009, the leader of the dreaded Tamil Tiger guerrillas was killed, bringing to an end the civil war in Sri Lanka

For nearly thirty years, the war's fingers had reached everywhere, leaving few places, and fewer people, untouched What happens to the texture of life in a country that endures such bitter conflict What happens to the country's soul Subramanian gives us an extraordinary account of the Sri Lankan war and the lives it changed

Taking us to the ghosts of summers past, he tells the story of Sri Lanka today Through travels and conversations, he examines how people reconcile themselves to violence, how the powerful become cruel, and how victory can be put to the task of reshaping memory and burying histories.
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Nothing is True and Everything is Possible

Peter Pomerantsev

Faber & Faber , 2015 • 224 pages

A journey into the glittering, surreal heart of 21st century Russia: into the lives of Hells Angels convinced they are messiahs, professional killers with the souls of artists, bohemian theatre directors turned Kremlin puppet-masters, supermodel sects, post-modern dictators and oligarch revolutionaries This is a world erupting with new money and new power, changing so fast it breaks all sense of reality, where life is seen as a whirling, glamorous masquerade where identities can be switched and all values are changeable

It is home to a new form of authoritarianism, far subtler than 20th century strains, and which is rapidly expanding to challenge the global order An extraordinary book - one which is as powerful and entertaining as it is troubling - Nothing is True and Everything is Possible offers a wild ride into this political and ethical vacuum.
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Crazy Like Us

Ethan Watters

Simon and Schuster , 2010 • 322 pages

“A blistering and truly original work of reporting and analysis, uncovering America’s role in homogenizing how the world defines wellness and healing” (Po Bronson) In Crazy Like Us, Ethan Watters reveals that the most devastating consequence of the spread of American culture has not been our golden arches or our bomb craters but our bulldozing of the human psyche itself: We are in the process of homogenizing the way the world goes mad It is well known that American culture is a dominant force at home and abroad; our exportation of everything from movies to junk food is a well-documented phenomenon

But is it possible America's most troubling impact on the globalizing world has yet to be accounted for American-style depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anorexia have begun to spread around the world like contagions, and the virus is us Traveling from Hong Kong to Sri Lanka to Zanzibar to Japan, acclaimed journalist Ethan Watters witnesses firsthand how Western healers often steamroll indigenous expressions of mental health and madness and replace them with our own In teaching the rest of the world to think like us, we have been homogenizing the way the world goes mad.
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Private Life under Socialism

Yunxiang Yan

Stanford University Press , 2003 • 319 pages

For seven years in the 1970s, the author lived in a village in northeast China as an ordinary farmer In 1989, he returned to the village as an anthropologist to begin the unparalleled span of eleven years’ fieldwork that has resulted in this book—a comprehensive, vivid, and nuanced account of family change and the transformation of private life in rural China from 1949 to 1999 The author’s focus on the personal and the emotional sets this book apart from most studies of the Chinese family

Yan explores private lives to examine areas of family life that have been largely overlooked, such as emotion, desire, intimacy, privacy, conjugality, and individuality He concludes that the past five decades have witnessed a dual transformation of private life: the rise of the private family, within which the private lives of individual women and men are thriving.
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The Great Departure

Tara Zahra

W. W. Norton & Company , 2016 • 286 pages

Zahra handles this immensely complicated and multidimensional history with remarkable clarity and feeling. —Robert Levgold, Foreign Affairs Between 1846 and 1940, more than 50 million Europeans moved to the Americas in one of the largest migrations of human history, emptying out villages and irrevocably changing both their new homes and the ones they left behind With a keen historical perspective on the most consequential social phenomenon of the twentieth century, Tara Zahra shows how the policies that gave shape to this migration provided the precedent for future events such as the Holocaust, the closing of the Iron Curtain, and the tragedies of ethnic cleansing In the epilogue, she places the current refugee crisis within the longer history of migration.
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Guests of the Sheik

Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

Anchor , 1995 • 370 pages

A delightful account of one woman's two-year stay in a tiny rural village in Iraq, where she assumed the dress and sheltered life of a harem woman. "A most enjoyable book abouut [Muslim women]—simple, dignified, human, colorful, sad and humble as the life they lead." —Muhsin Mahdi, Jewett Professor of Arabic Literature, Harvard Unversity A wonderful, well-written, and vastly informative ethnographic study that offers a unique insight into a part of the Midddle Eastern life seldom seen by the West.
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Ants Among Elephants

Sujatha Gidla

Macmillan + ORM , 2017 • 298 pages

A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Nonfiction Book of 2017 A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2017 A Shelf Awareness Best Book of 2017 " Ants Among Elephants is an arresting, affecting and ultimately enlightening memoir It is quite possibly the most striking work of non-fiction set in India since Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, and heralds the arrival of a formidable new writer." — The Economist The stunning true story of an untouchable family who become teachers, and one, a poet and revolutionary Like one in six people in India, Sujatha Gidla was born an untouchable

While most untouchables are illiterate, her family was educated by Canadian missionaries in the 1930s, making it possible for Gidla to attend elite schools and move to America at the age of twenty-six It was only then that she saw how extraordinary—and yet how typical—her family history truly was Her mother, Manjula, and uncles Satyam and Carey were born in the last days of British colonial rule

They grew up in a world marked by poverty and injustice, but also full of possibility In the slums where they lived, everyone had a political side, and rallies, agitations, and arrests were commonplace The Independence movement promised freedom Yet for untouchables and other poor and working people, little changed

Satyam, the eldest, switched allegiance to the Communist Party Gidla recounts his incredible transformation from student and labor organizer to famous poet and founder of a left-wing guerrilla movement And Gidla charts her mother's battles with caste and women's oppression Page by page, Gidla takes us into a complicated, close-knit family as they desperately strive for a decent life and a more just society A moving portrait of love, hardship, and struggle, Ants Among Elephants is also that rare thing: a personal history of modern India told from the bottom up.
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Factory Girls

Leslie T. Chang

Random House , 2009 • 450 pages

An eye-opening and previously untold story, Factory Girls is the first look into the everyday lives of the migrant factory population in China China has 130 million migrant workers—the largest migration in human history In Factory Girls, Leslie T Chang, a former correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing, tells the story of these workers primarily through the lives of two young women, whom she follows over the course of three years as they attempt to rise from the assembly lines of Dongguan, an industrial city in China’s Pearl River Delta

As she tracks their lives, Chang paints a never-before-seen picture of migrant life—a world where nearly everyone is under thirty; where you can lose your boyfriend and your friends with the loss of a mobile phone; where a few computer or English lessons can catapult you into a completely different social class Chang takes us inside a sneaker factory so large that it has its own hospital, movie theater, and fire department; to posh karaoke bars that are fronts for prostitution; to makeshift English classes where students shave their heads in monklike devotion and sit day after day in front of machines watching English words flash by; and back to a farming village for the Chinese New Year, revealing the poverty and idleness of rural life that drive young girls to leave home in the first place

Throughout this riveting portrait, Chang also interweaves the story of her own family’s migrations, within China and to the West, providing historical and personal frames of reference for her investigation A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America’s shores remade our own country a century ago.
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Shooting a Tiger

Vijaya Ramadas Mandala

Oxford University Press , 2018 • 343 pages

The figure of the white hunter sahib proudly standing over the carcass of a tiger with a gun in hand is one of the most powerful and enduring images of the empire This book examines the colonial politics that allowed British imperialists to indulge in such grand posturing as the rulers and protectors of indigenous populations This work studies the history of hunting and conservation in colonial India during the high imperial decades of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

At this time, not only did hunting serve as a metaphor for colonial rule signifying the virile sportsmanship of the British hunter, but it also enabled vital everyday governance through the embodiment of the figure of the officer–hunter–administrator Using archival material and published sources, the author examines hunting and wildlife conservation from various social and ethnic perspectives, and also in different geographical contexts, extending our understanding of the link between shikar and governance.

Against Money

J. W. Mason, Arjun Jayadev

University of Chicago Press , 2026

A powerful deconstruction of humanity’s most influential invention, from the acclaimed economists J W Mason and Arjun Jayadev Money is unavoidably fundamental to our daily lives It lurks behind the swipe of a card when buying groceries; in looming student-loan debts; in the prices of things we want; and in our subconscious navigation of the modern world

Money is an invisible convenience that saves us, as a society, the hassle of bartering for goods and services—a reflection, in our pockets and on our phones, of the hard facts of scarcity and desire Or is it something more In this revelatory book, economists J W

Mason and Arjun Jayadev explain how and why money is so deeply misunderstood by the world it dominates—and what the dangerous implications of this misunderstanding are Against Money tackles the most strongly held “truths” of economics, arguing that the world of money actually never has been an impartial representation of the world of things Instead, its existence in different forms—debt, capital, liquidity, and interest—increasingly shapes events in the real world rather than just reflecting them; sometimes opening new forms of cooperation, and sometimes exercising a malevolent domination

Human existence is not just facilitated by money, but also governed by it Perfect for fans of Thomas Piketty and David Graeber, Against Money is an erudite, disruptive intervention against the illusions and tyrannies of money Mason and Jayadev present a radically different way of thinking about money—imagining a hopeful future in which it no longer defines the possibilities of our collective existence.
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You Never Know

Tom Selleck, Ellis Henican

HarperCollins , 2024 • 424 pages

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*** There are many miles from the business school and basketball court at the University of Southern California to 50 million viewers for the final episode of a TV show called Magnum P.I Tom Selleck has lived every one of those miles in his own iconoclastic and joyful way Frank, funny and open-hearted, You Never Know is an intimate memoir from one of the most beloved actors of our time, the highly personal story of a remarkable life and thoroughly accidental career

In his own voice and uniquely unpretentious style, the famed actor brings readers on his uncharted but serendipitous journey to the top in Hollywood, his temptations and distractions, his misfires and mistakes and, over time, his well-earned success Along the way, he clears up an armload of misconceptions and shares dozens of never-told stories from all corners of his personal and professional life His rambunctious California childhood

His clueless arrival as a good-looking college jock in Hollywood (from the Dating Game to the Fox New Talent Program to co-starring with Mae West and escorting her to black-tie social functions) What it was like to emerge as a mega-star in his mid-thirties and remain so for decades to come, an actor whose authenticity and ease in front of the camera connected with audiences worldwide while embodying and also redefining the clichés of onscreen manhood

In You Never Know, Selleck recounts his personal friendships with a vivid army of A-listers, everyone from Frank Sinatra to Carol Burnett to Sam Elliott, paying special tribute to his mentor James Garner of The Rockford Files, who believed, like Selleck, that TV protagonists are far more interesting when they have rough edges He also more than tips his hat to the American western and the scruffy band of actors, directors and other ruffians who helped define that classic genre, where Selleck has repeatedly found a happy home

Magnum fans will be fascinated to learn how Selleck put his career on the line to make Thomas Magnum a more imperfect hero and explains why he walked away from a show that could easily have gone on for years longer Hollywood is never easy, even for stars who make it look that way In You Never Know, Selleck explains how he’s struggled to balance his personal and professional lives, frequently adjusting his career to protect his family’s privacy and normalcy

His journey offers a truly fresh perspective on a changing industry and a changing world Beneath all the charm and talent and self-deprecating humor, Selleck’s memoir reveals an American icon who has reached remarkable heights by always insisting on being himself.
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Soviet Workers and the Collapse of Perestroika

Donald Filtzer

Cambridge University Press , 1994 • 326 pages

A comprehensive analysis of the role of labour policy in the development and ultimate collapse of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms.
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The Gutenberg Elegies

Sven Birkerts

Macmillan + ORM , 2006 • 327 pages

A renowned literary critic examines the impact of information technology on the experience of reading in this "thoughtful and heartfelt" essay collection ( Washington Post ) In our zeal to embrace the wonders of the electronic age, are we sacrificing our literary culture Renowned critic Sven Birkerts believes the answer is an alarming yes

Drawing on his own passionate, lifelong love of books, Birkerts examines how literature intimately shapes and nourishes the inner life What does it mean to "hear" a book on audiotape, decipher its words on a screen, or interact with it on CD-ROM Are books as we know them dead At once a celebration of the complex pleasures of reading and a boldly original challenge to the new information technologies, The Gutenberg Elegies is an essential volume for anyone who cares about the past and future of books

Includes a new introduction and afterword by the author "Provocative . . Compelling . . Powerfully conveys why reading matters, why it is both a delight and a necessity." — The Harvard Review
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Hyperobjects

Timothy Morton

U of Minnesota Press , 2013 • 241 pages

Having set global warming in irreversible motion, we are facing the possibility of ecological catastrophe But the environmental emergency is also a crisis for our philosophical habits of thought, confronting us with a problem that seems to defy not only our control but also our understanding Global warming is perhaps the most dramatic example of what Timothy Morton calls “hyperobjects”—entities of such vast temporal and spatial dimensions that they defeat traditional ideas about what a thing is in the first place

In this book, Morton explains what hyperobjects are and their impact on how we think, how we coexist with one another and with nonhumans, and how we experience our politics, ethics, and art Moving fluidly between philosophy, science, literature, visual and conceptual art, and popular culture, the book argues that hyperobjects show that the end of the world has already occurred in the sense that concepts such as world, nature, and even environment are no longer a meaningful horizon against which human events take place

Instead of inhabiting a world, we find ourselves inside a number of hyperobjects, such as climate, nuclear weapons, evolution, or relativity Such objects put unbearable strains on our normal ways of reasoning Insisting that we have to reinvent how we think to even begin to comprehend the world we now live in, Hyperobjects takes the first steps, outlining a genuinely postmodern ecological approach to thought and action.

Land and Sea

Carl Schmitt

1997 • 73 pages

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Liquid Modernity

Zygmunt Bauman

John Wiley & Sons , 2013 • 183 pages

In this new book, Bauman examines how we have moved away from a 'heavy' and 'solid', hardware-focused modernity to a 'light' and 'liquid', software-based modernity This passage, he argues, has brought profound change to all aspects of the human condition The new remoteness and un-reachability of global systemic structure coupled with the unstructured and under-defined, fluid state of the immediate setting of life-politics and human togetherness, call for the rethinking of the concepts and cognitive frames used to narrate human individual experience and their joint history

This book is dedicated to this task Bauman selects five of the basic concepts which have served to make sense of shared human life - emancipation, individuality, time/space, work and community - and traces their successive incarnations and changes of meaning Liquid Modernity concludes the analysis undertaken in Bauman's two previous books Globalization: The Human Consequences and In Search of Politics Together these volumes form a brilliant analysis of the changing conditions of social and political life by one of the most original thinkers writing today.
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A Fire Upon The Deep

Vernor Vinge

Tor Science Fiction , 2010 • 626 pages

Now with a new introduction for the Tor Essentials line, A Fire Upon the Deep is sure to bring a new generation of SF fans to Vinge's award-winning works A Hugo Award-winning Novel! “Vinge is one of the best visionary writers of SF today.”-David Brin Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures, and technology, can function

Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence Fleeing this galactic threat, Ravna crash lands on a strange world with a ship-hold full of cryogenically frozen children, the only survivors from a destroyed space-lab

They are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle Tor books by Vernor Vinge Zones of Thought Series A Fire Upon The Deep A Deepness In The Sky The Children of The Sky Realtime/Bobble Series The Peace War Marooned in Realtime Other Novels The Witling Tatja Grimm's World Rainbows End Collections Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge True Names At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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The Swamp

Michael Grunwald

Simon and Schuster , 2006 • 466 pages

“Brilliant.” —The Washington Post Book World * “Magnificent.” —The Palm Beach Post * “Rich in history yet urgently relevant to current events.” —The New Republic The Everglades in southern Florida were once reviled as a liquid wasteland, and Americans dreamed of draining it Now it is revered as a national treasure, and Americans have launched the largest environmental project in history to try to save it The Swamp is the stunning story of the destruction and possible resurrection of the Everglades, the saga of man's abuse of nature in southern Florida and his unprecedented efforts to make amends

Michael Grunwald, a prize-winning national reporter for The Washington Post, takes readers on a riveting journey from the Ice Ages to the present, illuminating the natural, social and political history of one of America's most beguiling but least understood patches of land The Everglades was America's last frontier, a wild country long after the West was won Grunwald chronicles how a series of visionaries tried to drain and “reclaim” it, and how Mother Nature refused to bend to their will; in the most harrowing tale, a 1928 hurricane drowned 2,500 people in the Everglades

But the Army Corps of Engineers finally tamed the beast with levees and canals, converting half the Everglades into sprawling suburbs and sugar plantations And though the southern Everglades was preserved as a national park, it soon deteriorated into an ecological mess The River of Grass stopped flowing, and 90 percent of its wading birds vanished

Now America wants its swamp back Grunwald shows how a new breed of visionaries transformed Everglades politics, producing the $8 billion rescue plan That plan is already the blueprint for a new worldwide era of ecosystem restoration And this book is a cautionary tale for that era Through gripping narrative and dogged reporting, Grunwald shows how the Everglades is still threatened by the same hubris, greed and well-intentioned folly that led to its decline.
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Military Experience in the Age of Reason

Christopher Duffy

Routledge , 2005 • 273 pages

First published in 1987 Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
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Brasyl

Ian McDonald

JABberwocky Literary Agency, Incorporated , 2018 • 485 pages

Be seduced, amazed, and shocked by one of the world's greatest and strangest nations Past, present, and future Brazil, with all its color, passion, and shifting realities, come together in a novel that is part SF, part history, part mystery, and entirely enthralling Three characters, three time periods, three stories that bind together

Sao Paulo 2031: Edson is a self-made talent impresario one step up from the slums A chance encounter draws him into the dangerous world of illegal quantum computing, but where can you run in a total surveillance society where every move, face, and centavo is constantly tracked Rio 2006: Marcelina is an ambitious Rio TV producer looking for that big reality TV hit to make her name

When her hot idea sets her on the track of a disgraced World Cup soccer goalkeeper, she becomes enmeshed in an ancient conspiracy that threatens not just her life, but her very soul The Amazon 1732: Father Luis is a Jesuit missionary sent into the maelstrom of 18th-century Brazil to locate and punish a rogue priest who has strayed beyond the articles of his faith and set up a vast empire in the hinterland In the company of a French geographer and spy, what he finds in the backwaters of the Amazon tries both his faith and the nature of reality itself to the breaking point

Three characters, three stories, three Brazils, linked across time, space, and reality in a hugely ambitious story that will challenge the way you think about everything Praise for Brasyl "McDonald's outstanding SF novel channels the vitality of South America's largest country into an edgy, post-cyberpunk free-for-all.. Chaotic, heartbreaking and joyous [a] must-read..." — Publishers Weekly "BRASYL is classic McDonald: a deep thinking, high-paced adventure story, exploring the quantum universe, combining sassy, believable characters with a captivating delight in language and storytelling

McDonald inhabits the Brazil – or rather, the Brazils – of this world and sweeps you along as no other writer in the field could manage." — The Guardian "A beautiful story, one that cries out to be read again and again McDonald's light is still shining brightly, and considering the consistent quality of his titles, we say long may it burn." — SciFi Now "Ian McDonald's BRASYL, with its three storylines, is as close to perfect as any novel in recent memory

It works because of great characterization, but also because McDonald envisions Brazil as a dynamic, living place that is part postmodern trash pile, part trashy reality-TV-driven ethical abyss... and yet also somehow spiritual.. McDonald's novel is always in motion This movement extends through time and alternate realities in ways both wonderful and wise, as the three storylines interlock for a satisfying and often stunning conclusion McDonald has found new myths for old places; in doing so, he has cemented his reputation as an amazing storyteller." — Washington Post
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Neuromancer

William Gibson

Penguin , 2000 • 337 pages

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K Dick Awards, Neuromancer is a science fiction masterpiece—a classic that ranks as one of the twentieth century’s most potent visions of the future Case was the sharpest data-thief in the matrix—until he crossed the wrong people and they crippled his nervous system, banishing him from cyberspace

Now a mysterious new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run at an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, a mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case is ready for the adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction Neuromancer was the first fully-realized glimpse of humankind’s digital future—a shocking vision that has challenged our assumptions about technology and ourselves, reinvented the way we speak and think, and forever altered the landscape of our imaginations.
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Exordia

Seth Dickinson

Tor Books , 2024 • 609 pages

Michael Crichton meets Marvel’s Venom in award-winning author Seth Dickinson’s science fiction debut, named one of The New York Times' Best SFF Books of 2024. "Agonizing and mesmerizing, a devastating and extraordinary achievement."—The New York Times “Magnificent. . . A science fiction action juggernaut.”—Tamsyn Muir “Anna, I came to Earth tracking a very old story, a story that goes back to the dawn of time It’s very unlikely that you’ll die right now

It wouldn’t be narratively complete.” Anna Sinjari—refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker—has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes Enter Ssrin, a many-headed serpent alien who is on the run from her own past Ssrin and Anna are inexorably, dangerously drawn to each other, and their contact reveals universe-threatening stakes

While humanity reels from disaster, Anna must join a small team of civilians, soldiers, and scientists to investigate a mysterious broadcast and unknowable horror If they can manage to face their own demons, they just might save the world At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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NATO's Secret Armies

Daniele Ganser

Routledge , 2005 • 336 pages

This fascinating new study shows how the CIA and the British secret service, in collaboration with the military alliance NATO and European military secret services, set up a network of clandestine anti-communist armies in Western Europe after World War II These secret soldiers were trained on remote islands in the Mediterranean and in unorthodox warfare centres in England and in the United States by the Green Berets and SAS Special Forces The network was armed with explosives, machine guns and high-tech communication equipment hidden in underground bunkers and secret arms caches in forests and mountain meadows

In some countries the secret army linked up with right-wing terrorist who in a secret war engaged in political manipulation, harrassement of left wing parties, massacres, coup d'états and torture Codenamed 'Gladio' ('the sword'), the Italian secret army was exposed in 1990 by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti to the Italian Senate, whereupon the press spoke of "The best kept, and most damaging, political-military secret since World War II" (Observer, 18

November 1990) and observed that "The story seems straight from the pages of a political thriller." (The Times, November 19, 1990) Ever since, so-called 'stay-behind' armies of NATO have also been discovered in France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, Greece and Turkey They were internationally coordinated by the Pentagon and NATO and had their last known meeting in the NATO-linked Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) in Brussels in October 1990.
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The Donkey and the Boat

Chris Wickham

Oxford University Press , 2023 • 836 pages

A new account of the Mediterranean economy in the 10th to 12th centuries, forcing readers to entirely rethink the underlying logic to medieval economic systems Chris Wickham re-examines documentary and archaeological sources to give a detailed account of both individual economies, and their relationships with each other Chris Wickham offers a new account of the Mediterranean economy in the tenth to twelfth centuries, based on a completely new look at the sources, documentary and archaeological

Our knowledge of the Mediterranean economy is based on syntheses which are between 50 and 150 years old; they are based on outdated assumptions and restricted data sets, and were written before there was any usable archaeology; and Wickham contends that they have to be properly rethought This is the first book ever to give a fully detailed comparative account of the regions of the Mediterranean in this period, in their internal economies and in their relationships with each other

It focusses on Egypt, Tunisia, Sicily, the Byzantine empire, Islamic Spain and Portugal, and north-central Italy, and gives the first comprehensive account of the changing economies of each; only Byzantium has a good prior synthesis It aims to force our rethinking of how economies worked in the medieval Mediterranean It also offers a rethinking of how we should understand the underlying logic of the medieval economy in general.
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The Inheritance of Rome

Chris Wickham

Penguin UK , 2009 • 548 pages

The idea that with the decline of the Roman Empire Europe entered into some immense ‘dark age’ has long been viewed as inadequate by many historians How could a world still so profoundly shaped by Rome and which encompassed such remarkable societies as the Byzantine, Carolingian and Ottonian empires, be anything other than central to the development of European history How could a world of so many peoples, whether expanding, moving or stable, of Goths, Franks, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, whose genetic and linguistic inheritors we all are, not lie at the heart of how we understand ourselves

The Inheritance of Rome is a work of remarkable scope and ambition Drawing on a wealth of new material, it is a book which will transform its many readers’ ideas about the crucible in which Europe would in the end be created From the collapse of the Roman imperial system to the establishment of the new European dynastic states, perhaps this book’s most striking achievement is to make sense of an immensely long period of time, experienced by many generations of Europeans, and which, while it certainly included catastrophic invasions and turbulence, also contained long periods of continuity and achievement From Ireland to Constantinople, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, this is a genuinely Europe-wide history of a new kind, with something surprising or arresting on every page.
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Silence of the Gods

Francis Kendrick Young

2025

A masterful new history of Europe's last unchristianised peoples in the period between 1387 and 1900, from the Sámi of northern Fennoscandia to the Balts and the Finno-Ugric peoples of European Russia, exploring the reasons for their late adoption of Christianity and their creative religious responses to encounters with missionaries--
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The Radical Spanish Empire

Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, Adrian Masters

Harvard University Press , 2026 • 467 pages

The Spanish Crown had initially hoped to establish an orderly aristocratic society in the New World Yet from the late 1520s, Spanish and Indigenous people throughout the colonies radically challenged the social order Surprisingly, they did so not through violence but through the power of paperwork: petitions, complaints, and legal testimony.
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The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783

A. T. Mahan

Cambridge University Press , 2010 • 642 pages

One of the most influential published works on naval strategy which analyses British naval domination, first published in 1890.
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On Growth and Form

D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson

DigiCat , 2022 • 694 pages

D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's 'On Growth and Form' is a groundbreaking exploration of the relationship between biological forms and the mathematical principles underlying their growth Published in 1917, this work melds scientific observation with eloquent prose, revealing how organisms develop according to natural laws that can be expressed mathematically Thompson's intricate analysis transcends traditional biology by blending the depths of morphology, physics, and the theory of evolution, all while embracing a vivid, illustrative style that captivates readers

Thompson, a pioneering biologist and mathematician, was profoundly influenced by the early 20th-century intellectual climate, including the burgeoning fields of both biology and mathematics His academic journey encompassed studies in natural history and classical languages, which instilled in him an appreciation for the beauty of nature as a mathematical construct This background informed his innovative perspectives on how organisms are shaped by and respond to their environments, elevating the discussion of biology into a realm that intersected art and science. 'On Growth and Form' is highly recommended for anyone fascinated by the intersection of art and science, and for readers eager to deepen their understanding of the natural world

Thompson's insights remain remarkably relevant, bridging a century of scientific thought to contemporary discussions in evolutionary biology and biomathematics In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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America, América

Greg Grandin

Penguin , 2025 • 769 pages

A New York Times bestseller • A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, 2025 Kirkus Prize, 2025 Cundill History Prize, and 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction • Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker,The New Republic, and Mother Jones “An extraordinarily ambitious book . . America, América reads at times as the historical equivalent of the great epic novels of Gabriel García Márquez.” —Irish Times From the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, the first comprehensive history of the Western Hemisphere, a sweeping five-century narrative of North and South America that redefines our understanding of both The story of how the United States’ identity was formed is almost invariably told by looking east to Europe

But as Greg Grandin vividly demonstrates, the nation’s unique sense of itself was in fact forged facing south toward Latin America In turn, Latin America developed its own identity in struggle with the looming colossus to the north In this stunningly original reinterpretation of the New World, Grandin reveals how North and South emerged from a constant, turbulent engagement with each other

America, América traverses half a millennium, from the Spanish Conquest—the greatest mortality event in human history—through the eighteenth-century wars for independence, the Monroe Doctrine, the coups and revolutions of the twentieth century, and beyond Grandin shows, among other things, how in response to U.S. interventions, Latin Americans remade the rules, leading directly to the founding of the United Nations; and how the Good Neighbor Policy allowed FDR to assume the moral authority to lead the fight against world fascism

Grandin’s book sheds new light on well-known historical figures like Bartolomé de las Casas, Simón Bolívar, and Woodrow Wilson, as well as lesser-known actors such as the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda, who almost lost his head in the French Revolution and conspired with Alexander Hamilton to free America from Spain; the Colombian Jorge Gaitán, whose unsolved murder inaugurated the rise of Cold War political terror, death squads, and disappearances; and the radical journalist Ernest Gruening, who, in championing non-interventionism in Latin America, helped broker the most spectacularly successful policy reversal in United States history This is a monumental work of scholarship that will fundamentally change the way we think of Spanish and English colonialism, slavery and racism, and the rise of universal humanism

At once comprehensive and accessible, America, América shows that centuries of bloodshed and diplomacy not only helped shape the political identities of the United States and Latin America but also the laws, institutions, and ideals that govern the modern world In so doing, Grandin argues that Latin America’s deeply held culture of social democracy can be an effective counterweight to today’s spreading rightwing authoritarianism A culmination of a decades-long engagement with hemispheric history, drawing on a vast array of sources, and told with authority and flair, this is a genuinely new history of the New World.
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Why Sound Matters

Damon Krukowski

Yale University Press , 2025 • 129 pages

A poignant consideration of the material aspect of sound and how it fundamentally shapes our experience of the world, both in its presence and absence From the joyous communal connections fostered through shared auditory experience to the devastating impact of noise pollution in the deep sea, musician and author Damon Krukowski urges readers to reconsider the significance of sound and its role in both our personal and collective well-being He looks despairingly at how the multipronged efforts of urban dwellers to mitigate city noise have led to increased isolation, loss of community, and a sense of physical detachment from one’s surroundings

He considers the consequences of the commodification of sound in the digital era And he looks at what’s at stake in trying to preserve the world’s dwindling quiet places Interspersed with personal reflections from years of working in the music business, this book investigates sound’s role in the environment, its value as a material, its relationship to labor, and how it affects our interactions with one another

Krukowski invites you to hear the world anew and renew your relationship with one of our most precious natural resources So listen up!
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Moving the World

Craig Fuller

2025

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The Digital Reversal. Thread-saga of Media Evolution

ANDREY. MIR

Andrey Mir , 2025

The future of the book is the blurb, said Marshall McLuhan As the future arrives, this book is written in tweets-1,295 of them Gathered in thread-chapters, they explore and explain what media evolution does to us Cars help people get around faster

But when their use hits certain limits, their effect of speed and mobility reverses into traffic jams And so it is with any medium: when it reaches its extremes or limits, it reverses its effect into the opposite This is what we face now Digital media have sped up human interaction with the world to its limit-instantaneity

No wonder everything is now reversing into its opposite, merging into one global, cataclysmic Digital Reversal The abundance of signals reverses into noise The abundance of facts reverses into fakes Free access to self-expression leads to abuse by trolls and bad actors and reverses into censorship

The revolt of the public reverses into anarcho-tyranny Text reverses into texting, and texting reverses print literacy into digital orality Abstraction reverses into anecdotal evidence Feelings reverse into intensities

Boosted by the overload of empathy, identity reverses into credentials Journalism reverses into postjournalism The overload of news reverses into news avoidance Reading books reverses into asking the search box

Knowledge reverses into knowing Academia flips into activism Objective truth reverses into crowdsourced importance Everything is media effects In the digital era, the study of media effects is the study of reversals

Reversals are everywhere Like verses in a saga, 1,295 tweets across 248 pages cover the development of media from orality to literacy and now in reverse-to digital orality Also read other books by Andrey Mir - available on Amazon: - The Viral Inquisitor and Other Essays on Postjournalism and Media Ecology (2024) - Digital Future in the Rearview Mirror: Jaspers' Axial Age and Logan's Alphabet Effect (2024) - Postjournalism and the Death of Newspapers: The Media After Trump: Manufacturing Anger and Polarization (2020) - Human as Media: The Emancipation of Authorship (2014)
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A Local History of Global Capital

Tariq Omar Ali

Princeton University Press , 2018 • 267 pages

Before the advent of synthetic fibers and cargo containers, jute sacks were the preferred packaging material of global trade, transporting the world's grain, cotton, sugar, tobacco, coffee, wool, guano, and bacon Jute was the second-most widely consumed fiber in the world, after cotton While the sack circulated globally, the plant was cultivated almost exclusively by peasant smallholders in a small corner of the world: the Bengal delta

This book examines how jute fibers entangled the delta's peasantry in the rhythms and vicissitudes of global capital Taking readers from the nineteenth-century high noon of the British Raj to the early years of post-partition Pakistan in the mid-twentieth century, Tariq Omar Ali traces how the global connections wrought by jute transformed every facet of peasant life: practices of work, leisure, domesticity, and sociality; ideas and discourses of justice, ethics, piety, and religiosity; and political commitments and actions

Ali examines how peasant life was structured and restructured with oscillations in global commodity markets, as the nineteenth-century period of peasant consumerism and prosperity gave way to debt and poverty in the twentieth century A Local History of Global Capital traces how jute bound the Bengal delta's peasantry to turbulent global capital, and how global commodity markets shaped everyday peasant life and determined the difference between prosperity and poverty, survival and starvation.
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Red Meat Republic

Joshua Specht

Princeton University Press , 2019 • 364 pages

How beef conquered America and gave rise to the modern industrial food complex By the late nineteenth century, Americans rich and poor had come to expect high-quality fresh beef with almost every meal Beef production in the United States had gone from small-scale, localized operations to a highly centralized industry spanning the country, with cattle bred on ranches in the rural West, slaughtered in Chicago, and consumed in the nation’s rapidly growing cities

Red Meat Republic tells the remarkable story of the violent conflict over who would reap the benefits of this new industry and who would bear its heavy costs Joshua Specht puts people at the heart of his story—the big cattle ranchers who helped to drive the nation’s westward expansion, the meatpackers who created a radically new kind of industrialized slaughterhouse, and the stockyard workers who were subjected to the shocking and unsanitary conditions described by Upton Sinclair in his novel The Jungle

Specht brings to life a turbulent era marked by Indian wars, Chicago labor unrest, and food riots in the streets of New York He shows how the enduring success of the cattle-beef complex—centralized, low cost, and meatpacker dominated—was a consequence of the meatpackers’ ability to make their interests overlap with those of a hungry public, while the interests of struggling ranchers, desperate workers, and bankrupt butchers took a backseat America—and the American table—would never be the same again A compelling and unfailingly enjoyable read, Red Meat Republic reveals the complex history of exploitation and innovation behind the food we consume today.
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Pirates and Publishers

Fei-Hsien Wang

Princeton University Press , 2019 • 368 pages

A detailed historical look at how copyright was negotiated and protected by authors, publishers, and the state in late imperial and modern China In Pirates and Publishers, Fei-Hsien Wang reveals the unknown social and cultural history of copyright in China from the 1890s through the 1950s, a time of profound sociopolitical changes Wang draws on a vast range of previously underutilized archival sources to show how copyright was received, appropriated, and practiced in China, within and beyond the legal institutions of the state

Contrary to common belief, copyright was not a problematic doctrine simply imposed on China by foreign powers with little regard for Chinese cultural and social traditions Shifting the focus from the state legislation of copyright to the daily, on-the-ground negotiations among Chinese authors, publishers, and state agents, Wang presents a more dynamic, nuanced picture of the encounter between Chinese and foreign ideas and customs Developing multiple ways for articulating their understanding of copyright, Chinese authors, booksellers, and publishers played a crucial role in its growth and eventual institutionalization in China

These individuals enforced what they viewed as copyright to justify their profit, protect their books, and crack down on piracy in a changing knowledge economy As China transitioned from a late imperial system to a modern state, booksellers and publishers created and maintained their own economic rules and regulations when faced with the absence of an effective legal framework Exploring how copyright was transplanted, adopted, and practiced, Pirates and Publishers demonstrates the pivotal roles of those who produce and circulate knowledge.
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Empires of Vice

Diana S. Kim

Princeton University Press , 2021 • 330 pages

A Shared Turn : Opium and the Rise of Prohibition -- The Different Lives of Southeast Asia's Opium Monopolies -- "Morally Wrecked" in British Burma, 1870s-1890s -- Fiscal Dependency in British Malaya, 1890s-1920s -- Disastrous Abundance in French Indochina, 1920s-1940s -- Colonial Legacies.
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Making It Count

Arunabh Ghosh

Princeton University Press , 2022 • 360 pages

Among the biggest challenges facing leaders of the newly established People's Republic of China (PRC) was how much they did not know In 1949, at the end of a long sequence of wars, the government of one of the largest states in the world committed to fundamentally re-engineering its society and economy via socialist planning while having almost no hard, reliable statistical data about their own country This book is a history of attempts made to resolve this crisis in counting

Drawing on a wealth of official, institutional, and private sources culled from China, India, and the United States, the author explores the choices made and the effects they engendered through a series of vivid encounters with political leaders, professional statisticians, academics, ordinary statistical workers, and even literary figures Early reliance on Soviet-inspired methods of enumeration became increasingly untenable in China by the middle of the 1950s

A series of unprecedented and unexpected exchanges with Indian statisticians followed, as the Chinese sought to learn about the then exciting new technology of random sampling These developments were, in turn, overtaken by the tumult of the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961), when both probabilistic and exhaustive methods were rejected and statistics was refashioned into an essentially ethnographic enterprise The author argues that this history, usually narrowly described as a universal, if European history, cannot be understood without acknowledging Soviet and Indian influences which not only revises existing models of Cold War science but also globalizes the wider developments in the history of statistics and data For historians of China and social science, and political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists studying modern China.--
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The Printing Press as an Agent of Change

Elizabeth L. Eisenstein

Cambridge University Press , 1980 • 814 pages

A full-scale historical treatment of the advent of printing and its importance as an agent of change, first published in 1980.
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The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe

Elizabeth L. Eisenstein

Cambridge University Press , 2005 • 412 pages

Although the importance of the advent of printing for the Western world has long been recognized, it was Elizabeth Eisenstein, in her monumental, two-volume work, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, who provided the first full-scale treatment of the subject This edition gives a stimulating survey of the communications revolution of the fifteenth century

After summarizing the initial changes introduce by the establishment of printing shops, it goes on to discuss how printing effected three major cultural movements: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science Specific examples show how the use of the new presses enabled churchmen, scholars, and craftsmen to move beyond the limits handcopying had imposed and thus to pose new challenges to traditional institutions.
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The Revolutionary Temper

Robert Darnton

W. W. Norton & Company , 2023 • 478 pages

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice “This captivating history of the decades leading up to the French Revolution…immerse[s] readers in what agitated Parisians read, wore, ate and sang on the way to toppling the monarchy of Louis XVI.” —New York Times Book Review A groundbreaking account of the coming of the French Revolution from a historian of worldwide acclaim When a Parisian crowd stormed the Bastille in July 1789, it triggered an event of global consequence: the overthrow of the monarchy and the birth of a new society

Most historians account for the French Revolution by viewing it in retrospect as the outcome of underlying conditions such as a faltering economy, social tensions, or the influence of Enlightenment thought But what did Parisians themselves think they were doing—how did they understand their world What were the motivations and aspirations that guided their actions

In this dazzling history, Robert Darnton addresses these questions by drawing on decades of close study to conjure a past as vivid as today’s news He explores eighteenth-century Paris as an information society much like our own, its news circuits centered in cafés, on park benches, and under the Palais-Royal’s Tree of Cracow Through pamphlets, gossip, underground newsletters, and public performances, the events of some forty years—from disastrous treaties, official corruption, and royal debauchery to thrilling hot-air balloon ascents and new understandings of the nation—all entered the churning collective consciousness of ordinary Parisians

As public trust in royal authority eroded and new horizons opened for them, Parisians prepared themselves for revolution Darnton’s authority and sure judgment enable readers to confidently navigate the passions and complexities of controversies over court politics, Church doctrine, and the economy And his compact, luminous prose creates an immersive reading experience Here is a riveting narrative that succeeds in making the past a living presence.
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Born in Flames

Bench Ansfield

W. W. Norton & Company , 2025 • 323 pages

“[R]evelatory…Deeply researched and masterfully told.” —Brian Goldstone, New York Times Book Review The explosive account of the arson wave that hit the Bronx and other American cities in the 1970s—and its legacy today. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning!” That legendary and apocryphal phrase, allegedly uttered by announcers during the 1977 World Series as flames rose above Yankee Stadium, seemed to encapsulate an entire era in this nation’s urban history Across that decade, a wave of arson coursed through American cities, destroying entire neighborhoods home to poor communities of color

Yet as historian Bench Ansfield demonstrates in Born in Flames, the most destructive of the fires were not set by residents, as is commonly assumed, but by landlords looking to collect insurance payouts Driven by perverse incentives—new government-sponsored insurance combined with tanking property values—landlords hired “torches,” mostly Black and Brown youth, to set fires in the buildings, sometimes with people still living in them Tens of thousands of families lost their homes to these blazes, yet for much of the 1970s, tenant vandalism and welfare fraud stood as the prevailing explanations for the arson wave, effectively indemnifying landlords

Ansfield’s book, based on a decade of research, introduces the term “brownlining” for the destructive insurance practices imposed on poor communities of color under the guise of racial redress Ansfield shows that as the FIRE industries—finance, insurance, and real estate— eclipsed manufacturing in the 1970s, they began profoundly reshaping Black and Brown neighborhoods, seeing them as easy sources of profit At every step, Ansfield charts the tenant-led resistance movements that sprung up in the Bronx and elsewhere, as well as the explosion of popular culture around the fires, from iconic movies like The Towering Inferno to hit songs such as “Disco Inferno.” Ultimately, they show how similarly pernicious dynamics around insurance and race are still at play in our own era, especially in regions most at risk of climate shocks.
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That Book Is Dangerous!

Adam Szetela

MIT Press , 2025 • 283 pages

An alarming exposé of the new challenges to literary freedom in the age of social media—when anyone with an identity and an internet connection can be a censor In That Book Is Dangerous!, Adam Szetela investigates how well-intentioned and often successful efforts to diversify American literature have also produced serious problems for literary freedom Although progressives are correct to be focused on right-wing attempts at legislative censorship, Szetela argues for attention to the ways that left-wing censorship controls speech within the publishing industry itself

The author draws on interviews with presidents and vice presidents at the Big Five publishers, literary agents at the most prestigious agencies, award-winning authors, editors, marketers, sensitivity readers, and other industry professionals to examine the new publishing landscape What he finds is unsettling: mandatory sensitivity reads; morality clauses in author contracts; even censorship of “dangerous” books in the name of antiracism, feminism, and other forms of social justice

These changes to acquisition practices, editing policies, and other aspects of literary culture are a direct outgrowth of the culture of public outcries on X, Goodreads, Change.org, and other online platforms, where users accuse authors—justifiably or not—of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other transgressions But rather than genuinely address the economic inequities of literary production, this current moral crusade over literature serves only to entrench the status quo. “While the right is remaking the world in its image,” he writes, “the left is standing in a circular firing squad.” Compellingly argued and incisively written, the book is a much-needed wake-up call for anyone who cares about reading, writing, and the publication of books—as well as the generations of young readers we are raising.
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Carthage Must Be Destroyed

Richard Miles

Penguin , 2011 • 622 pages

The first full-scale history of Hannibal's Carthage in decades and "a convincing and enthralling narrative." (The Economist ) Drawing on a wealth of new research, archaeologist, historian, and master storyteller Richard Miles resurrects the civilization that ancient Rome struggled so mightily to expunge This monumental work charts the entirety of Carthage's history, from its origins among the Phoenician settlements of Lebanon to its apotheosis as a Mediterranean empire whose epic land-and-sea clash with Rome made a legend of Hannibal and shaped the course of Western history Carthage Must Be Destroyed reintroduces readers to the ancient glory of a lost people and their generations-long struggle against an implacable enemy.
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The Great War and the Transformation of Habsburg Central Europe

Pieter M. Judson, Tara Zahra

2025

The Great War and the Transformation of Habsburg Central Europe examines how the First World War transformed the multinational Austro-Hungarian Monarchy into a fractured landscape of mistrust, scarcity, and dissolution and laid the foundation for the new postwar world.
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The Wide Wide Sea

Hampton Sides

Vintage , 2024 • 415 pages

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “thrilling and superbly crafted” (The Wall Street Journal) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIME, THE ECONOMIST, NPR, THE NEW YORKER, THE SMITHSONIAN, AND KIRKUS REVIEWS “In this masterly history, Sides tracks the 18th-century English naval officer James Cook’s third and final voyage across the globe, painting a vivid and propulsive portrait."—The New York Times Book Review On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution

Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment Hampton Sides’ bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s

Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples He treated his crew well and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment

Yet something was different on this last voyage Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples

This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage Whatever Cook’s intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world The tensions between Cook’s overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii

His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers.
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Draining New Orleans

Richard Campanella

LSU Press , 2023 • 279 pages

In Draining New Orleans, the first full-length book devoted to “the world’s toughest drainage problem,” renowned geographer Richard Campanella recounts the epic challenges and ingenious efforts to dewater the Crescent City With forays into geography, public health, engineering, architecture, politics, sociology, race relations, and disaster response, he chronicles the herculean attempts to “reclaim” the city’s swamps and marshes and install subsurface drainage for massive urban expansion

The study begins with a vivid description of a festive event on Mardi Gras weekend 1915, which attracted an entourage of elite New Orleanians to the edge of Bayou Barataria to witness the christening of giant water pumps President Woodrow Wilson, connected via phoneline from the White House, planned to activate the station with the push of a button, effectively draining the West Bank of New Orleans What transpired in the years and decades that followed can only be understood by examining the large swath of history dating back two centuries earlier—to the geological formation and indigenous occupation of this delta—and extending through the colonial, antebellum, postbellum, and Progressive eras to modern times

The consequences of dewatering New Orleans proved both triumphant and tragic The city’s engineering prowess transformed it into a world leader in drainage technology, yet the municipality also fell victim to its own success Rather than a story about mud and machinery, this is a history of people, power, and the making of place Campanella emphasizes the role of determined and sometimes unsavory individuals who spearheaded projects to separate water from dirt, creating lucrative opportunities in the process not only for the community but also for themselves.

Every One Still Here

Liadan Ní Chuinn

2024

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Who We are and how We Got Here

David Reich (Of Harvard Medical School)

Oxford University Press , 2018 • 368 pages

David Reich describes how the revolution in the ability to sequence ancient DNA has changed our understanding of the deep human past This book tells the emerging story of our often surprising ancestry - the extraordinary ancient migrations and mixtures of populations that have made us who we are.
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If this is a Man

Primo Levi

1979 • 396 pages

With the moral stamina and intellectual pose of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, duitful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose He was profoundly in touch with the minutest workings of the most endearing human events and with the most contempible What has survived in Levi's writing isn't just his memory of the unbearable, but also, in THE PERIODIC TABLE and THE WRENCH, his delight in what made the world exquisite to him He was himself a "magically endearing man, the most delicately forceful enchanter I've ever known."
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Dangerous Miracle

Liam Shaw

Random House , 2025 • 236 pages

'Brilliant' TIM SPECTOR 'Excellent' HENRY MARSH 'Thrilling' VENKI RAMAKRISHNAN Antibiotics: one of humanity’s greatest achievements – but invented by microbes An epic narrative of discovery and innovation – but also of extraction and exploitation This is the spellbinding story of how we have burned through the fossil fuels of medicine

Since their advent, antibiotics have saved millions of lives, marking one of the greatest medical advances in our history Dangerous Miracle weaves together the grand arc of the evolution of antibiotics over millions of years with a history of the past century: first as we mined the earth for naturally occurring antibiotic molecules, then as we learned to synthesise our own But like fossil fuels, antibiotics are a finite resource which we’ve regarded as a cheap, everlasting fuel

They are unlike other drugs: every time we use them we increase the possibility of antibiotic resistance emerging, risking their future effectiveness If we want antibiotics to have a future, we need to prepare to adapt And fast Rich with pioneering characters, great breakthroughs and grave risks, Dangerous Miracle is a grand drama of science, history and politics

It is a revelatory account of the miraculous history and uncertain future of antibiotics. ‘An enjoyable, compelling and absolutely essential read’ KATE BINGHAM ‘Eye-opening and thrilling .. Both an important history and a vital call to arms to change the way new drugs are discovered’ MATTHEW COBB
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The Highest Exam

Ruixue Jia, Hongbin Li, Claire Cousineau

Harvard University Press , 2025 • 253 pages

The Highest Exam provides a detailed, research-driven survey of the gaokao, China's high-stakes college entrance exam Ruixue Jia and Hongbin Li--past test-takers themselves--show how the exam system shapes schooling, serves state interests, inspires individualistic attitudes, and has lately become a touchstone in US education debates.

Eli Hurvitz and the Creation of Teva Pharmaceuticals

Yossi Goldstein

2018 • 401 pages

Eli Hurvitz (April 1932-November 2011) has become a legend in Israel and beyond His accomplishments in the business world from the 1980s onward earned him a prominent place in the Israeli public consciousness Considered a pillar of Israeli industry, he was the financial and business genius who transformed Teva into one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and launched Israeli industry into the international arena

Under Eli's deft management, Teva doubled its sales every four years and by 2011, the company was worth $54 billion, making it the most successful company in Israel.In addition to his standing as a respected business leader in Israel and around the world, Eli was a well-known Israeli public figure He received more awards and prizes than any other industrialist in the country's history Israeli prime minister's eager to expand the "miracle of Teva" to the entire Israeli economy asked him to serve as finance minister more than once and the heads of the country's major political parties courted him.

Community and Consensus in Islam

Farzana Shaikh

Cambridge University Press , 1989 • 272 pages

Community and Consensus in Islam, first published in 1989, represented a bold attempt to introduce the role of ideas in the interpretation of Indo-Muslim politics between 1860 and the Partition of India in 1947 It questioned the widely held view at the time that Indian Muslim politics of the period could be explained by reference to pragmatic interests alone Instead, Farzana Shaikh argued that the influence of ideas rooted in Islamic tradition must form a crucial dimension of any wellgrounded explanation of the determinants of Indo-Muslim political practice

In this masterful study the configurations of colonial politics in India are set against the backdrop of tensions between two contrasting intellectual traditions - the Islamic and the liberal-democratic - to show how their different assumptions about the proper ends of political action sharpened the opposition between diverse constitutional positions that led to Partition Today it stands as a vital contribution to the debate about this momentous event.
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Jinnah

Ishtiaq Ahmed

Penguin Random House India Private Limited , 2020 • 849 pages

Mohammad Ali Jinnah has been both celebrated and reviled for his role in the Partition of India, and the controversies surrounding his actions have only increased in the seven decades and more since his death Ishtiaq Ahmed places Jinnah's actions under intense scrutiny to ascertain the Quaid-i-Azam's successes and failures and the meaning and significance of his legacy

Using a wealth of contemporary records and archival material, Dr Ahmed traces Jinnah's journey from Indian nationalist to Muslim communitarian, and from a Muslim nationalist to, finally, Pakistan's all-powerful head of state How did the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity become the inflexible votary of the two-nation theory Did Jinnah envision Pakistan as a theocratic state

What was his position on Gandhi and federalism Asking these crucial questions against the backdrop of the turbulent struggle against colonialism, this book is a path-breaking examination of one of the most controversial figures of the twentieth century.
The Punjab : Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed : Unravelling the 1947 Tragedy Through Secret British Reports and First-person Accounts cover

The Punjab : Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed : Unravelling the 1947 Tragedy Through Secret British Reports and First-person Accounts

Ishtiaq Ahmed

2024

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The Great Depression

Pierre Berton

Anchor Canada , 2012 • 562 pages

Over 1.5 million Canadians were on relief, one in five was a public dependant, and 70,000 young men travelled like hoboes Ordinary citizens were rioting in the streets, but their demonstrations met with indifference, and dissidents were jailed Canada emerged from the Great Depression a different nation

The most searing decade in Canada's history began with the stock market crash of 1929 and ended with the Second World War With formidable story-telling powers, Berton reconstructs its engrossing events vividly: the Regina Riot, the Great Birth Control Trial, the black blizzards of the dust bowl and the rise of Social Credit The extraordinary cast of characters includes Prime Minister Mackenzie King, who praised Hitler and Mussolini but thought Winston Churchill "one of the most dangerous men I have ever known"; Maurice Duplessis, who padlocked the homes of private citizens for their political opinions; and Tim Buck, the Communist leader who narrowly escaped murder in Kingston Penitentiary

In this #1 best-selling book, Berton proves that Canada's political leaders failed to take the bold steps necessary to deal with the mass unemployment, drought and despair A child of the era, he writes passionately of people starving in the midst of plenty.
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These Divided Isles

Philip Stephens

Simon and Schuster , 2025 • 229 pages

Evoking the tumultuous history of the relationship between Britain and Ireland, These Divided Isles investigates the complexities of culture and colonization to ask what the future holds for both countries Ireland is Britain's closest neighbor—the sea crossing from Scotland measures only twelve miles Ireland was also its first conquered territory in what became Britain's empire

The two nation's stories have been intertwined since Anglo-Norman invaders crossed the Irish Sea during the twelfth century These Divided Isles tells the extraordinary history of the past century in this tumultuous relationship, from the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1922 to the present day This is a tale of deep division between Catholic nationalism and Protestant unionism, of wars and terrorist violence, and of occasional moments of great courage on the part of British and Irish leaders

Today, the post-Brexit weakening of the UK's constitutional ties has coincided with the march of demography in Northern Ireland as the Protestant unionist majority continues to shrink Sinn Féin's historic string of electoral victories in Northern Ireland since 2022 has once more resurfaced the unfinished business of partition Here, Philip Stephens explores how Ireland might escape its troubled past by deploying history to inform the future rather than hold it in place.
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Power Without Knowledge

Jeffrey Friedman

2019 • 409 pages

Do leading social-scientific experts, or technocrats, know what they are doing In Power without Knowledge, Jeffrey Friedman maintains that they do not Friedman shows that people are too heterogeneous to act as predictably as technocracy requires of them Technocratic reason, then, entails a drastically oversimplified understanding of human decision making in modern society.
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The Great Divergence

Kenneth Pomeranz

Princeton University Press , 2021 • 404 pages

A landmark comparative history of Europe and China that examines why the Industrial Revolution emerged in the West The Great Divergence sheds light on one of the great questions of history: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe Historian Kenneth Pomeranz shows that as recently as 1750, life expectancy, consumption, and product and factor markets were comparable in Europe and East Asia

Moreover, key regions in China and Japan were no worse off ecologically than those in Western Europe, with each region facing corresponding shortages of land-intensive products Pomeranz’s comparative lens reveals the two critical factors resulting in Europe's nineteenth-century divergence—the fortunate location of coal and access to trade with the New World As East Asia’s economy stagnated, Europe narrowly escaped the same fate largely due to favorable resource stocks from underground and overseas This Princeton Classics edition includes a preface from the author and makes a powerful historical work available to new readers.
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The Manchu Way

Mark C. Elliott

Stanford University Press , 2001 • 612 pages

In 1644, the Manchus, a relatively unknown people inhabiting China's northeastern frontier, overthrew the Ming, Asia's mightiest rulers, and established the Qing dynasty, This book supplies a radically new perspective on the formative period of the modern Chinese nation.
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The Story of China

Michael Wood

Macmillan + ORM , 2020 • 375 pages

A single volume history of China, offering a look into the past of the global superpower and its significance today Michael Wood has travelled the length and breadth of China, the world's oldest civilization and longest lasting state, to tell a thrilling story of intense drama, fabulous creativity, and deep humanity that stretches back thousands of years

After a century and a half of foreign invasion, civil war, and revolution, China has once again returned to center stage as a global superpower and the world's second largest economy But how did it become so dominant Wood argues that in order to comprehend the great significance of China today, we must begin with its history

The Story of China takes a fresh look at the Middle Kingdom in the light of the recent massive changes inside the country Taking into account exciting new archeological discoveries, the book begins with China's prehistory—the early dynasties, the origins of the Chinese state, and the roots of Chinese culture in the age of Confucius Wood looks at particular periods and themes that are now being reevaluated by historians, such as the renaissance of the Song with its brilliant scientific discoveries

He paints a vibrant picture of the Qing Empire in the 18th century, just before the European impact, a time when China's rich and diverse culture was at its height Then, Wood explores the encounter with the West, the Opium Wars, the clashes with the British, and the extraordinarily rich debates in the late 19th century that pushed China along the path to modernity Finally, he provides a clear up-to-date account of post-1949 China, including revelations about the 1989 crisis based on newly leaked inside documents, and fresh insights into the new order of President Xi Jinping All woven together with landscape history and the author's own travel journals, The Story of China is the indispensable book about the most intriguing and powerful country on the world stage today.
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Y2K

Colette Shade

HarperCollins , 2025 • 282 pages

“Nothing I’ve read has cut to the heart of the ’00s like Y2K.” — Bustle Perfect for fans of Jia Tolentino and Chuck Klosterman, Y2K is a delightfully nostalgic and bitingly told exploration about how the early 2000s forever changed us and the world we live in THE EARLY 2000s conjures images of inflatable furniture, flip phones, and low-rise jeans It was a new millennium and the future looked bright, promising prosperity for all

The internet had arrived, and technology was shiny and fun For many, it felt like the end of history: no more wars, racism, or sexism But then history kept happening Twenty-five years after the ball dropped on December 31st, 1999, we are still living in the shadows of the Y2K Era

In Y2K, one of our most brilliant young critics Colette Shade offers a darkly funny meditation on everything from the pop culture to the political economy of the period By close reading Y2K artifacts like the Hummer H2, Smash Mouth’s “All Star,” body glitter, AOL chatrooms, Total Request Live, and early internet porn, Shade produces an affectionate yet searing critique of a decade that started with a boom and ended with a crash In one essay Colette unpacks how hearing Ludacris’s hit song “What’s Your Fantasy” shaped a generation’s sexual awakening; in another she interrogates how her eating disorder developed as rail-thin models from the collapsed USSR flooded the pages of Vogue; in another she reveals how the McMansion became an ominous symbol of the housing collapse Perfect for fans of Jia Tolentino and Chuck Klosterman, Y2K is the first book to fully reckon with the mixed legacy of the Y2K Era—a perfectly timed collection that holds a startling mirror to our past, present, and future.
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The Visible Hand

Alfred DuPont Chandler Jr.

Harvard University Press , 1993 • 628 pages

The role of large-scale business enterprise—big business and its managers—during the formative years of modern capitalism (1850s–1920s) is delineated in this pathmarking book Alfred Chandler, Jr., sets forth the reasons for the dominance of big business in American transportation, communications, and central sectors of production and distribution.
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Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote

Ahmadou Kourouma

William Heinemann , 2003 • 470 pages

The story of Koyaga, dictator and president of the Gulf Coast, an imaginary former French African colony, is told by Bingo, his sora, part storyteller, part court fool Bingo tells of Koyaga's father, born in an obscure and backward mountain tribe, which he leaves for success as a wrestler, and heroic exploits on the Somme as a French fusilier only to die of hunger in a French colonial prison; and of Koyaga himself, a French solider in Vietnam and Algeria, and then the leader of a coup that overthrows a shortlived post colonial democracy Koyaga is part an archetypal third world dictator, part hero of a folktale his story is told in a prose of haunting simplicity, in a novel that by turns brings to mind Gabriel Marquez and Giles Foden.
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The Land Trap

Mike Bird

Penguin Group , 2025 • 337 pages

How the world’s oldest asset secretly shapes our modern economy In The Land Trap, Mike Bird—Wall Street editor at The Economist—reveals how this ancient asset still exerts outsize influence over the modern world From the speculative land grabs of colonial America to China's real estate crisis today, Bird shows how fortunes are built—and destroyed—on the bedrock of land Tracing three centuries of history, Bird explores how land quietly became the linchpin of the global banking system, driving everything from soaring housing prices to rising geopolitical tensisons

As governments wrestle with inequality and land grows ever scarcer, The Land Trap offers a powerful new framework for understanding the hidden force behind today's most urgent challenges This is the book for anyone who wants to see beyond markets and money to the real game being played on a foundation as old as civilization itself Timely, provocative, and essential, The Land Trap will change how you see the ground beneath your feet.
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A Sea of Wealth

Dr. Nicholas Paul Roberts

Univ of California Press , 2025 • 290 pages

A Sea of Wealth is a sweeping retelling of the Omani position in the Indian Ocean Here the reign of Oman’s longest-serving ruler, Saʿid bin Sultan, offers a keyhole through which we can peer to see the entangled histories of Arabia and the Gulf, South Asia, and East Africa in the Omani Empire In centering this empire, Nicholas P

Roberts shows how Arabs, Africans, and Asians actively shaped the conditions of commercial engagement in the Western Indian Ocean, uniting the empire’s domains into a single oceanic marketplace in which Europeans and Americans had to accede if they wished to succeed Drawing upon sources in three languages from four continents, A Sea of Wealth is a vivid narrative full of colorful characters that upturns many conventional understandings of our modern world.
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Emergency Chronicles

Gyan Prakash

Princeton University Press , 2021 • 452 pages

The gripping story of an explosive turning point in the history of modern India On the night of June 25, 1975, Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India, suspending constitutional rights and rounding up her political opponents in midnight raids across the country In the twenty-one harrowing months that followed, her regime unleashed a brutal campaign of coercion and intimidation, arresting and torturing people by the tens of thousands, razing slums, and imposing compulsory sterilization on the poor

Emergency Chronicles provides the first comprehensive account of this understudied episode in India’s modern history Gyan Prakash strips away the comfortable myth that the Emergency was an isolated event brought on solely by Gandhi’s desire to cling to power, arguing that it was as much the product of Indian democracy’s troubled relationship with popular politics

Drawing on archival records, private papers and letters, published sources, film and literary materials, and interviews with victims and perpetrators, Prakash traces the Emergency’s origins to the moment of India’s independence in 1947, revealing how the unfulfilled promise of democratic transformation upset the fine balance between state power and civil rights He vividly depicts the unfolding of a political crisis that culminated in widespread popular unrest, which Gandhi sought to crush by paradoxically using the law to suspend lawful rights

Her failure to preserve the existing political order had lasting and unforeseen repercussions, opening the door for caste politics and Hindu nationalism Placing the Emergency within the broader global history of democracy, this gripping book offers invaluable lessons for us today as the world once again confronts the dangers of rising authoritarianism and populist nationalism.
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China's Church Divided

Paul P. Mariani

Harvard University Press , 2025 • 347 pages

Paul P Mariani charts China’s fraught Catholic revival after the Cultural Revolution, as Catholics loyal to Rome clashed with a state-sanctioned church Focusing on Shanghai, where the state-appointed Bishop Louis Jin Luxian found himself at odds with underground church leaders, Mariani details a community perilously divided.
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It Will Be Fun and Terrifying

Fabrizio Fenghi

University of Wisconsin Press , 2021 • 312 pages

The National Bolshevik Party, founded in the mid-1990s by Eduard Limonov and Aleksandr Dugin, began as an attempt to combine radically different ideologies In the years that followed, Limonov, Dugin, and the movements they led underwent dramatic shifts The two leaders eventually became political adversaries, with Dugin and his organizations strongly supporting Putin’s regime while Limonov and his groups became part of the liberal opposition

To illuminate the role of these right-wing ideas in contemporary Russian society, Fabrizio Fenghi examines the public pronouncements and aesthetics of this influential movement He analyzes a diverse range of media, including novels, art exhibitions, performances, seminars, punk rock concerts, and even protest actions His interviews with key figures reveal an attempt to create an alternative intellectual class, or a “counter-intelligensia.” This volume shows how certain forms of art can transform into political action through the creation of new languages, institutions, and modes of collective participation.
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The Indian Ideology

Perry Anderson

Verso Books , 2013 • 209 pages

The historiography of modern India is largely a pageant of presumed virtues: harmonious territorial unity, religious impartiality, the miraculous survival of electoral norms in the world’s most populous democracy Even critics of Indian society still underwrite such claims But how well does the “Idea of India” correspond to the realities of the Union

In an iconoclastic intervention, Marxist historian Perry Anderson provides an unforgettable reading of the Subcontinent’s passage through Independence and the catastrophe of Partition, the idiosyncratic and corrosive vanities of Gandhi and Nehru, and the close interrelationship of Indian democracy and caste inequality The Indian Ideology caused uproar on first publication in 2012, not least for breaking with euphemisms for Delhi’s occupation of Kashmir This new, expanded edition includes the author’s reply to his critics, an interview with the Indian weekly Outlook, and a postscript on India under the rule of Narendra Modi.
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Making Sense of China's Economy

Tao Wang

Taylor & Francis , 2023 • 339 pages

For years, China’s transformation from one of the world’s poorest nations was lauded as a triumph that lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty There were always questions about data reliability and growth sustainability, but the general views on China have recently taken a decidedly sour turn Concerns abound about state interference in the economy, an ageing population, and high debt level

Making Sense of China's Economy untangles China’s complex economic structure, evolving issues and curious contradictions, and explains some key features of this most puzzling of global economic powerhouses This book reveals how factors such as demographics, the initial stage of development in 1978, the transition away from full state ownership and central planning, the dual urban-rural society, and a decentralised governance structure have combined to shape the economy, its development and its reforms

It shows how the pragmatic and adaptive nature of China’s policymaking upends familiar perspectives and hinders simple cross-country comparisons The book also explores crucial topics including the property market, debt accumulation and environmental challenges In this book, Tao Wang innovatively weaves the multiple strands of China’s economy into a holistic and organic tapestry that gives us unique insights from both a Chinese and an international perspective This book is critical reading for business leaders, investors, policymakers, students, and anyone else hoping to understand China’s economy and its future evolution and impact, written by a specialist who has studied the country from both inside and out.
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The Origins of Efficiency

Brian Potter

Stripe Press , 2025 • 479 pages

An examination of how production processes—from penicillin to steel to semiconductors—get more efficient over time, and a powerful argument for efficiency as an underrated driver of progress Efficiency is the engine that powers human civilization It’s the reason rates of famine have fallen precipitously, literacy has risen, and humans are living longer, healthier lives compared to preindustrial times

But where do improvements in production efficiency come from In The Origins of Efficiency, Brian Potter argues that improving production efficiency—finding ways to produce goods and services in less time, with less labor, using fewer resources—is the force behind some of the biggest and most consequential changes in human history With unprecedented depth and detail, Potter examines the fundamental characteristics of a production process and how it can be made less time- and resource-intensive, and therefore less expensive

The book is punctuated with examples of production efficiency in practice, including how high-yield manufacturing methods made penicillin the “miracle drug” that reduced battlefield infection deaths by 80 percent during World War II; the 100-year history of process improvements in incandescent light bulb production; and how automakers like Ford, Toyota, and Tesla developed innovative production methods that transformed not just the automotive industry but manufacturing as a whole He concludes by looking at sectors where production costs haven’t fallen, and explores how we might harness the mechanisms of production efficiency to change that The Origins of Efficiency is a comprehensive companion for anyone seeking to understand how we arrived at this age of relative abundance—and how we can push efficiency improvements further into domains like housing, medicine, and education, where much work is left to be done.

GETTING A JOB IN OLD KINGDOM EGYPT

Michelle Middleman

2025

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Stilwell and the American Experience in China

Barbara W. Tuchman

Random House , 2017 • 770 pages

Barbara W Tuchman won her second Pulitzer Prize for this nonfiction masterpiece—an authoritative work of history that recounts the birth of modern China through the eyes of one extraordinary American General Joseph W Stilwell was a man who loved China deeply and knew its people as few Americans ever have

Barbara W Tuchman’s groundbreaking narrative follows Stilwell from the time he arrived in China during the Revolution of 1911, through his tours of duty in Peking and Tientsin in the 1920s and ’30s, to his return as theater commander in World War II, when the Nationalist government faced attack from both Japanese invaders and Communist insurgents Peopled by warlords, ambassadors, and missionaries, this classic biography of the cantankerous but level-headed “Vinegar Joe” sparkles with Tuchman’s genius for animating the people who shaped history Praise for Stilwell and the American Experience in China “Tuchman’s best book . . . so large in scope, so crammed with information, so clear in exposition, so assured in tone that one is tempted to say it is not a book but an education.”—The New Yorker “The most interesting and informative book on U.S.–China relations . . . a brilliant, lucid and authentic account.”—The Nation “A fantastic and complex story finely told.”—The New York Times Book Review
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The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel

Douglas Brunt

Simon and Schuster , 2024 • 384 pages

"The hidden history of one of the world's greatest inventors, a man who disrupted the status quo and then disappeared into thin air on the eve of World War I--this book answers the hundred-year-old mystery of what really became of Rudolf Diesel September 29, 1913: the steamship Dresden is halfway between Belgium and England On board is one of the most famous men in the world, Rudolf Diesel, whose new internal combustion engine is on the verge of revolutionizing global industry forever

But Diesel never arrives at his destination He vanishes during the night and headlines around the world wonder if it was an accident, suicide, or murder

After rising from an impoverished European childhood, Diesel had become a multi-millionaire with his powerful engine that does not require expensive petroleum-based fuel In doing so, he became not only an international celebrity but also the enemy of two extremely powerful men: Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and John D Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil and the richest man in the world

The Kaiser wanted the engine to power a fleet of submarines that would finally allow him to challenge Great Britain's Royal Navy But Diesel had intended for his engine to be used for the betterment of mankind and kept the technology out of the hands of the British or any other nation For John D Rockefeller, the engine was nothing less than an existential threat to his vast and lucrative oil empire

As electric lighting began to replace kerosene lamps, Rockefeller's bottom line depended on the world's growing thirst for gasoline to power its automobiles and industries At the outset of this new age of electricity and oil, Europe stood on the precipice of war Rudolf Diesel grew increasingly concerned about Germany's rising nationalism and military spending

The inventor was on his way to London to establish a new company that would help Britain improve its failing submarine program when he disappeared Now, New York Times bestselling author Douglas Brunt reopens the case and provides an astonishing new conclusion about Diesel's fate" --

The May Fourth Movement

Tse-Tsung Chow

1960 • 486 pages

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The New Nobility

Andrei Soldatov, Irina Borogan

PublicAffairs , 2010 • 322 pages

In The New Nobility, two courageous Russian investigative journalists open up the closed and murky world of the Russian Federal Security Service While Vladimir Putin has been president and prime minister of Russia, the Kremlin has deployed the security services to intimidate the political opposition, reassert the power of the state, and carry out assassinations overseas At the same time, its agents and spies were put beyond public accountability and blessed with the prestige, benefits, and legitimacy lost since the Soviet collapse

The security services have played a central -- and often mysterious -- role at key turning points in Russia during these tumultuous years: from the Moscow apartment house bombings and theater siege, to the war in Chechnya and the Beslan massacre The security services are not all-powerful; they have made clumsy and sometimes catastrophic blunders But what is clear is that after the chaotic 1990s, when they were sidelined, they have made a remarkable return to power, abetted by their most famous alumnus, Putin.
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Punters

Aaron Rogan

2022 • 416 pages

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Losing Big

Jonathan D Cohen

2025

Description: In 2018, a U.S Supreme Court ruling permitted states to legalize sports gambling To date, 38 have done so The nation is already facing a sports gambling crisis, one that will worsen in the coming years

A central argument of Losing Big is that this burgeoning crisis is a product of public policy and could have been avoided if states had taken a more deliberate, careful approach to gambling legalization Roughly one in five American adults has placed a bet on a sporting event in the last 12 months For some, gambling remains a harmless pastime, but for many, particularly for young adults, it can be ruinous

Three percent of American adults qualify as moderate-risk or problem gamblers and in some states that number has reached twenty percent Rates of problem gambling are disproportionately high among men, African Americans, Latinos, and lower-income individuals One fifth of Americans aged 18-24 qualify as high risk for a gambling problem.
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The Bloomsbury Handbook of Global Typography

Paul Luna, Fiona Ross, Aaris Sherin, Sue Walker, Vaibhav Singh

Bloomsbury Visual Arts , 2026

This new handbook takes the broadest possible view of typography, defining it as 'design for reading' It considers all kinds of reading matter and visual communication systems; digital, environmental, printed, and produced by hand By offering a rich collection of texts that are genuinely international in authorship and in scope, it seeks to rebalance the Western bias of so many books on the subject

It gives space to new voices and emerging standpoints about the global nature of design, the needs of particular communities of readers, and about the need for inclusivity and historical understanding in design practice and research Thirty-seven chapters by forty-three contributors show the interdisciplinary range of research in typography today, exemplifying the relationship between history, theory, and practice that is at the heart of the discipline

They feature over 500 illustrations, mostly in colour, and full bibliographic references Topics include: Typography and sociolinguistics Frameworks for considering scripts and multilingual documents Historical and contemporary Arabic-script typographic practice Designing fonts for marginalized communities in Asia, Africa, and North America The earliest movable type in China in the tenth century Understanding Japanese and Korean typography Approaches to legibility Western influence on the typography of indigenous writing systems Political and technological factors that shape typography Experimental and commercial publishing contexts The type design industry today Typography in the environment
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Erdogan's Empire

Soner Cagaptay

Bloomsbury Publishing , 2019 • 274 pages

Gradually since 2003, Turkey's autocratic leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought to make Turkey a great power -- in the tradition of past Turkish leaders from the late Ottoman sultans to Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey Here the leading authority Soner Cagaptay, author of The New Sultan -- the first biography of President Erdogan -- provides a masterful overview of the power politics in the Middle East and Turkey's place in it Erdogan has picked an unorthodox model in the context of recent Turkish history, attempting to cast his country as a stand-alone Middle Eastern power

In doing so Turkey has broken ranks with its traditional Western allies, including the United States and has embraced an imperial-style foreign policy which has aimed to restore Turkey's Ottoman-era reach into the Arabian Middle East and the Balkans Today, in addition to a domestic crackdown on dissent and journalistic freedoms, driven by Erdogan's style of governance, Turkey faces a hostile world Ankara has nearly no friends left in the Middle East, and it faces a threat from resurgent historic adversaries: Russia and Iran

Furthermore, Turkey cannot rely on the unconditional support of its traditional Western allies Can Erdogan deliver Turkey back to safety What are the risks that lie ahead for him, and his country How can Turkey truly become a great power, fulfilling a dream shared by many Turks, the sultans, Ataturk, and Erdogan himself?
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The World Turned Upside Down

Yang Jisheng

Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2021 • 768 pages

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.
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The Party's Interests Come First

Joseph Torigian

Stanford University Press , 2025 • 556 pages

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.
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Native Nations

Kathleen DuVal

Random House , 2025 • 753 pages

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
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From Click to Boom

Lizhi Liu

Princeton University Press , 2024 • 328 pages

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.
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Fordlandia

Greg Grandin

Metropolitan Books , 2010 • 432 pages

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.
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The Sounds of Mandarin

Janet Y. Chen

Columbia University Press , 2023 • 262 pages

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.
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Chinese Characters Across Asia

Professor of Asian Languages and Literatures Zev J Handel

2025

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.
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War and Wheat

Dennis Voznesenski

2024

The turmoil of global commodities markets amidst conflict.
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Global Trade in the Premodern World

Richard Lee Smith, Edmond Smith

Routledge , 2025

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.
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In a Bad State

David Schleicher

Oxford University Press , 2023 • 249 pages

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.
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The Power of Systems

Eglė Rindzevičiūtė

Cornell University Press , 2016 • 307 pages

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.
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Industrial Islamism

Utku Baris Balaban

Univ of California Press , 2025 • 334 pages

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.
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Breakneck

Dan Wang

W. W. Norton , 2025

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

Yi-Chong Xu

Oxford University Press , 2017 • 361 pages

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
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Framing the Early Middle Ages

Chris Wickham

OUP Oxford , 2006 • 1125 pages

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.
Framing the Early Middle Ages cover

Framing the Early Middle Ages

Chris Wickham

OUP Oxford , 2006 • 1125 pages

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.
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Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways

Cyril Lionel Robert James

UPNE , 2001 • 220 pages

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

Nicola Twilley

Penguin , 2024 • 401 pages

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.
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Piranesi

Susanna Clarke

Bloomsbury Publishing , 2020 • 273 pages

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**
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Home Fires

Sean P. Adams

JHU Press , 2014 • 196 pages

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

Lars Mytting

Abrams , 2015 • 282 pages

“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
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Nazis in the Woodpile

Egon Glesinger

1942 • 274 pages

Nazi Germany's quest for raw materials.
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We Are Eating the Earth

Michael Grunwald

Simon and Schuster , 2025 • 384 pages

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.
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Chokepoints

Edward Fishman

Penguin Group , 2025 • 561 pages

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.
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Zone

Mathias Enard

2014 • 528 pages

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.
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America Last: The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators

Jacob Heilbrunn

Liveright Publishing , 2024 • 252 pages

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.
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The Basque History Of The World

Mark Kurlansky

Random House , 2011 • 402 pages

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.
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The Making of New World Slavery

Robin Blackburn

Verso Books , 2020 • 614 pages

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.
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The Domestic Revolution

Ruth Goodman

Michael O'Mara Books , 2020 • 389 pages

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.
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The Politics of Common Reading

Joan Judge

2025

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.
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The Great Displacement

Jake Bittle

Simon and Schuster , 2023 • 368 pages

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"--
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The Tropical Turn

Sureshkumar Muthukumaran

Univ of California Press , 2023 • 315 pages

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.
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The Political Economy of Science, Technology, and Innovation in China

Yutao Sun, Cong Cao

Cambridge University Press , 2023 • 263 pages

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

Silvia M. Lindtner

Princeton University Press , 2020 • 302 pages

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
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Innovate to Dominate

Tai Ming Cheung

Cornell University Press , 2022 • 415 pages

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?
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Localized Bargaining

Xiao Ma

Oxford University Press , 2022 • 249 pages

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.
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How China Escaped the Poverty Trap

Yuen Yuen Ang

Cornell University Press , 2016 • 345 pages

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.
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How Reform Worked in China

Yingyi Qian

MIT Press , 2017 • 414 pages

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.
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The Red Dream

Carl E. Walter

John Wiley & Sons , 2022 • 292 pages

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.
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The Handbook of China's Financial System

Marlene Amstad, Guofeng Sun, Wei Xiong

Princeton University Press , 2020 • 504 pages

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.
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Governance and Politics of China

Tony Saich

Bloomsbury Publishing , 2024 • 425 pages

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.
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Empire of the Elite

Michael M. Grynbaum

Simon and Schuster , 2025 • 368 pages

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.
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Merchants of Debt

George Anders

Beard Books , 2002 • 370 pages

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

Jefferson Cowie

The New Press , 2001 • 290 pages

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.
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Empire of AI

Karen Hao

Penguin Group , 2025 • 497 pages

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.
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Fortress Power

Derek S. Denman

U of Minnesota Press , 2025 • 190 pages

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.
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Classical Chinese for Everyone

Bryan W. Van Norden

Hackett Publishing , 2019 • 163 pages

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
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Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings

Zhuangzi

Hackett Publishing , 2020 • 338 pages

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.
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The Wager

David Grann

Random House , 2025 • 449 pages

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.
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7 Seconds to Die

John F. Antal

Casemate , 2022 • 197 pages

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.
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Spin

Robert Charles Wilson

Tor Books , 2010 • 468 pages

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.
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The Reverse of the Medal

Patrick O'Brian

W. W. Norton & Company , 1994 • 296 pages

An overwhelming, outstanding novel...!"--Irish Times
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Islamic Shangri-La

David G. Atwill

Univ of California Press , 2018 • 258 pages

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.
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Forbidden Memory

Tsering Woeser

U of Nebraska Press , 2020 • 450 pages

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.
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Conflicting Memories

Unknown Author

BRILL , 2020 • 711 pages

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...
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To the End of Revolution

Xiaoyuan Liu

Columbia University Press , 2020 • 718 pages

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.
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Common Ground

Lan Wu

Columbia University Press , 2022 • 155 pages

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.
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The Monastery Rules

Berthe Jansen

Univ of California Press , 2018 • 298 pages

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.
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The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier

Benno Weiner

Cornell University Press , 2020 • 430 pages

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.
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Murderland

Caroline Fraser

Penguin Group , 2025 • 497 pages

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.
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Atonement

Ian McEwan

Vintage Canada , 2009 • 416 pages

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.
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Forging the Golden Urn

Max Oidtmann

Columbia University Press , 2018 • 215 pages

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.
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Freedom's Laboratory

Audra J. Wolfe

Johns Hopkins University Press , 2020 • 313 pages

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.
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Black Holes and Time Warps

Kip S Thorne

W. W. Norton & Company , 1994 • 648 pages

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.
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The Origins of the Chinese Nation

Nicolas Tackett

Cambridge University Press , 2017 • 349 pages

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

Bill Hayton

2022 • 320 pages

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
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Pen of Iron

Robert Alter

Princeton University Press , 2010 • 209 pages

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.
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Little Bosses Everywhere

Bridget Read

Random House , 2025 • 369 pages

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.
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Estimative Intelligence in European Foreign Policymaking

Christoph Meyer, Eva Michaels, Nikki Ikani, Aviva Guttmann, Michael S Goodman

2024

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
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Shattered Lands

Sam Dalrymple

Harper Collins , 2025 • 437 pages

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.
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Stealth Democracy

John R. Hibbing, Elizabeth Theiss-Morse

Cambridge University Press , 2002 • 308 pages

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.
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Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

John W. Dower

W. W. Norton & Company , 2000 • 692 pages

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.
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On the Line

Daisy Pitkin

Algonquin Books , 2022 • 318 pages

“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.
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Capitalist Diversity on Europe's Periphery

Dorothee Bohle, Bela Greskovits

Cornell University Press , 2012 • 305 pages

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.
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Economics of Institutional Change

Elodie Douarin, Tomasz Mickiewicz

Springer , 2017 • 333 pages

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.
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How Sanctions Work

Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, Ali Vaez

Stanford University Press , 2024 • 256 pages

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.
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From Foot Soldier to Finance Minister

Richard J. Smethurst

Harvard University Press , 2007 • 424 pages

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.
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Waste Wars

Alexander Clapp

Little, Brown , 2025 • 354 pages

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?
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Apple in China

Patrick McGee

Simon and Schuster , 2025 • 308 pages

‘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.
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How Not to Network a Nation

Benjamin Peters

MIT Press , 2016 • 313 pages

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.
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Molecular Red

McKenzie Wark

Verso Books , 2015 • 360 pages

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.
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Euromissiles

Susan Colbourn

2022 • 384 pages

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"--
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Broken Republik

Chris Reiter, Will Wilkes

Bloomsbury Publishing , 2025 • 353 pages

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.
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Stupid TV, Be More Funny

Alan Siegel

Twelve , 2025 • 268 pages

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.
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Desert Edens

Philipp Lehmann

Princeton University Press , 2024 • 256 pages

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.
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Distant Shores

Melissa Macauley

Princeton University Press , 2021 • 374 pages

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.
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The Price of Collapse

Timothy Brook

Princeton University Press , 2023 • 256 pages

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.
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Forging Global Fordism

Stefan J. Link

Princeton University Press , 2020 • 328 pages

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"--
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The Lives of Lichens

Robert Lücking, Toby Spribille

Princeton University Press , 2024 • 288 pages

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
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Intraterrestrials

Karen G. Lloyd

Princeton University Press , 2025 • 240 pages

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.
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The Book of Records

Madeleine Thien

Random House , 2025 • 369 pages

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.
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Atavists: Stories

Lydia Millet

W. W. Norton & Company , 2025 • 228 pages

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.
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Gods, Guns and Missionaries

Manu S Pillai

Penguin Random House India Private Limited , 2024 • 599 pages

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.
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Mellon vs. Churchill

Jill Eicher

Simon and Schuster , 2025 • 263 pages

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.
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The Sound of Utopia

Michel Krielaars

Pushkin Press , 2025 • 349 pages

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.
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Accidental Tyrant

Fyodor Tertitskiy

Oxford University Press , 2025 • 418 pages

A masterful new biography of North Korea's despotic founding father and his enduring impact on his country today.
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An Engine, Not a Camera

Donald MacKenzie

MIT Press , 2008 • 782 pages

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.
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Hellhound On His Trail

Hampton Sides

Vintage , 2010 • 482 pages

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
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The German Military Enterpriser and His Work Force

Fritz Redlich

1964 • 898 pages

no.39: Redlich, Fritz De praeda militari Looting and booty, 1500-1815. (1956)
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The Routledge Handbook of Maritime Trade Around Europe 1300-1600

Professor of History Wim Blockmans, Justyna Wubs-mrozewicz, Mikhail Krom

Routledge , 2019 • 502 pages

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.
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Shadow Cold War

Jeremy Friedman

UNC Press Books , 2015 • 304 pages

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.
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The Box

Marc Levinson

Princeton University Press , 2016 • 540 pages

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.
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Bad Company

Megan Greenwell

HarperCollins , 2025 • 368 pages

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.
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Marking Native Borders

Lucas P. Kelley

University of Oklahoma Press , 2025 • 227 pages

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.
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And the Wolf Finally Came

John Hoerr

University of Pittsburgh Press , 2014 • 737 pages

• 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.
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Moby Dick

Herman Melville

1892 • 576 pages

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.
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Nana

Émile Zola

Oxford University Press , 2020 • 491 pages

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.
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Germinal

Émile Zola

Penguin UK , 2004 • 825 pages

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.
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Apocalypse

Lizzie Wade

HarperCollins , 2025 • 377 pages

"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.
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Connectedness and Contagion

Hal S. Scott

MIT Press , 2022 • 439 pages

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.
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India

John Keay

Open Road + Grove/Atlantic , 2011 • 1072 pages

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
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This Time Is Different

Carmen M. Reinhart, Kenneth S. Rogoff

Princeton University Press , 2011 • 513 pages

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

Marie Favereau

Harvard University Press , 2021 • 385 pages

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.
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The Panic of 1907

Robert F. Bruner, Sean D. Carr

John Wiley & Sons , 2009 • 296 pages

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
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Computing Legacies

Peter Krapp

MIT Press , 2024 • 229 pages

A media history of simulation that contextualizes our digital heritage and the history of computing In Computing Legacies, Peter Krapp explores a media history of simulation to excavate three salient aspects of digital culture Firstly, he profiles simulation as cultural technique, enabling symbolic work and foregrounding hypothetical literacy

Secondly, he positions simulation as crucial for the preservation of cultural memory, where modeling, emulation, and serious play are constitutive in how we relate to our mediated history And lastly, despite suggestions that we may already live in a simulation, he interrogates how simulation can serve as critique of the computer age In tracing our digital heritage, Computing Legacies elucidates inflection points where quantitative data becomes tractable for qualitative evaluations: modeling epidemics for scientific study or entertainment, emulating older devices, turning numerical calculations into music, conducting espionage in virtual worlds, and gamifying higher education Simulation, this book demonstrates, is pivotal not only to high-tech research and to archives, museums, and the preservation of digital culture but also to our understanding of what it is to live and work under the technical conditions of computing.
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Governing the Global Clinic

Carol A. Heimer

University of Chicago Press , 2025 • 405 pages

A deep examination of how new, legalistic norms affected the trajectory of global HIV care and altered the practice of medicine HIV emerged in the world at a time when medicine and healthcare were undergoing two major transformations: globalization and a turn toward legally inflected, rule-based ways of doing things It accelerated both trends

While pestilence and disease are generally considered the domain of biological sciences and medicine, social arrangements—and law in particular—are also crucial Drawing on years of research in HIV clinics in the United States, Thailand, South Africa, and Uganda, Governing the Global Clinic examines how growing norms of legalized accountability have altered the work of healthcare systems and how the effects of legalization vary across different national contexts

A key feature of legalism is universalistic language, but, in practice, rules are usually imported from richer countries (especially the United States) to poorer ones that have less adequate infrastructure and fewer resources with which to implement them Challenging readers to reconsider the impulse to use law to organize and govern social life, Governing the Global Clinic poses difficult questions: When do rules solve problems, and when do they create new problems

When do rules become decoupled from ethics, and when do they lead to deeper moral commitments When do rules reduce inequality And when do they reflect, reproduce, and even amplify inequality?
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Inside the Stargazer's Palace

Violet Moller

Simon and Schuster , 2025 • 176 pages

Enter the mysterious world of sixteenth-century science, where astronomers and alchemists shared laboratories In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus declared the earth revolved around the Sun, overturning centuries of scholastic presumption A new age was coming into view – one guided by observation, technology and logic

But omens and elixirs did not disappear from the sixteenth-century laboratory Charms and potions could still be found nestled between glistening brass instruments and leather-bound tomes The line between the natural and supernatural remained porous, yet to be defined From the icy Danish observatory of Tycho Brahe, to the smoky, sulphur-stained workshop of John Dee, Violet Moller tours the intellectual heart of early European science Exploring its rich, multidisciplinary culture, Inside the Stargazer’s Palace reveals a dazzling forgotten world, where all knowledge, no matter how arcane, could be pursued in good faith.
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Inadvertent Expansion

Nicholas D. Anderson

Cornell University Press , 2025 • 240 pages

In Inadvertent Expansion, Nicholas D Anderson investigates a surprisingly common yet overlooked phenomenon in the history of great power politics: territorial expansion that was neither intended nor initially authorized by state leaders Territorial expansion is typically understood as a centrally driven and often strategic activity

But as Anderson shows, nearly a quarter of great power coercive territorial acquisitions since the nineteenth century have in fact been instances of what he calls "inadvertent expansion." A two-step process, inadvertent expansion first involves agents on the periphery of a state or empire acquiring territory without the authorization or knowledge of higher-ups Leaders in the capital must then decide whether to accept or reject the already-acquired territory

Through cases ranging from those of the United States in Florida and Texas to Japan in Manchuria and Germany in East Africa, Anderson shows that inadvertent expansion is rooted in a principal-agent problem When leaders in the capital fail to exert or have limited control over their agents on the periphery, unauthorized efforts to take territory are more likely to occur Yet it is only when the geopolitical risks associated with keeping the acquired territory are perceived to be low that leaders are more likely to accept such expansion Accentuating the influence of small, seemingly insignificant actors over the foreign policy behavior of powerful states, Inadvertent Expansion offers new insights into how the boundaries of states and empires came to be and captures timeless dynamics between state leaders and their peripheral agents.
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Too Like the Lightning

Ada Palmer

Tor Books , 2016 • 433 pages

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.
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The Wagner Group

Jack Margolin

Reaktion Books , 2024 • 371 pages

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.
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The Submerged State

Suzanne Mettler

University of Chicago Press , 2011 • 172 pages

“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.
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Preface to Plato

Eric A. HAVELOCK

Harvard University Press , 2009 • 343 pages

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.
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Palo Alto

Malcolm Harris

Little, Brown , 2023 • 762 pages

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.
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Material World

Ed Conway

Knopf , 2023 • 513 pages

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.
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Maoism

Julia Lovell

Random House , 2019 • 485 pages

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.
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Water

Tirthankar Roy

Oxford University Press , 2025 • 313 pages

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.
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Simone Weil, an Anthology

Simone Weil

Grove Press , 1986 • 290 pages

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.
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Independent Africa

Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong

Indiana University Press , 2023 • 389 pages

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.
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Born in Blackness

Howard W. French

National Geographic Books , 2021

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.
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China's Second Continent

Howard W. French

Vintage , 2015 • 306 pages

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
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A Savage War of Peace

Alistair Horne

Pan Macmillan , 2012 • 565 pages

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.
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Mission to Tashkent

Frederick Marshman Bailey

Oxford University Press, USA , 1992 • 330 pages

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.
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The Lumumba Plot

Stuart A. Reid

Random House , 2024 • 657 pages

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.
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Chief of Station, Congo

Lawrence Devlin

PublicAffairs , 2008 • 312 pages

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.
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The War That Doesn't Say Its Name

Jason K. Stearns

Princeton University Press , 2023 • 328 pages

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.
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1491 (Second Edition)

Charles C. Mann

Vintage , 2006 • 578 pages

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.
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Why Nothing Works

Marc J. Dunkelman

PublicAffairs , 2025 • 407 pages

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 cover

Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy

Joseph Alois Schumpeter

1976 • 460 pages

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.
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Money, Markets, and Monarchies

Adam Hanieh

Cambridge University Press , 2018 • 315 pages

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

Wolfgang Münchau

Swift Press , 2024 • 210 pages

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.
Kaput cover

Kaput

Wolfgang Münchau

Swift Press , 2024 • 210 pages

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.
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How Markets Fail

Cassidy John, John Cassidy

Penguin UK , 2013 • 485 pages

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.
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The Rise And Fall Of Apartheid

David Welsh

Jonathan Ball Publishers , 2010 • 528 pages

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 Futurological Congress (from the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy). cover

The Futurological Congress (from the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy).

Stanisław Lem

1974 • 166 pages

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Revelation Space

Alastair Reynolds

Gollancz , 2009 • 468 pages

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, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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Blindsight

Peter Watts

Macmillan , 2006 • 388 pages

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.
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India in the Persianate Age

Richard M. Eaton

Univ of California Press , 2019 • 528 pages

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.
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Barbarism and Religion: Volume 4, Barbarians, Savages and Empires

J. G. A. Pocock

Cambridge University Press , 2005 • 386 pages

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.
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The Machiavellian Moment

John Greville Agard Pocock

Princeton University Press , 2016 • 665 pages

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.
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Imprudent King

Geoffrey Parker

Yale University Press , 2014 • 489 pages

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.
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Emperor

Geoffrey Parker

Yale University Press , 2019 • 665 pages

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.
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Global Crisis

Geoffrey Parker

Yale University Press , 2013 • 944 pages

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.
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Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy

William H. Janeway

Cambridge University Press , 2012 • 345 pages

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.
The Pacific Circuit cover

The Pacific Circuit

Alexis Madrigal

MCD , 2025 • 234 pages

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.
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Consider Phlebas

Iain M. Banks

Hachette UK , 2008 • 450 pages

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
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Command Performance

Jean Echenoz

New York Review of Books , 2025 • 177 pages

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.”
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Poor Economics

Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo

PublicAffairs , 2012 • 321 pages

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.
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Titanium Noir

Nick Harkaway, Nicholas Cornwell

Knopf , 2023 • 257 pages

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.
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Thick

Tressie McMillan Cottom

The New Press , 2019 • 113 pages

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).
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Death Is Our Business

John Lechner

Bloomsbury Publishing USA , 2025 • 297 pages

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.
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The Hidden Wealth of Nations

Gabriel Zucman

University of Chicago Press , 2015 • 142 pages

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.
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The Rise and Fall of American Growth

Robert J. Gordon

Princeton University Press , 2017 • 784 pages

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.
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The Great Transformation

Karl Polanyi

Beacon Press , 2025

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.
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Flying Blind

Peter Robison

Anchor , 2021 • 337 pages

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.
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The Smartest Guys in the Room

Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind

2003 • 486 pages

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.
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Hayek's Bastards

Quinn Slobodian

Princeton University Press , 2025 • 280 pages

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"--
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Traitor to His Class

H. W. Brands

National Geographic Books , 2009

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.
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Deep Space Warfare

John C. Wright

McFarland , 2019 • 209 pages

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.
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Box Office Poison

Tim Robey

Harlequin , 2024 • 373 pages

***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.
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At Night All Blood Is Black

David Diop

Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2020 • 94 pages

*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.
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The Golden Road

William Dalrymple

Bloomsbury Publishing USA , 2025 • 461 pages

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.
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The Neomercantilists

Eric Helleiner

2021 • 414 pages

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"--
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Newborn Socialist Things

Laurence Coderre

Duke University Press , 2021 • 156 pages

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.

The Dream Hotel

Laila Lalami

2025

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.
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Wireless Wars

Jonathan Pelson

BenBella Books , 2021 • 269 pages

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.
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Adventures in Innovation

John F. Tyson

2014 • 228 pages

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.
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Private Empire

Steve Coll

Penguin , 2012 • 654 pages

“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.
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A History of the Muslim World

Michael A. Cook

Princeton University Press , 2025

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.
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House of Huawei

Eva Dou

Hachette UK , 2025 • 253 pages

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.
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Antimemetics

Nadia Asparouhova

2025

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.
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Laws of the Land

Tristan G. Brown

Princeton University Press , 2025

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.
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Alone Together

Sherry Turkle

Basic Books , 2017 • 463 pages

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.
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The Productivity Race

Steve N. Broadberry

Cambridge University Press , 2005 • 480 pages

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.
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The Rise and Fall of the British Nation

David Edgerton

Penguin Group , 2019

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.
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No Exit

Yoav Di-Capua

University of Chicago Press , 2018 • 372 pages

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.
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Chains of Finance

Diane-Laure Arjaliès, Philip Grant, Iain Hardie, Donald MacKenzie, Ekaterina Svetlova

Oxford University Press , 2017 • 206 pages

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.
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The Economy of Renaissance Florence

Richard A. Goldthwaite

JHU Press , 2009 • 668 pages

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.
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The Mathematical Theory of Communication

Claude E Shannon, Warren Weaver

University of Illinois Press , 1998 • 141 pages

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.
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Gambling Man

Lionel Barber

Random House , 2024 • 306 pages

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.
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Careless People

Sarah Wynn-Williams

Flatiron Books , 2025 • 384 pages

#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.
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The Attention Merchants

Tim Wu

Vintage , 2017 • 434 pages

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.
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More Work For Mother

Ruth Schwartz Cowan

Basic Books , 1985 • 288 pages

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.
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The Last Samurai

Helen DeWitt

Random House , 2011 • 421 pages

‘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.
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North Woods

Daniel Mason

Random House Large Print , 2023 • 513 pages

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?
North Woods cover

North Woods

Daniel Mason

Random House Large Print , 2023 • 513 pages

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?
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Before the Deluge

Michael Sonenscher

Princeton University Press , 2009 • 429 pages

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.
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The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Works

Helen Czerski

W. W. Norton & Company , 2023 • 465 pages

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.
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Threat Multiplier

Sherri Goodman

Island Press , 2024 • 266 pages

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.
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When the Machine Stopped

Max Holland

Harvard Business Review Press , 1989 • 360 pages

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Clashing Over Commerce

Douglas A. Irwin

University of Chicago Press , 2017 • 873 pages

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
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Mood Machine

Liz Pelly

Simon and Schuster , 2025 • 288 pages

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.
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High Bias

Marc Masters

UNC Press Books , 2023 • 220 pages

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.
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Power Struggles

Jaume Franquesa, Jaume Franquesa Bartolome

Indiana University Press , 2018 • 286 pages

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

Andrey Mir

2024

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.
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Orality and Literacy

Walter J. Ong

Routledge , 2013 • 263 pages

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.
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Oil Revolution

Christopher R. W. Dietrich

Cambridge University Press , 2017 • 371 pages

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.
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Owned

Eoin Higgins

Bold Type Books , 2025 • 223 pages

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.
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Positional Option Trading

Euan Sinclair

John Wiley & Sons , 2020 • 246 pages

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.
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The Women

Kristin Hannah

Macmillan , 2024

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'
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Classical Econophysics

Allin F. Cottrell, Paul Cockshott, Gregory John Michaelson, Ian P. Wright, Victor Yakovenko

Routledge , 2009 • 424 pages

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.
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River of Dark Dreams

Walter Johnson

Harvard University Press , 2013 • 688 pages

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
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Behind the Startup

Benjamin Shestakofsky

Univ of California Press , 2024 • 326 pages

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"--
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Embassytown

China Miéville

Pan Macmillan , 2011 • 374 pages

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.
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Portnoy's Complaint

Philip Roth

Vintage , 2011 • 289 pages

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.
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American Sheep

Brett Bannor

University of Georgia Press , 2024 • 330 pages

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.
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The Volga Rises in Europe

Curzio Malaparte

1951

Kaputt cover

Kaputt

Curzio Malaparte

1946 • 422 pages

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Wars of Attrition

Marc Linder

2000 • 502 pages

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The Great Transformation

Odd Arne Westad, Jian Chen

Yale University Press , 2024 • 573 pages

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.
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The Control of Nature

John McPhee

Macmillan , 1989 • 290 pages

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.
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Other Rivers

Peter Hessler

Penguin , 2024 • 465 pages

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.
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Hummingbird Salamander

Jeff VanderMeer

MCD , 2021 • 266 pages

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.
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Fire Weather

John Vaillant

Vintage , 2024 • 441 pages

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.
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Roadside Picnic

Boris Strugatsky, Arkady Strugatsky

Hachette UK , 2014 • 148 pages

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, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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Emergent Tokyo

Jorge Almazan, Studiolab

2022 • 250 pages

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.
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Fatal Abstraction: Why the Managerial Class Loses Control of Software

Darryl Campbell

W. W. Norton & Company , 2025 • 236 pages

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.
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Attention, Shoppers!

Kathleen Thelen

Princeton University Press , 2025 • 344 pages

The evolution of American retailing practices to developments in Europe from the late 19th century to the present"--
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BRIXMIS and the Secret Cold War

Andrew Long

Pen and Sword History , 2024 • 275 pages

A detailed account of British intelligence operations in Cold War East Germany, revealing Soviet and East German military secrets from 1946 to 1990 The German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, was the frontline in the Cold War, packed with hundreds of thousands of Soviet and East German troops armed with the latest Warsaw Pact equipment, lined up along the 1,400 km Inner German Border

However, because of the repressive East German police state, little human intelligence about these forces reached the West Who were they Where were they located What were they doing How were they equipped

What were their intentions NATO was lined up in West Germany to face these forces and relied on getting up-to-date intelligence to warn of any threat, ‘Indicators of Hostility’ that could be a precursor to an invasion BRIXMIS, the British Commanders’-in-Chief Mission to the Soviet Forces in Germany, was on hand to provide that intelligence

Thanks to an obscure 1946 agreement between the British and Soviets that established ‘liaison missions’ in their respective zones of occupation, the British were able to send highly qualified military ‘observers’ into East Germany to roam (relatively) freely and keep an eye on what was going on What started as ‘liaison’, a point of contact between the British and Soviet occupation forces, developed into a very sophisticated intelligence collection operation, sending ‘tours’ out every day of the year, between 1946 and when the Mission closed in 1990

These tours were undertaken in high-performance, highly modified marked vehicles, with personnel in uniform and unarmed, apart from professional photographic equipment and occasionally some top-secret gadgets from the boffins back in the UK They joined their French and American colleagues in snooping around the opposition, photographing military bases, equipment, and maneuvers, and trying to evade capture by the secret police and counterintelligence units

They faced danger and violence daily, but thanks to their bravery and professionalism, the West had accurate and up-to-date information on what was happening in East Germany which helped keep the peace all that time This is the story of this little-known unit and their exploits behind enemy lines.
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The Greenlanders

Jane Smiley

Pan Macmillan , 2017 • 721 pages

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.
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The Poverty of the World

Sheyda F. A. Jahanbani

Oxford University Press , 2023 • 401 pages

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.
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Trillion Dollar Triage

Nick Timiraos

Hachette UK , 2022 • 331 pages

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.
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You Dreamed of Empires

Álvaro Enrigue

Penguin Group , 2024 • 241 pages

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.
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Turkey Under Erdoğan

Dimitar Bechev

Yale University Press , 2022 • 279 pages

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.
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The Project-State and Its Rivals

Charles S. Maier

Harvard University Press , 2023 • 529 pages

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.
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The Southern Tour

Jonathan Chatwin

Bloomsbury Publishing , 2024 • 255 pages

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.
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Vassal State

Angus Hanton

Swift Press , 2024 • 293 pages

'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.
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Making Mao's Steelworks

Koji Hirata

Cambridge University Press , 2024

Located in Manchuria (Northeast China), the geopolitical borderland between China, Russia, and Japan, among others, Anshan Iron and Steel Works (Angang) was Mao-era China's most important industrial enterprise The history of Angang from 1915 to 2000 reveals the hybrid nature of China's accelerated industrialization, shaped by transnational interactions, domestic factors, and local dynamics Utilizing archives in Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and English, Koji Hirata provides the first comprehensive history of this enterprise before, during, and after the Mao era (1949-1976)

Through this unique lens, he explores the complex interplay of transnational influences in Mao-era China By illustrating the symbiotic relationship between socialism and capitalism during the twentieth century, this major new study situates China within the complex global history of late industrialization.
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The Development of Secularism in Turkey

Niyazi Berkes

Psychology Press , 1998 • 580 pages

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

Şevket Pamuk

Princeton University Press , 2018 • 373 pages

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.
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Turkey between Democracy and Authoritarianism

Yeşim Arat, Şevket Pamuk

Cambridge University Press , 2019 • 311 pages

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

Maura C. Flannery

Yale University Press , 2023 • 336 pages

How herbaria illuminate the past and future of plant science Collections of preserved plant specimens, known as herbaria, have existed for nearly five centuries These pressed and labeled plants have been essential resources for scientists, allowing them to describe and differentiate species and to document and research plant changes and biodiversity over time—including changes related to climate Maura C

Flannery tells the history of herbaria, from the earliest collections belonging to such advocates of the technique as sixteenth-century botanist Luca Ghini, to the collections of poets, politicians, and painters, and to the digitization of these precious specimens today She charts the growth of herbaria during the Age of Exploration, the development of classification systems to organize the collections, and herbaria’s indispensable role in the tracking of climate change and molecular evolution

Herbaria also have historical, aesthetic, cultural, and ethnobotanical value—these preserved plants can be linked to the Indigenous peoples who used them, the collectors who sought them out, and the scientists who studied them This book testifies to the central role of herbaria in the history of plant study and to their continued value, not only to biologists but to entirely new users as well: gardeners, artists, students, and citizen-scientists.
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Stalin

Stephen Kotkin

Penguin , 2017 • 1249 pages

“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.
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The Chinese Typewriter

Thomas S. Mullaney

MIT Press , 2018 • 501 pages

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
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Make Your Own Job

Erik Baker

Harvard University Press , 2025 • 350 pages

A sweeping new history of the changing meaning of work in the United States, from Horatio Alger to Instagram influencers How Americans think about work changed profoundly over the course of the twentieth century Thrift and persistence came to seem old-fashioned Successful workers were increasingly expected to show initiative and enthusiasm for change—not just to do their jobs reliably but to create new opportunities for themselves and for others

Our culture of work today is more demanding than ever, even though workers haven't seen commensurate rewards Make Your Own Job explains how this entrepreneurial work ethic took hold, from its origins in late nineteenth-century success literature to the gig economy of today, sweeping in strange bedfellows: Marcus Garvey and Henry Ford, Avon ladies and New Age hippies Business schools and consultants exhorted managers to cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit in their subordinates, while an industry of self-help authors synthesized new ideas from psychology into a vision of work as “self-realization.” Policy experts embraced the new ethic as a remedy for urban and Third World poverty

Every social group and political tendency, it seems, has had its own exemplary entrepreneurs Historian Erik Baker argues that the entrepreneurial work ethic has given meaning to work in a world where employment is ever more precarious––and in doing so, has helped legitimize a society of mounting economic insecurity and inequality From the advent of corporate capitalism in the Gilded Age to the economic stagnation of recent decades, Americans have become accustomed to the reality that today’s job may be gone tomorrow Where work is hard to find and older nostrums about diligent effort fall flat, the advice to “make your own job” keeps hope alive.
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The Archive of Empire

Asheesh Kapur Siddique

Yale University Press , 2024 • 372 pages

How modern data-driven government originated in the creation and use of administrative archives in the British Empire Over the span of two hundred years, Great Britain established, governed, lost, and reconstructed an empire that embraced three continents and two oceanic worlds The British ruled this empire by correlating incoming information about the conduct of subjects and aliens in imperial spaces with norms of good governance developed in London

Officials derived these norms by studying the histories of government contained in the official records of both the state and corporations and located in repositories known as archives As the empire expanded in both the Americas and India, however, this system of political knowledge came to be regarded as inadequate in governing the non-English people who inhabited the lands over which the British asserted sovereignty This posed a key problem for imperial officials: What kind of knowledge was required to govern an empire populated by a growing number of culturally different people

Using files, pens, and paper, the British defined the information order of the modern state as they debated answers to this question In tracing the rise and deployment of archives in early modern British imperial rule, Asheesh Kapur Siddique uncovers the origins of our data-driven present.
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Counterrevolution

Melinda Cooper

Princeton University Press , 2024 • 436 pages

A thorough investigation of the current combination of austerity and extravagance that characterizes government spending and central bank monetary policy At the close of the 1970s, government treasuries and central banks took a vow of perpetual self-restraint To this day, fiscal authorities fret over soaring public debt burdens, while central bankers wring their hands at the slightest sign of rising wages As the brief reprieve of coronavirus spending made clear, no departure from government austerity will be tolerated without a corresponding act of penance

Yet we misunderstand the scope of neoliberal public finance if we assume austerity to be its sole setting Beyond the zero-sum game of direct claims on state budgets lies a realm of indirect government spending that escapes the naked eye Capital gains are multiply subsidized by a tax system that reserves its greatest rewards for financial asset holders

And for all its airs of haughty asceticism, the Federal Reserve has become adept at facilitating the inflation of asset values while ruthlessly suppressing wages Neoliberalism is as extravagant as it is austere, and this paradox needs to be grasped if we are to challenge its core modus operandi Melinda Cooper examines the major schools of thought that have shaped neoliberal common sense around public finance

Focusing, in particular, on Virginia school public choice theory and supply-side economics, she shows how these currents produced distinct but ultimately complementary responses to the capitalist crisis of the 1970s With its intellectual roots in the conservative Southern Democratic tradition, Virginia school public choice theory espoused an austere doctrine of budget balance The supply-side movement, by contrast, advocated tax cuts without spending restraint and debt issuance without guilt, in an apparent repudiation of austerity

Yet, for all their differences, the two schools converged around the need to rein in the redistributive uses of public spending Together, they drove a counterrevolution in public finance that deepened the divide between rich and poor and revived the fortunes of dynastic wealth Far-reaching as the neoliberal counterrevolution has been, Cooper still identifies a counterfactual history of unrealized possibilities in the capitalist crisis of the 1970s She concludes by inviting us to rethink the concept of revolution and raises the question: Is another politics of extravagance possible?
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China and the End of Global Silver, 1873-1937

Austin Dean

2020

"For a very long time, silver was money, but in the late nineteenth century, much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard China, however, remained the most populous country still using silver, although the country had no unified national currency; there was not one standard, but many: silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." This book focuses on how officials, policymakers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system

As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late 19th and early 20th century, imperial powers--the United States, England, and Japan--tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit This book argues that the Silver Era in World history ended due to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked not just a key moment in Chinese history, but in world history"--
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Domesticating Empire

Caitlín Eilís Barrett

Oxford University Press , 2019 • 451 pages

Domesticating Empire is the first contextually-oriented monograph on Egyptian imagery in Roman households Caitlín Barrett draws on case studies from Flavian Pompeii to investigate the close association between representations of Egypt and a particular type of Roman household space: the domestic garden Through paintings and mosaics portraying the Nile, canals that turned the garden itself into a miniature "Nilescape," and statuary depicting Egyptian themes, many gardens in Pompeii offered ancient visitors evocations of a Roman vision of Egypt

Simultaneously faraway and familiar, these imagined landscapes made the unfathomable breadth of empire compatible with the familiarity of home In contrast to older interpretations that connect Roman "Aegyptiaca" to the worship of Egyptian gods or the problematic concept of "Egyptomania," a contextual analysis of these garden assemblages suggests new possibilities for meaning In Pompeian houses, Egyptian and Egyptian-looking objects and images interacted with their settings to construct complex entanglements of "foreign" and "familiar," "self" and "other." Representations of Egyptian landscapes in domestic gardens enabled individuals to present themselves as sophisticated citizens of empire

Yet at the same time, household material culture also exerted an agency of its own: domesticizing, familiarizing, and "Romanizing" once-foreign images and objects That which was once imagined as alien and potentially dangerous was now part of the domus itself, increasingly incorporated into cultural constructions of what it meant to be "Roman." Featuring brilliant illustrations in both color and black and white, Domesticating Empire reveals the importance of material culture in transforming household space into a microcosm of empire.
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A Brief History of the Present

Hilal Ahmed

Penguin Random House India Private Limited , 2024 • 147 pages

Present-day political discourse swings between two contrary positions on the issue of Muslims Hindutva politics categorizes Muslims as a monolithic religious group to substantiate Hindu homogeneity The liberals, on the other hand, claim to protect Muslims as a religious minority to defend Indian democracy (if not secularism!)

In both cases, Muslim identity is envisioned as a one-dimensional phenomenon A Brief History of the Present attempts to go beyond the obvious to rethink the role of minorities, specifically Muslims, in the ‘New India’ that has revealed itself since 2014 By diving deep into the complexities of Muslim identity and its role in everyday life while at the same time viewing the Muslim communities through a historical lens, the author attempts to provide a far more accurate picture of Indian Muslims than what is perceived currently Through the author’s interpretation of a wide range of quantitative and qualitative sources and his long experience as an observer of the Indian political scenario for more than three decades, the book presents a deeply considered view of a burning question: the current status of Muslims in India.
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Analog Superpowers

Katherine C. Epstein

University of Chicago Press , 2024 • 387 pages

A gripping history that spans law, international affairs, and top-secret technology to unmask the tension between intellectual property rights and national security At the beginning of the twentieth century, two British inventors, Arthur Pollen and Harold Isherwood, became fascinated by a major military question: how to aim the big guns of battleships These warships—of enormous geopolitical import before the advent of intercontinental missiles or drones—had to shoot in poor light and choppy seas at distant moving targets, conditions that impeded accurate gunfire

Seeing the need to account for a plethora of variables, Pollen and Isherwood built an integrated system for gathering data, calculating predictions, and transmitting the results to the gunners At the heart of their invention was the most advanced analog computer of the day, a technological breakthrough that anticipated the famous Norden bombsight of World War II, the inertial guidance systems of nuclear missiles, and the networked “smart” systems that dominate combat today

Recognizing the value of Pollen and Isherwood’s invention, the British Royal Navy and the United States Navy pirated it, one after the other When the inventors sued, both the British and US governments invoked secrecy, citing national security concerns

Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Analog Superpowers analyzes these and related legal battles over naval technology, exploring how national defense tested the two countries’ commitment to individual rights and the free market Katherine C Epstein deftly sets out Pollen’s and Isherwood’s pioneering achievements, the patent questions raised, the geopolitical rivalry between Britain and the United States, and the legal precedents each country developed to control military tools built by private contractors

Epstein’s account reveals that long before the US national security state sought to restrict information about atomic energy, it was already embroiled in another contest between innovation and secrecy The America portrayed in this sweeping and accessible history isn’t yet a global hegemon but a rising superpower ready to acquire foreign technology by fair means or foul—much as it accuses China of doing today.
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The Chinese Computer

Thomas S. Mullaney

MIT Press , 2024 • 372 pages

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.
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The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy

Mervyn King

W. W. Norton & Company , 2016 • 214 pages

“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.
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SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

Mary Beard

W. W. Norton & Company , 2015 • 743 pages

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.
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The Science of Interstellar

Kip Thorne

W. W. Norton & Company , 2014 • 560 pages

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).
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Ghost Particle

Alan Chodos, James Riordon

MIT Press , 2024 • 319 pages

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.
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The Biggest Ideas in the Universe

Sean Carroll

Simon and Schuster , 2022 • 268 pages

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.
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Quantum Steampunk

Nicole Yunger Halpern

JHU Press , 2022 • 305 pages

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.
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Shopping All the Way to the Woods

Rachel S. Gross

Yale University Press , 2024 • 305 pages

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.
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All Systems Red

Martha Wells

Tordotcom , 2017 • 96 pages

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.
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In This Economy?

Kyla Scanlon

Crown Currency , 2024 • 305 pages

“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.
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Plato at the Googleplex

Rebecca Goldstein

Vintage , 2015 • 482 pages

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.)
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Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts

Jeremy L. Wallace

Oxford University Press , 2022 • 289 pages

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"--
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Lessons in Disaster

Gordon M. Goldstein

Macmillan , 2008 • 318 pages

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

Timothy Shenk

2024

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.
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Why Not Default?

Jerome E. Roos

Princeton University Press , 2019 • 413 pages

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.
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More Swindles from the Late Ming

Yingyu Zhang

Columbia University Press , 2024 • 159 pages

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.
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The Book of Swindles

Yingyu Zhang

Columbia University Press , 2017 • 267 pages

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.
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One Step Ahead in China

Ezra F. Vogel

Harvard University Press , 1989 • 526 pages

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.
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The Evolution of a New Industry

Israel Drori, Shmuel Ellis, Zur Shapira

Stanford University Press , 2013 • 206 pages

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.
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Fear City

Kim Phillips-Fein

Macmillan + ORM , 2017 • 302 pages

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.
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Centrifugal Empire

Jae Ho Chung

Columbia University Press , 2016 • 229 pages

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.
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The Ripple Effect

Enze Han

Oxford University Press , 2024 • 241 pages

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.
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The Latecomer's Rise

Muyang Chen

Cornell University Press , 2024 • 156 pages

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.
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On Xi Jinping

Kevin Rudd

Oxford University Press , 2024 • 625 pages

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?
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Drunk in China

Derek Sandhaus

U of Nebraska Press , 2019 • 359 pages

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.
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Achieving Our Country

Richard Rorty

1999 • 159 pages

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.
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A Psalm for the Wild-Built

Becky Chambers

Tordotcom , 2021 • 102 pages

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.
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The Nobel Factor

Avner Offer, Gabriel Söderberg

Princeton University Press , 2019 • 344 pages

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
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Life and Death of the American Worker

Alice Driver

Simon and Schuster , 2024 • 272 pages

“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.
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Stalin

Stephen Kotkin

Penguin , 2014 • 978 pages

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
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The Spoils of War

Andrew Cockburn

PublicAffairs , 2016 • 322 pages

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.
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To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause

Benjamin Nathans

Princeton University Press , 2024 • 816 pages

"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"--
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The Billionaire Who Wasn't

Conor O'Clery

PublicAffairs , 2013 • 354 pages

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.
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An Empire of Their Own

Neal Gabler

Anchor , 2010 • 537 pages

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.
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Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World

David Van Reybrouck

W. W. Norton & Company , 2024 • 705 pages

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.
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A Voyage For Madmen

Peter Nichols

Harper Collins , 2009 • 320 pages

“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.
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The Water Kingdom

Philip Ball

University of Chicago Press , 2017 • 350 pages

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.
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Unruly Waters

Sunil Amrith

Basic Books , 2018 • 401 pages

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.
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Very Important People

Ashley Mears

Princeton University Press , 2021 • 328 pages

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.
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Play Nice

Jason Schreier

Grand Central Publishing , 2024 • 342 pages

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.
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Trading at the Speed of Light

Donald MacKenzie

Princeton University Press , 2023 • 304 pages

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.
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Machinery and Economic Development

Martin Fransman

Springer , 1986 • 291 pages

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Microstructure of the First Organized Futures Market

Yasuo Takatsuki, Takashi Kamihigashi

Springer , 2020 • 250 pages

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.
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Red Star Over China

Edgar Snow

Atlantic Books , 2017 • 927 pages

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.
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Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food

Michelle T. King

W. W. Norton & Company , 2024 • 259 pages

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.
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Indoctrinating the Youth

Jennifer Liu

University of Hawaii Press , 2024 • 241 pages

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.
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Formosa Betrayed

George H. Kerr

2018 • 520 pages

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.
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Outcasts of Empire

Paul D. Barclay

Univ of California Press , 2018 • 328 pages

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
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Becoming Taiwanese

Evan N. Dawley

BRILL , 2020 • 440 pages

"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."
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The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books

Edward Wilson-Lee

Scribner , 2020 • 416 pages

This impeccably researched and “adventure-packed” (The Washington Post) account of the obsessive quest by Christopher Columbus’s son to create the greatest library in the world is “the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters” (NPR) and offers a vivid picture of Europe on the verge of becoming modern At the peak of the Age of Exploration, Hernando Colón sailed with his father Christopher Columbus on his final voyage to the New World, a journey that ended in disaster, bloody mutiny, and shipwreck

After Columbus’s death in 1506, eighteen-year-old Hernando sought to continue—and surpass—his father’s campaign to explore the boundaries of the known world by building a library that would collect everything ever printed: a vast holding organized by summaries and catalogues; really, the first ever database for the exploding diversity of written matter as the printing press proliferated across Europe Hernando traveled extensively and obsessively amassed his collection based on the groundbreaking conviction that a library of universal knowledge should include “all books, in all languages and on all subjects,” even material often dismissed: ballads, erotica, news pamphlets, almanacs, popular images, romances, fables The loss of part of his collection to another maritime disaster in 1522, set off the final scramble to complete this sublime project, a race against time to realize a vision of near-impossible perfection. “Magnificent…a thrill on almost every page” (The New York Times Book Review), The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books is a window into sixteenth-century Europe’s information revolution, and a reflection of the passion and intrigues that lie beneath our own insatiable desires to bring order to the world today.
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American Lucifers

Jeremy Zallen

UNC Press Books , 2019 • 369 pages

The myth of light and progress has blinded us In our electric world, we are everywhere surrounded by effortlessly glowing lights that simply exist, as they should, seemingly clear and comforting proof that human genius means the present will always be better than the past, and the future better still At best, this is half the story

At worst, it is a lie From whale oil to kerosene, from the colonial period to the end of the U.S Civil War, modern, industrial lights brought wonderful improvements and incredible wealth to some But for most workers, free and unfree, human and nonhuman, these lights were catastrophes

This book tells their stories The surprisingly violent struggle to produce, control, and consume the changing means of illumination over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries transformed slavery, industrial capitalism, and urban families in profound, often hidden ways Only by taking the lives of whalers and enslaved turpentine makers, match-manufacturing children and coal miners, night-working seamstresses and the streetlamp-lit poor—those American lucifers—as seriously as those of inventors and businessmen can the full significance of the revolution of artificial light be understood.
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Gotham’s War Within a War

Emily Brooks

UNC Press Books , 2023 • 259 pages

A surprising history unfolded in New Deal– and World War II–era New York City under Mayor Fiorello La Guardia Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, members of the NYPD had worked to enforce partisan political power rather than focus on crime That changed when La Guardia took office in 1934 and shifted the city's priorities toward liberal reform

La Guardia's approach to low-level policing anticipated later trends in law enforcement, including "broken windows" theory and "stop and frisk" policy Police officers worked to preserve urban order by controlling vice, including juvenile delinquency, prostitution, gambling, and the "disorderly" establishments that officials believed housed these activities This mode of policing was central to La Guardia's influential vision of urban governance, but it was met with resistance from the Black New Yorkers, youth, and working-class women it primarily targeted

The mobilization for World War II introduced new opportunities for the NYPD to intensify policing and criminalize these groups with federal support In the 1930s these communities were framed as perils to urban order; during the militarized war years, they became a supposed threat to national security itself Emily M Brooks recasts the evolution of urban policing by revealing that the rise of law-and-order liberalism was inseparable from the surveillance, militarism, and nationalism of war.
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Crowded Orbits

James Clay Moltz

Columbia University Press , 2024 • 352 pages

Space has become increasingly crowded since the turn of the century, as a growing number of countries, companies, and even private citizens have begun operating satellites and become spacefarers Crowded Orbits offers readers a valuable primer on space policy from an international perspective, examining technology, diplomacy, commerce, science, and military applications This second edition is thoroughly updated to cover events of the decade following the book’s original publication in 2014, when the pace of the competition to exploit space has accelerated dramatically

James Clay Moltz examines the ongoing tension between competition and cooperation in space, tracing the geopolitical and policy consequences of key developments Drawing on decades of experience, he considers possible avenues for collaboration among the growing number of actors as well as the forces driving potential space-related conflicts Moltz examines the challenges to existing treaties and other governance mechanisms that have struggled to keep up with the spread of technology

He provides policy recommendations to enhance international collaboration, further scientific exploration, and restrain harmful military activities This edition features analysis of a range of topics, including the ongoing commercialization of space by SpaceX, Planet, and other start-up companies; new capabilities to monitor Earth from space; renewed tensions between the United States and rivals China and Russia in military activities; and emerging multinational competition on the Moon.
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Billionaire Wilderness

Justin Farrell

Princeton University Press , 2021 • 392 pages

Billionaire Wilderness offers an unprecedented look inside the world of the ultra-wealthy and their relationship to the natural world, showing how the ultra-rich use nature to resolve key predicaments in their lives Justin Farrell immerses himself in Teton County, Wyoming--both the richest county in the United States and the county with the nation's highest level of income inequality--to investigate interconnected questions about money, nature, and community in the twenty-first century

Farrell draws on three years of in-depth interviews with "ordinary" millionaires and the world's wealthiest billionaires, four years of in-person observation in the community, and original quantitative data to provide comprehensive and unique analytical insight on the ultra-wealthy He also interviewed low-income workers who could speak to their experiences as employees for and members of the community with these wealthy people He finds that the wealthy leverage nature to climb even higher on the socioeconomic ladder, and they use their engagement with nature and rural people as a way of creating more virtuous and deserving versions of themselves Billionaire Wilderness demonstrates that our contemporary understanding of the relationship between the ultra-wealthy and the environment is empirically shallow, and our reliance on reports of national economic trends distances us from the real experiences of these people and their local communities"--
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Alien Oceans

Kevin Hand

Princeton University Press , 2021 • 296 pages

Inside the epic quest to find life on the water-rich moons at the outer reaches of the solar system Where is the best place to find life beyond Earth We often look to Mars as the most promising site in our solar system, but recent scientific missions have revealed that some of the most habitable real estate may actually lie farther away Beneath the frozen crusts of several of the small, ice-covered moons of Jupiter and Saturn lurk vast oceans that may have existed for as long as Earth, and together may contain more than fifty times its total volume of liquid water

Could there be organisms living in their depths Alien Oceans reveals the science behind the thrilling quest to find out Kevin Peter Hand is one of today's leading NASA scientists, and his pioneering research has taken him on expeditions around the world In this captivating account of scientific discovery, he brings together insights from planetary science, biology, and the adventures of scientists like himself to explain how we know that oceans exist within moons of the outer solar system, like Europa, Titan, and Enceladus

He shows how the exploration of Earth's oceans is informing our understanding of the potential habitability of these icy moons, and draws lessons from what we have learned about the origins of life on our own planet to consider how life could arise on these distant worlds Alien Oceans describes what lies ahead in our search for life in our solar system and beyond, setting the stage for the transformative discoveries that may await us.
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Assembling the Dinosaur

Lukas Rieppel

Harvard University Press , 2019 • 227 pages

A lively account of the dinosaur’s role in Gilded Age America, examining the connection between business, paleontology, and museums Although dinosaur fossils were first found in England, a series of dramatic discoveries during the late 1800s turned North America into a world center for vertebrate paleontology At the same time, the United States emerged as the world’s largest industrial economy, and creatures like Tyrannosaurus, Brontosaurus, and Triceratops became emblems of American capitalism

Large, fierce, and spectacular, American dinosaurs dominated the popular imagination, making front-page headlines and appearing in feature films Assembling the Dinosaur follows dinosaur fossils from the field to the museum and into the commercial culture of North America’s Gilded Age Business tycoons like Andrew Carnegie and J

P Morgan made common cause with vertebrate paleontologists to capitalize on the widespread appeal of dinosaurs, using them to project American exceptionalism back into prehistory Learning from the show-stopping techniques of P T

Barnum, museums exhibited dinosaurs to attract, entertain, and educate the public By assembling the skeletons of dinosaurs into eye-catching displays, wealthy industrialists sought to cement their own reputations as generous benefactors of science, showing that modern capitalism could produce public goods in addition to profits Behind the scenes, museums adopted corporate management practices to control the movement of dinosaur bones, restricting their circulation to influence their meaning and value in popular culture

Tracing the entwined relationship of dinosaurs, capitalism, and culture during the Gilded Age, Lukas Rieppel reveals the outsized role these giant reptiles played during one of the most consequential periods in American history Praise for Assembling the Dinosaur “A penetrating study of legitimacy and capitalism in the realm of fossils.” —Verlyn Klinkenborg, The New York Review of Books “A solid entry into the growing body of literature on Gilded Age American paleontology, but it is particularly valuable for its contribution to enhancing our understanding of how science and its representation during that period were influenced by, and in turn affected, society as a whole By incorporating cultural, economic, and scientific developments, Rieppel shines new light on the history of both American paleontology and museum exhibition practice.” —Ilja Nieuwland, Science
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The Land Beneath the Ice

David J. Drewry

Princeton University Press , 2023 • 448 pages

A wondrous story of scientific endeavor—probing the great ice sheets of Antarctica From the moment explorers set foot on the ice of Antarctica in the early nineteenth century, they desired to learn what lay beneath David J Drewry provides an insider’s account of the ambitious and often hazardous radar mapping expeditions that he and fellow glaciologists undertook during the height of the Cold War, when concerns about global climate change were first emerging and scientists were finally able to peer into the Antarctic ice and take its measure

In this panoramic book, Drewry charts the history and breakthrough science of radio-echo sounding, a revolutionary technique that has enabled researchers to measure the thickness and properties of ice continuously from the air—transforming our understanding of the world’s great ice sheets To those involved in this epic fieldwork, it was evident that our planet is rapidly changing, and its future depends on the stability and behavior of these colossal ice masses

Drewry describes how bad weather, downed aircraft, and human frailty disrupt the most meticulously laid plans, and how success, built on remarkable international cooperation, can spawn institutional rivalries The Land Beneath the Ice captures the excitement and innovative spirit of a pioneering era in Antarctic geophysical exploration, recounting its perils and scientific challenges, and showing how its discoveries are helping us to tackle environmental challenges of global significance.
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American Bonds

Sarah L. Quinn

Princeton University Press , 2019 • 310 pages

How the American government has long used financial credit programs to create economic opportunities Federal housing finance policy and mortgage-backed securities have gained widespread attention in recent years because of the 2008 financial crisis, but issues of government credit have been part of American life since the nation’s founding From the 1780s, when a watershed national land credit policy was established, to the postwar foundations of our current housing finance system, American Bonds examines the evolution of securitization and federal credit programs

Sarah Quinn shows that since the Westward expansion, the U.S. government has used financial markets to manage America’s complex social divides, and politicians and officials across the political spectrum have turned to land sales, home ownership, and credit to provide economic opportunity without the appearance of market intervention or direct wealth redistribution Highly technical systems, securitization, and credit programs have been fundamental to how Americans determined what they could and should owe one another

Over time, government officials embraced credit as a political tool that allowed them to navigate an increasingly complex and fractured political system, affirming the government’s role as a consequential and creative market participant Neither intermittent nor marginal, credit programs supported the growth of powerful industries, from railroads and farms to housing and finance; have been used for disaster relief, foreign policy, and military efforts; and were promoters of amortized mortgages, lending abroad, venture capital investment, and mortgage securitization Illuminating America’s market-heavy social policies, American Bonds illustrates how political institutions became involved in the nation’s lending practices.
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Electrifying Indonesia

Anto Mohsin

University of Wisconsin Pres , 2023 • 270 pages

Electrifying Indonesia tells the story of the entanglement of politics and technology during Indonesia's rapid post-World War II development As a central part of its nation-building project, the Indonesian state sought to supply electricity to the entire country, bringing transformative socioeconomic benefits across its heterogeneous territories and populations While this project was driven by nationalistic impulses, it was also motivated by a genuine interest in social justice

The entanglement of these two ideologies--nation-building and equity--shaped how electrification was carried out, including how the state chose the technologies it did Private companies and electric cooperatives vied with the hegemonic state power company to participate in a monumental undertaking that would transform daily life for all Indonesians, especially rural citizens In this innovative volume, Anto Mohsin brings Indonesian studies together with science and technology studies to understand a crucial period in modern Indonesian history

He shows that attempts to illuminate the country were inseparable from the effort to maintain the new nation-state, chart its path to independence, and legitimize ruling regimes In exchange for an often dramatically improved standard of living, people gave their votes, and their acquiescence, to the ruling government.
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The Dong World and Imperial China’s Southwest Silk Road

James A. Anderson

University of Washington Press , 2024 • 300 pages

Brings a borderlands perspective to the history of China From the eighth to thirteenth centuries along China’s rugged southern periphery, trade in tribute articles and an interregional horse market thrived These ties dramatically affected imperial China’s relations with the emerging kingdoms in its borderlands Local chiefs before the tenth century had considered the control of such contacts an important aspect of their political authority

Rulers and high officials at the Chinese court valued commerce in the region, where rare commodities could be obtained and vassal kingdoms showed less belligerence than did northern ones Trade routes along this Southwest Silk Road traverse the homelands of numerous non-Han peoples This book investigates the principalities, chiefdoms, and market nodes that emerged and flourished in the network of routes that passed through what James A

Anderson calls the "Dong world," a collection of Tai-speaking polities in upland valleys The process of state formation that arose through trade coincided with the differentiation of peoples who were later labeled as distinct ethnicities Exploration of this formative period at the nexus of the Chinese empire, the Dali kingdom, and the Vietnamese kingdom reveals a nuanced picture of the Chinese province of Yunnan and its southern neighbors preceding Mongol efforts to impose a new administrative order in the region These communities shared a regional identity and a lively history of interaction well before northern occupiers classified its inhabitants as "national minorities" of China.
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Command and Control

Eric Schlosser

Penguin , 2013 • 702 pages

The Oscar-shortlisted documentary Command and Control, directed by Robert Kenner, finds its origins in Eric Schlosser's book and continues to explore the little-known history of the management and safety concerns of America's nuclear aresenal. “A devastatingly lucid and detailed new history of nuclear weapons in the U.S Fascinating.” —Lev Grossman, TIME Magazine “Perilous and gripping . . Schlosser skillfully weaves together an engrossing account of both the science and the politics of nuclear weapons safety.” —San Francisco Chronicle A myth-shattering exposé of America’s nuclear weapons Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America’s nuclear arsenal

A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them That question has never been resolved—and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind While the harms of global warming increasingly dominate the news, the equally dangerous yet more immediate threat of nuclear weapons has been largely forgotten

Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policy makers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can’t be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust

At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with people who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view

Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America’s nuclear age.
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Manchurian Railways and the Opening of China: An International History

Bruce Elleman, Stephen Kotkin

Routledge , 2015 • 370 pages

The railways of Manchuria offer an intriguing vantage point for an international history of northeast Asia Before the completion of the Trans-Siberian railway in 1916, the only rail route from the Imperial Russian capital of St. Petersburg to the Pacific port of Vladivostok transited Manchuria A spur line from the Manchurian city of Harbin led south to ice-free Port Arthur

Control of these two rail lines gave Imperial Russia military, economic, and political advantages that excited rivalry on the part of Japan and unease on the part of weak and divided China Meanwhile, the effort to defend and retain that strategic hold against rising Japanese power strained distant Moscow Control of the Manchurian railways was contested in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5; Japan's 1931 invasion and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo; the second Sino-Japanese War and World War II in Asia; and, the Chinese civil war that culminated in the Communist victory over the Nationalists

Today, the railways are critical to plans for development of China's sparsely populated interior This volume brings together an international group of scholars to explore this fascinating history.
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A Brief History of Earth

Andrew H. Knoll

HarperCollins , 2021 • 272 pages

Harvard’s acclaimed geologist “charts Earth’s history in accessible style” (AP) “A sublime chronicle of our planet." –Booklist, STARRED review How well do you know the ground beneath your feet Odds are, where you’re standing was once cooking under a roiling sea of lava, crushed by a towering sheet of ice, rocked by a nearby meteor strike, or perhaps choked by poison gases, drowned beneath ocean, perched atop a mountain range, or roamed by fearsome monsters

Probably most or even all of the above The story of our home planet and the organisms spread across its surface is far more spectacular than any Hollywood blockbuster, filled with enough plot twists to rival a bestselling thriller But only recently have we begun to piece together the whole mystery into a coherent narrative

Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, renowned geologist Andrew H Knoll delivers a rigorous yet accessible biography of Earth, charting our home planet's epic 4.6 billion-year story Placing twenty first-century climate change in deep context, A Brief History of Earth is an indispensable look at where we’ve been and where we’re going Features original illustrations depicting Earth history and nearly 50 figures (maps, tables, photographs, graphs).
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Tata

Mircea Raianu

Harvard University Press , 2021 • 305 pages

An eye-opening portrait of global capitalism spanning 150 years, told through the history of the Tata corporation Nearly a century old, the grand façade of Bombay House is hard to miss in the historic business district of Mumbai This is the iconic global headquarters of the Tata Group, a multinational corporation that produces everything from salt to software

After getting their start in the cotton and opium trades, the Tatas, a Parsi family from Navsari, Gujarat, ascended to commanding heights in the Indian economy by the time of independence in 1947 Over the course of its 150-year history Tata spun textiles, forged steel, generated hydroelectric power, and took to the skies It also faced challenges from restive workers fighting for their rights and political leaders who sought to curb its power

In this sweeping history, Mircea Raianu tracks the fortunes of a family-run business that was born during the high noon of the British Empire and went on to capture the world’s attention with the headline-making acquisition of luxury car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover The growth of Tata was a complex process shaped by world historical forces: the eclipse of imperial free trade, the intertwined rise of nationalism and the developmental state, and finally the return of globalization and market liberalization

Today Tata is the leading light of one of the world’s major economies, selling steel, chemicals, food, financial services, and nearly everything else, while operating philanthropic institutions that channel expert knowledge in fields such as engineering and medicine Based on painstaking research in the company’s archive, Tata elucidates how a titan of industry was created and what lessons its story may hold for the future of global capitalism.
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Danger Sound Klaxon!

Matthew F. Jordan

University of Virginia Press , 2023 • 325 pages

Danger Sound Klaxon! reveals the untold story of the Klaxon automobile horn, one of the first great electrical consumer technologies of the twentieth century Although its metallic shriek at first shocked pedestrians, savvy advertising strategies convinced consumers across the United States and western Europe to adopt the shrill Klaxon horn as the safest signaling technology available in the 1910s The widespread use of Klaxons in the trenches of World War I, however, transformed how veterans heard this car horn, and its traumatic association with gas attacks ultimately doomed this once ubiquitous consumer technology

By charting the meteoric rise and eventual fall of the Klaxon, Matthew Jordan highlights how perceptions of sound-producing technologies are guided by, manipulated, and transformed through advertising strategies, public debate, consumer reactions, and governmental regulations Jordan demonstrates in this fascinating history how consumers are led toward technological solutions for problems themselves created by technology.
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A Cultural History of Shopping in the Modern Age

Vicki Howard

Bloomsbury Publishing , 2022 • 249 pages

A Cultural History of Shopping was a Library Journal Best in Reference selection for 2022 In the modern consumer age that emerged after the First World War, shopping became a ubiquitous cultural practice Despite its apparent universality, the historicity and contingency of shopping should not be ignored: its meaning was always inextricably linked to the political, material and economic contexts within which it took place

Gendered female for the most part, shopping continued to evoke different cultural responses, embraced as liberatory by some, condemned as frivolous by others Business decisions and public policies helped construct the frameworks within which new, often American-led, shopping cultures emerged, from downtown department stores to chain stores to suburban shopping malls The digital revolution in shopping that began in the last decade of the 20th century has changed the face of cities and towns and led to the closure of many bricks-and-mortar stores but, as this volume explores, the shopper remains very much at the center of Western capitalist societies A Cultural History of Shopping in the Modern Age presents an overview of the period with themes addressing practices and processes; spaces and places; shoppers and identities; luxury and everyday; home and family; visual and literary representations; reputation, trust and credit; and governance, regulation and the state.
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The Fishmeal Revolution

Kristin A. Wintersteen

Univ of California Press , 2021 • 245 pages

Introduction -- A deep history of the Humboldt Current ecosystem -- The new industrial ecology of animal farming in the Atlantic and Pacific worlds, 1840-1930 -- Protein from the sea : the "nutrition problem" and the industrialization of fishing in Chile and Peru -- The golden anchoveta : the making of the world's largest single-species fishery in Chimbote, Peru -- States of uncertainty : science, policy, and the bio-economics of Peru's 1972 fishmeal collapse -- The translocal history of industrial fisheries in Iquique and Talcahuano, Chile -- Conclusion -- Appendix A : glossary of marine species -- Appendix B :diagram of Humboldt Current trophic web -- Appendix C : major current systems of Eastern and Central Pacific Ocean -- Appendix D : world fisheries management zones -- Appendix E : world fisheries landings and ENSO events, 1950-2014.
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A Brief History of the Pacific

Jeremy Black

Robinson , 2023 • 245 pages

This brilliantly concise history of the Pacific Ocean nevertheless succeeds in examining both the indigenous presence on ocean's islands and Western control or influence over the its islands and shores There is a particular focus on the period from the 1530s to 1890 with its greater Western coastal and oceanic presence in the Pacific, beginning with the Spanish takeover of the coasts of modern Central America, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, and continuing with the Spaniards in the Philippines

There is also an emphasis on the very different physical and human environments of the four quadrants of the Pacific - the north-east, the north-west, the south-east and the south-west - and of the 'coastal' islands, that is the Aleutians, Japan and New Zealand, and continental coastlines The focus is always on the interactions of Japan, California, Peru, Australia and other territories with the ocean, notably in terms of trade, migration and fishing

Black looks first at the geology, currents, winds and physical make-up of the Pacific, then the region's indigenous inhabitants to 1520 He describes the Pacific before the arrival of Europeans, its history of settlement, navigation methods and religious practices From Easter Island, the focus shifts to European voyages, from Magellan to Cook and Tasman, the problems they faced, not least the sheer scale of the ocean

Black looks at the impact of these voyages on local people, including the Russians in the Aleutian Islands Outside control of the region grew from 1788 to 1898 The British laid claim to Australia and America to the Phillipines Western economic and political impact manifested in sandalwood and gold rushes, and the coming of steamships accelerated this impact

Territorial claims spread through Willis, Perry and the Americans, including to Hawaii Black looks at the Maori wars in New Zealand and the War of the Pacific on the South American coast Christian missionary activity increased, and Gaugin offered a different vision of the Pacific. 1899 to 1945 marked the struggle of empires: the rise of Japan as an oceanic power, and the Second World War in the Pacific as a critical moment in world history

Oil-powered ships ushered in the American Age, from 1945 to 2015, bringing the end of the British Pacific France had a continued role, in Tahiti and New Caledonia, but America had become the dominant presence Black explores the political, economic and cultural impacts of, for example, Polynesians attending universities in America and Australasia; the spread of rugby; and relatively little international tension, although some domestic pressures remained, including instability in Papua New Guinea and Fiji

The book ends with a look at the Pacific's future: pressures from industrial fishing, pollution and climate change; the rise of drug smuggling; greater Chinese influence leading to conflict with America and Australasia - the Pacific is once again on the frontline of military planning But the Pacific's future also includes tourism, from Acapulco to Hawaii, and from Tahiti to Cairns.
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Machineries of Oil

Katayoun Shafiee

MIT Press , 2023 • 359 pages

The emergence of the international oil corporation as a political actor in the twentieth century, seen in BP's infrastructure and information arrangements in Iran In the early twentieth century, international oil corporations emerged as a new kind of political actor The development of the world oil industry, argues Katayoun Shafiee, was one of the era's largest political projects of techno-economic development

In this book, Shafiee maps the machinery of oil operations in the Anglo-Iranian oil industry between 1901 and 1954, tracking the organizational work involved in moving oil through a variety of technical, legal, scientific, and administrative networks She shows that, in a series of disagreements, the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC, which later became BP) relied on various forms of information management to transform political disputes into techno-economic calculation, guaranteeing the company complete control over profits, labor, and production regimes

She argues that the building of alliances and connections that constituted Anglo-Iranian oil's infrastructure reconfigured local politics of oil regions and examines how these arrangements in turn shaped the emergence of both nation-state and transnational oil corporation Drawing on her extensive archival and field research in Iran, Shafiee investigates the surprising ways in which nature, technology, and politics came together in battles over mineral rights; standardizing petroleum expertise; formulas for calculating profits, production rates, and labor; the “Persianization” of employees; nationalism and oil nationalization; and the long-distance machinery of an international corporation

Her account shows that the politics of oil cannot be understood in isolation from its technical dimensions The open access edition of this book was made possible by generous funding from Knowledge Unlatched.
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The Global Japanese Restaurant

James Farrer, David Wank

University of Hawaii Press , 2023 • 261 pages

"With more than 120,000 Japanese restaurants around the world, Japanese cuisine has become truly global Through the transnational culinary mobilities of migrant entrepreneurs, workers, ideas and capital, Japanese cuisine spread and adapted to international tastes But this expansion is also entangled in culinary politics, ranging from authenticity claims and status competition among restaurateurs and consumers to societal racism, immigration policies, and soft power politics that have shaped the transmission and transformation of Japanese cuisine

Such politics has involved appropriation, oppression, but also cooperation across ethnic lines Ultimately, the restaurant is a continually reinvented imaginary of Japan represented in concrete form to consumers by restaurateurs, cooks, and servers of varied nationalities and ethnicities who act as cultural intermediaries The Global Japanese Restaurant: Mobilities, Imaginaries, and Politics uses an innovative global perspective and rich ethnographic data on six continents to fashion a comprehensive account of the creation and reception of the "global Japanese restaurant" in the modern world

Drawing heavily on untapped primary sources in multiple languages, this book centers on the stories of Japanese migrants in the first half of the twentieth century, and then on non-Japanese chefs and restaurateurs from Asia, Africa, Europe, Australasia, and the Americas whose mobilities, since the mid-1900s, who have been reshaping and spreading Japanese cuisine The narrative covers a century and a half of transnational mobilities, global imaginaries, and culinary politics at different scales

It shifts the spotlight of Japanese culinary globalization from the "West" to refocus the story on Japan's East Asian neighbors and highlights the growing role of non-Japanese actors (chefs, restaurateurs, suppliers, corporations, service staff) since the 1980s These essays explore restaurants as social spaces, creating a readable and compelling history that makes original contributions to Japan studies, food studies, and global studies The transdisciplinary framework will be a pioneering model for combining fieldwork and archival research to analyze the complexities of culinary globalization"--

Shaking the Skies: The Untold Story of Change in Aviation Since 9/11And the Biggest Turnaround of an International Organisation in Histor

Giovanni Bisignani

2013

This book is about change, about its challenges, and the talent necessary to drive it through Specifically, it is about transforming the world's most important and event-shaping industry--aviation Giovanni Bisignani became director general of IATA (International Air Transport Association) in June 2002, just after 9/11, which created one of the greatest threats ever to the aviation industry

IATA is the central body of the world's airlines, responsible for its financial ($300 billion/year) clearing system, ticketing, government lobbying, passenger safety policies, landing rights, and the future of commercial flying During his ten years as director general, Bisignani implemented and oversaw enormous and controversial changes in aviation This book is the inside story of the struggle for survival in one of the world's most dynamic industries."--
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Combat-Ready Kitchen

Anastacia Marx de Salcedo

Penguin , 2015 • 306 pages

Americans eat more processed foods than anyone else in the world We also spend more on military research These two seemingly unrelated facts are inextricably linked If you ever wondered how ready-to-eat foods infiltrated your kitchen, you’ll love this entertaining romp through the secret military history of practically everything you buy at the supermarket

In a nondescript Boston suburb, in a handful of low buildings buffered by trees and a lake, a group of men and women spend their days researching, testing, tasting, and producing the foods that form the bedrock of the American diet If you stumbled into the facility, you might think the technicians dressed in lab coats and the shiny kitchen equipment belonged to one of the giant food conglomerates responsible for your favorite brand of frozen pizza or microwavable breakfast burritos

So you’d be surprised to learn that you’ve just entered the U.S Army Natick Soldier Systems Center, ground zero for the processed food industry Ever since Napoleon, armies have sought better ways to preserve, store, and transport food for battle As part of this quest, although most people don’t realize it, the U.S. military spearheaded the invention of energy bars, restructured meat, extended-life bread, instant coffee, and much more

But there’s been an insidious mission creep: because the military enlisted industry—huge corporations such as ADM, ConAgra, General Mills, Hershey, Hormel, Mars, Nabisco, Reynolds, Smithfield, Swift, Tyson, and Unilever—to help develop and manufacture food for soldiers on the front line, over the years combat rations, or the key technologies used in engineering them, have ended up dominating grocery store shelves and refrigerator cases TV dinners, the cheese powder in snack foods, cling wrap . .

The list is almost endless Now food writer Anastacia Marx de Salcedo scrutinizes the world of processed food and its long relationship with the military—unveiling the twists, turns, successes, failures, and products that have found their way from the armed forces’ and contractors’ laboratories into our kitchens In developing these rations, the army was looking for some of the very same qualities as we do in our hectic, fast-paced twenty-first-century lives: portability, ease of preparation, extended shelf life at room temperature, affordability, and appeal to even the least adventurous eaters

In other words, the military has us chowing down like special ops What is the effect of such a diet, eaten—as it is by soldiers and most consumers—day in and day out, year after year We don’t really know We’re the guinea pigs in a giant public health experiment, one in which science and technology, at the beck and call of the military, have taken over our kitchens.
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Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia

Max Hirsh, Till Mostowlansky

University of Hawaii Press , 2022 • 265 pages

In the twenty-first century, infrastructure has undergone a seismic shift from West to East Once concentrated in Europe and North America, global infrastructure production today is focused squarely on Asia Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia investigates the deeper implications of that pivot to the East

Written by leading international infrastructure experts, it demonstrates how new roads, airports, pipelines, and cables are changing Asian economies, societies, and geopolitics—from the Bosporus to Beijing, and from Indonesia to the Arctic Ten tightly interwoven case studies powerfully illustrate infrastructure’s leading role in three global paradigm shifts: climate change, digitalization, and China’s emergence as a superpower Combining social science methods with mapping techniques from the design professions, Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia establishes a dialogue between academic research on infrastructure and the professional insights of those responsible for infrastructure’s planning, production, and operation

By applying that mixed method to transport, energy, telecommunication, and resource extraction projects across Asia, the book synthesizes research on infrastructure from six academic fields, while making those insights accessible to a wider audience of students, professionals, and the general public For links to the open-access PDF and EPUB editions, chapter downloads, and detailed information, visit the project website: https://infrastructureasia.net/.
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Fragrant Frontier

Sarah Turner, Annuska Derks, Jean-François Rousseau

2022

Fragrant Frontiers is an ethnographically rich study that demystifies the contemporary spice trade originating from the Sino-Vietnamese uplands. .. The volume investigates the livelihoods of the ethnic minority farmers cultivating these spices across this mountainours frontier"--Back cover.
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From Free Port to Modern Economy

Chet Singh, Rajah Rasiah, Yee Tuan Wong

Iseas - Yusof Ishak Institute , 2019

The 1950s saw Lim Chong Eu taking an increasingly central role in Malayan politics, moving from the exhilarating preparation for independence to him losing political influence by the end of the decade The following decade saw him trying to revive his political fortunes, and finally succeeding at the ballot box in 1969 Becoming the Chief Minister of Penang State--retreating from national politics, as it were--provided him with the platform from which he would excel as nation builder and political leader

In the process, he contributed decisively to the industrialisation, not only of Penang but also of Malaysia as a whole This collection of articles tells the story of how the declining fortunes of the port of Penang was turned around through daring and forceful leadership into the industrialised society that it is today.
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Nuclear War

Annie Jacobsen

Penguin , 2024 • 401 pages

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.
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How China Works

Xiaohuan Lan

Palgrave Macmillan , 2024

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.
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Balkan Cyberia

Victor Petrov

MIT Press , 2023 • 425 pages

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.
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Liberalism Disavowed

Beng Huat Chua

Cornell University Press , 2017 • 228 pages

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.
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The Limits of Social Democracy

Jonas Pontusson

1992 • 282 pages

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
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Reforming to Survive

Magnus B. Rasmussen, Carl Henrik Knutsen

Cambridge University Press , 2023 • 145 pages

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.
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You Are All Sanpaku

Sakurazawa Nyoiti, Georges Ohsawa

Lyle Stuart , 1980 • 224 pages

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
Money cover

Money

David McWilliams

Simon and Schuster , 2024 • 269 pages

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.
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China and the New Maoists

Kerry Brown, Simone van Nieuwenhuizen

Bloomsbury Publishing , 2016 • 200 pages

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.
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The Hamlet Fire

Bryant Simon

UNC Press Books , 2020 • 320 pages

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.
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Creating the Twentieth Century

Vaclav Smil

Oxford University Press , 2005 • 361 pages

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.
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Down with the System

Serj Tankian

Hachette Books , 2024 • 304 pages

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.
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Making Sense of Chaos

J Doyne Farmer

Yale University Press , 2024 • 385 pages

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.
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The Freeze-Frame Revolution

Peter Watts

Tachyon Publications , 2018 • 140 pages

“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.
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Under the Nuclear Shadow

FIONA S. CUNNINGHAM

Princeton University Press , 2024

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.
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From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, 1965-2000

Lee Kuan Yew

Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd , 2012 • 633 pages

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.”
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Equity Management: The Art and Science of Modern Quantitative Investing, Second Edition

Bruce I. Jacobs, Kenneth N. Levy

McGraw Hill Professional , 2016 • 897 pages

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.
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Advances in Active Portfolio Management: New Developments in Quantitative Investing

Richard C. Grinold, Ronald N. Kahn

McGraw Hill Professional , 2019 • 666 pages

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.
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A History of Interest Rates

Sidney Homer

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press , 1977 • 640 pages

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.
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Militarism and the Indo-Europeanizing of Europe

Robert Drews

Taylor & Francis , 2017 • 295 pages

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.
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Derivative Media

Andrew deWaard

Univ of California Press , 2024 • 300 pages

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.
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Huey Long

Thomas Harry Williams

1969 • 958 pages

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.
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Darfur

Millard Burr, Robert O. Collins

2008 • 380 pages

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
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Who Gets What--and why

Alvin E. Roth

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt , 2015 • 275 pages

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.
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Strategic Computing

Alex Roland, Philip Shiman

MIT Press , 2002 • 478 pages

The story of the U.S Department of Defense's extraordinary effort, in the period from 1983 to 1993, to achieve machine intelligence.
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Shattered

Jonathan Allen, Amie Parnes

Crown , 2018 • 498 pages

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.
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The World Turned Upside Down

Christopher Hill

Penguin Press , 2019 • 448 pages

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.
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Plastic Capitalism

Sean H. Vanatta

Yale University Press , 2024 • 412 pages

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.
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The Belt and Road City

Simon Curtis, Ian Klaus

Yale University Press , 2024 • 275 pages

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.
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Chinese Workers of the World

Selda Altan

Stanford University Press , 2024 • 312 pages

Chinese workers helped build the modern world They labored on New World plantations, worked in South African mines, and toiled through the construction of the Panama Canal, among many other projects While most investigations of Chinese workers focus on migrant labor, Chinese Workers of the World explores Chinese labor under colonial regimes within China thorough examination of the Yunnan-Indochina Railway, constructed between 1898–1910

The Yunnan railway—a French investment in imperial China during the age of "railroad colonialism"—connected French-colonized Indochina to Chinese markets with a promise of cross-border trade in tin, silk, tea, and opium However, this ambitious project resulted in fiasco Thousands of Chinese workers died during the horrid construction process, and costs exceeded original estimates by 74%

Drawing on Chinese, French, and British archival accounts of day-to-day worker struggles and labor conflicts along the railway, Selda Altan argues that long before the Chinese Communist Party defined Chinese workers as the vanguard of a revolutionary movement in the 1920s, the modern figure of the Chinese worker was born in the crosscurrents of empire and nation in the late nineteenth century Yunnan railway workers contested the conditions of their employment with the knowledge of a globalizing capitalist market, fundamentally reshaping Chinese ideas of free labor, national sovereignty, and regional leadership in East and Southeast Asia.
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Atomic Steppe

Togzhan Kassenova

Stanford University Press , 2022 • 490 pages

Atomic Steppe tells the untold true story of how the obscure country of Kazakhstan said no to the most powerful weapons in human history With the fall of the Soviet Union, the marginalized Central Asian republic suddenly found itself with the world's fourth largest nuclear arsenal on its territory Would it give up these fire-ready weapons—or try to become a Central Asian North Korea

This book takes us inside Kazakhstan's extraordinary and little-known nuclear history from the Soviet period to the present For Soviet officials, Kazakhstan's steppe was not an ecological marvel or beloved homeland, but an empty patch of dirt ideal for nuclear testing Two-headed lambs were just the beginning of the resulting public health disaster for Kazakhstan—compounded, when the Soviet Union collapsed, by the daunting burden of becoming an overnight nuclear power

Equipped with intimate personal perspective and untapped archival resources, Togzhan Kassenova introduces us to the engineers turned diplomats, villagers turned activists, and scientists turned pacifists who worked toward disarmament With thousands of nuclear weapons still present around the world, the story of how Kazakhs gave up their nuclear inheritance holds urgent lessons for global security.
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China's Camel Country

Thomas White

University of Washington Press , 2024 • 266 pages

How animal conservation became a defense against cultural erasure China today positions itself as a model of state-led environmentalism On the country’s arid rangelands, grassland conservation policies have targeted pastoralists and their animals, blamed for causing desertification State environmentalism—in the form of grazing bans, enclosure, and resettlement—has transformed the lives of many ethnic minority herders in China’s western borderlands

However, this book shows how such policies have been contested and negotiated on the ground, in the context of the state’s intensifying nation-building project Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Alasha, in the far west of China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Thomas White describes how ethnic Mongols have foregrounded the local breed of Bactrian camel, mobilizing ideas of heritage and resource conservation to defend pastoralism In exploring how the greening of the Chinese state affects the entangled lives of humans and animals at the margins of the nation-state, this study is both a political biography of the Bactrian camel and an innovative work of political ecology addressing critical questions of rural livelihoods, conservation, and state power.
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A Sacred Space Is Never Empty

Victoria Smolkin

Princeton University Press , 2019 • 360 pages

When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off Soviet power used a variety of tools--from education to propaganda to terror—to turn its vision of a Communist world without religion into reality Yet even with its monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet Communist Party never succeeded in overcoming religion and creating an atheist society

A Sacred Space Is Never Empty presents the first history of Soviet atheism from the 1917 revolution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 Drawing on a wealth of archival material and in-depth interviews with those who were on the front lines of Communist ideological campaigns, Victoria Smolkin argues that to understand the Soviet experiment, we must make sense of Soviet atheism Smolkin shows how atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments

Through its engagements with religion, the Soviet leadership realized that removing religion from the "sacred spaces" of Soviet life was not enough Then, in the final years of the Soviet experiment, Mikhail Gorbachev—in a stunning and unexpected reversal—abandoned atheism and reintroduced religion into Soviet public life A Sacred Space Is Never Empty explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, for Communist ideology, and for Soviet politics.
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George Soros

Kaoru Kurotani

John Wiley & Sons , 2006 • 202 pages

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.
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Lenin

Victor Sebestyen

Vintage , 2017 • 675 pages

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)
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Lenin

Lars T. Lih

Reaktion Books , 2012 • 238 pages

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.
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To the Finland Station

Edmund Wilson

Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2019 • 608 pages

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.
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Memoirs Found in a Bathtub

Stanislaw Lem

HMH , 2012 • 199 pages

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
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At Amberleaf Fair

Phyllis Ann Karr

Wildside Press LLC , 2013 • 222 pages

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!
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Orbital

Samantha Harvey

Grove Press , 2023 • 123 pages

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.
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Spies and Commissars

Robert Service

Pan Macmillan , 2011 • 400 pages

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.
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Albion's Fatal Tree

Douglas Hay

Pantheon , 1975 • 376 pages

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.
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Blood in the Machine

Brian Merchant

Little, Brown , 2023 • 545 pages

"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.
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2666

Roberto Bolaño

Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2013 • 1053 pages

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.
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The Ministry of Time

Kaliane Bradley

Simon and Schuster , 2024 • 352 pages

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.
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The Prophet Unarmed

Isaac Deutscher

Verso , 2003 • 470 pages

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.
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The Prophet Outcast

Isaac Deutscher

Verso , 2003 • 510 pages

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.
The Prophet Armed cover

The Prophet Armed

Isaac Deutscher

Verso , 2003 • 520 pages

This first volume of the trilogy traces Trotsky's political development.
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A Fistful of Shells

Toby Green

Penguin UK , 2019 • 514 pages

Winner of the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding 2019 Shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize and the Pius Adesanmi Memorial Award 'Astonishing, staggering' Ben Okri, Daily Telegraph A groundbreaking new history that will transform our view of West Africa By the time of the 'Scramble for Africa' in the late nineteenth century, Africa had already been globally connected for many centuries Its gold had fuelled the economies of Europe and Islamic world since around 1000, and its sophisticated kingdoms had traded with Europeans along the coasts from Senegal down to Angola since the fifteenth century

Until at least 1650, this was a trade of equals, using a variety of currencies - most importantly shells: the cowrie shells imported from the Maldives, and the nzimbu shells imported from Brazil Toby Green's groundbreaking new book transforms our view of West and West-Central Africa It reconstructs the world of kingdoms whose existence (like those of Europe) revolved around warfare, taxation, trade, diplomacy, complex religious beliefs, royal display and extravagance, and the production of art

Over time, the relationship between Africa and Europe revolved ever more around the trade in slaves, damaging Africa's relative political and economic power as the terms of monetary exchange shifted drastically in Europe's favour In spite of these growing capital imbalances, longstanding contacts ensured remarkable connections between the Age of Revolution in Europe and America and the birth of a revolutionary nineteenth century in Africa A Fistful of Shells draws not just on written histories, but on archival research in nine countries, on art, praise-singers, oral history, archaeology, letters, and the author's personal experience to create a new perspective on the history of one of the world's most important regions.
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Triumph of the Yuppies

Tom McGrath

Grand Central Publishing , 2024 • 327 pages

The “entertaining and insightful” first history of the Yuppie phenomenon, chronicling the roots, rise, triumph and (seeming) fall of the young urban professionals who radically altered American life between 1980 and 1987 (New York Times bestselling author Ben Mezrich) By the time their obituary was being written in the late 1980s, Yuppies—the elite, uber‑educated faction of the Baby Boom generation—had become a cultural punchline But amidst the Yuppies' preoccupation with money, work, and the latest status symbols, something serious was happening, too, something that continues to have profound ramifications on American culture four decades later

Brimming with lively and nostalgic details (think Jane Fonda, The Sharper Image, and over-the-top fashion), Triumph of the Yuppies charts Boomers' transformation from hippy idealists in the late 1960s to careerists in the early 1980s, and details how marketers, the media, and politicians pivoted to appeal to this influential new group Yuppie values had an undeniable impact on the worlds of fashion, food, and fitness, as well as affecting the broader culture—from gentrification and an obsession with career success to an indulgent materialism

Most significantly, the me‑first mindset typical of Yuppieness helped create the largest income inequality in a century Tom McGrath’s masterful cultural history reveals how Yuppies reshaped American society It is a portrait of America just as it was beginning to come apart—and the origin story of the fractured country we live in today.
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Choosing Terror

Marisa Linton

OUP Oxford , 2013 • 334 pages

Examines the leaders of the French Revolution - Robespierre and his fellow Jacobins - and particularly the gradual process whereby many of them came to 'choose terror', evolving from humanitarian idealists into ruthless politicians, ready to adopt the use of terror to defend the Revolution.
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The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution

Timothy Tackett

Harvard University Press , 2015 • 476 pages

Between 1793 and 1794, thousands of French citizens were imprisoned and hundreds sent to the guillotine by a powerful dictatorship that claimed to be acting in the public interest Only a few years earlier, revolutionaries had proclaimed a new era of tolerance, equal justice, and human rights How and why did the French Revolution’s lofty ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity descend into violence and terror? “By attending to the role of emotions in propelling the Terror, Tackett steers a more nuanced course than many previous historians have managed...Imagined terrors, as...Tackett very usefully reminds us, can have even more political potency than real ones.” —David A

Bell, The Atlantic “[Tackett] analyzes the mentalité of those who became ‘terrorists’ in 18th-century France...In emphasizing weakness and uncertainty instead of fanatical strength as the driving force behind the Terror...Tackett...contributes to an important realignment in the study of French history.” —Ruth Scurr, The Spectator “[A] boldly conceived and important book...This is a thought-provoking book that makes a major contribution to our understanding of terror and political intolerance, and also to the history of emotions more generally It helps expose the complexity of a revolution that cannot be adequately understood in terms of principles alone.” —Alan Forrest, Times Literary Supplement
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The Art of Power

Nancy Pelosi

Simon and Schuster , 2024 • 352 pages

The most powerful woman in American political history tells the story of her transformation from housewife to House Speaker—how she became a master legislator, a key partner to presidents, and the most visible leader of the Trump resistance When, at age forty-six, Nancy Pelosi, mother of five, asked her youngest daughter if she should run for Congress, Alexandra Pelosi answered: “Mother, get a life!” And so Nancy did, and what a life it has been In The Art of Power, Pelosi describes for the first time what it takes to make history—not only as the first woman to ascend to the most powerful legislative role in our nation, but to pass laws that would save lives and livelihoods, from the emergency rescue of the economy in 2008 to transforming health care

She describes the perseverance, persuasion, and respect for her members that it took to succeed, but also the joy of seeing America change for the better Among the best-prepared and hardest working Speakers in history, Pelosi worked to find common ground, or stand her ground, with presidents from Bush to Biden She also shares moving moments with soldiers sent to the front lines, women who inspired her, and human rights activists who fought by her side

Pelosi took positions that established her as a prophetic voice on the major moral issues of the day, warning early about the dangers of the Iraq War and of the Chinese government’s long record of misbehavior This moral courage prepared her for the arrival of Trump, with whom she famously tangled, becoming a red-coated symbol of resistance to his destructive presidency Here, she reveals how she went toe-to-toe with Trump, leading up to January 6, 2021, when he unleashed his post-election fury on the Congress

Pelosi gives us her personal account of that day: the assault not only on the symbol of our democracy but on the men and women who had come to serve the nation, never expecting to hide under desks or flee for their lives—and her determined efforts to get the National Guard to the Capitol Nearly two years later, violence and fury would erupt inside Pelosi’s own home when an intruder, demanding to see the Speaker, viciously attacked her beloved husband, Paul

Here, Pelosi shares that horrifying day and the traumatic aftermath for her and her family The woman who has been lauded by her opposition as “the most powerful Speaker” ever shows us why she is not afraid of a good fight The Art of Power is about the fighting spirit that has always animated her, and the historic legacy that spirit has produced.
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Fallen Founder

Nancy Isenberg

Penguin , 2007 • 562 pages

From the author of White Trash and The Problem of Democracy, a controversial challenge to the views of the Founding Fathers offered by Ron Chernow and David McCullough Lin-Manuel Miranda's play "Hamilton" has reignited interest in the founding fathers; and it features Aaron Burr among its vibrant cast of characters With Fallen Founder, Nancy Isenberg plumbs rare and obscure sources to shed new light on everyone's favorite founding villain The Aaron Burr whom we meet through Isenberg's eye-opening biography is a feminist, an Enlightenment figure on par with Jefferson, a patriot, and—most importantly—a man with powerful enemies in an age of vitriolic political fighting Revealing the gritty reality of eighteenth-century America, Fallen Founder is the authoritative restoration of a figure who ran afoul of history and a much-needed antidote to the hagiography of the revolutionary era.
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Benjamin Franklin Butler

Elizabeth D. Leonard

UNC Press Books , 2022 • 393 pages

Benjamin Franklin Butler was one of the most important and controversial military and political leaders of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras Remembered most often for his uncompromising administration of the Federal occupation of New Orleans during the war, Butler reemerges in this lively narrative as a man whose journey took him from childhood destitution to wealth and profound influence in state and national halls of power Prize-winning biographer Elizabeth D

Leonard chronicles Butler's successful career in the law defending the rights of the Lowell Mill girls and other workers, his achievements as one of Abraham Lincoln's premier civilian generals, and his role in developing wartime policy in support of slavery's fugitives as the nation advanced toward emancipation Leonard also highlights Butler's personal and political evolution, revealing how his limited understanding of racism and the horrors of slavery transformed over time, leading him into a postwar role as one of the nation's foremost advocates for Black freedom and civil rights, and one of its notable opponents of white supremacy and neo-Confederate resurgence Butler himself claimed he was "always with the underdog in the fight." Leonard's nuanced portrait will help readers assess such claims, peeling away generations of previous assumptions and characterizations to provide a definitive life of a consequential man.
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The Landmark Herodotus

Herodotus

Vintage , 2009 • 1026 pages

“The most densely annotated, richly illustrated, and user friendly edition” of the greatest classical work of history ever written (Daniel Mendelsohn, The New Yorker)—from the editor of the widely praised The Landmark Thucydides Cicero called Herodotus "the father of history," and his only work, The Histories, is considered the first true piece of historical writing in Western literature With lucid prose, Herodotus's account of the rise of the Persian Empire and its dramatic war with the Greek city sates set a standard for narrative nonfiction that continues to this day

Illustrated, annotated, and filled with maps—with an introduction by Rosalind Thomas, twenty-one appendices written by scholars at the top of their fields, and a new translation by Andrea L Purvis—The Landmark Herodotus is a stunning edition.
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Three who Made a Revolution

Bertram David Wolfe

Rowman & Littlefield , 2001 • 690 pages

This monumental triple biography weaves together the personal and public lives of the triumvirate behind the 1917 Russian Revolution, the creation of totalitarian Soviet state, and the repression and extermination of millions.
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The Dispossessed

Ursula K. Le Guin

Turtleback Books , 2001

A brilliant physicist attempts to salvage his planet of anarchy.
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Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Philip K. Dick

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt , 2012 • 259 pages

Altered reality, genetic enhancement and drugs combine to create one of the most popular and enduring science fiction novels from award-winning novelist Philip K Dick.
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The Affirmative Action Empire

Terry Dean Martin

Cornell University Press , 2001 • 532 pages

This text provides a survey of the Soviet management of the nationalities question It traces the conflicts and tensions created by the geographic definition of national territories, the establishment of several official national languages and the world's first mass "affirmative action" programmes.
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Ecological States

Jesse Rodenbiker

Cornell University Press , 2023 • 233 pages

Ecological States critically examines ecological policies in the People's Republic of China to show how campaigns of scientifically based environmental protection transform nature and society While many point to China's ecological civilization programs as a new paradigm for global environmental governance, Jesse Rodenbiker argues that ecological redlining extends the reach of the authoritarian state Although Chinese urban sustainability initiatives have driven millions of citizens from their land and housing, Rodenbiker shows that these migrants are not passive subjects of state policy

Instead, they creatively navigate resettlement processes in pursuit of their own benefit However, their resistance is limited by varied forms of state-backed infrastructural violence Through extensive fieldwork with scientists, urban planners, and everyday citizens in southwestern China, Ecological States exposes the ways in which the scientific logics and practices fundamental to China's green urbanization have solidified state power and contributed to dispossession and social inequality With support from the Henry Luce Foundation, our goal is to produce all titles in this series both in Open Access, for reasons of global accessibility and equity, as well as in print editions.
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A World History of Rail

Jeremy Black

Amberley Publishing Limited , 2023 • 321 pages

Is it possible to overestimate the impact of the railway in history Jeremy Black analyses that impact from the beginning to today And of course it's not all a triumph The network of the Congo today operates on three gauges run by separate companies; and a lot of it doesn't work.
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Locusts of Power

Samuel Dolbee

Cambridge University Press , 2023 • 335 pages

New environmental history of borders and empire in the Middle East that centers locusts and people in motion from c1858–1939.
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The Unaccountability Machine

Dan Davies

Profile Books , 2024 • 160 pages

Entertaining, insightful ... compelling' Financial Times 'A corporation, or a government department isn't a conscious being, but it is an artificial intelligence It has the capability to take decisions which are completely distinct from the intentions of any of the people who compose it And under stressful conditions, it can go stark raving mad.' When we avoid taking a decision, what happens to it

In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies examines why markets, institutions and even governments systematically generate outcomes that everyone involved claims not to want He casts new light on the writing of Stafford Beer, a legendary economist who argued in the 1950s that we should regard organisations as artificial intelligences, capable of taking decisions that are distinct from the intentions of their members Management cybernetics was Beer's science of applying self-regulation in organisational settings, but it was largely ignored - with the result being the political and economic crises that that we see today With his signature blend of cynicism and journalistic rigour, Davies looks at what's gone wrong, and what might have been, had the world listened to Stafford Beer when it had the chance.
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American Prometheus

Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin

Atlantic Books , 2021 • 667 pages

THE INSPIRATION FOR CHRISTOPHER NOLAN'S NEW FILM OPPENHEIMER*** WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR NONFICTION 'Reads like a thriller, gripping and terrifying' Sunday Times Physicist and polymath, as familiar with Hindu scriptures as he was with quantum mechanics, J Robert Oppenheimer - director of the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb - was the most famous scientist of his generation In their meticulous and riveting biography, Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin reveal a brilliant, ambitious, complex and flawed man, profoundly involved with some of the momentous events of the twentieth century.
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Age Of Revolution: 1789-1848

Eric Hobsbawm

Weidenfeld & Nicolson , 2010 • 419 pages

The first in Eric Hobsbawm's dazzling trilogy on the history of the nineteenth century Between 1789 and 1848 the world was transformed both by the French Revolution and also by the Industrial Revolution that originated in Britain This 'Dual Revolution' created the modern world as we know it Eric Hobsbawm traces with brilliant analytical clarity the transformation brought about in every sphere of European life by the Dual Revolution - in the conduct of war and diplomacy; in new industrial areas and on the land; among peasantry, bourgeoisie and aristocracy; in methods of government and of revolution; in science, philosophy and religion; in literature and the arts

But above all he sees this as the period when industrial capitalism established the domination over the rest of the world it was to hold for a century Eric Hobsbawm's enthralling and original account is an impassioned but objective history of the most significant sixty years in the history of Europe.
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Age Of Empire: 1875-1914

Eric Hobsbawm

Weidenfeld & Nicolson , 2010 • 400 pages

THE AGE OF EMPIRE is a book about the strange death of the nineteenth century, the world made by and for liberal middle classes in the name of universal progress and civilisation It is about hopes realised which turned into fears: an era of unparalleled peace engendering an era of unparalleled war; revolt and revolution emerging on the outskirts of society; a time of profound identity crisis for bourgeois classes, among new and sudden mass labour movements which rejected capitalism and new middle classes which rejected liberalism

It is about world empires built and held with almost contemptuous ease by small bodies of Europeans which were to last barely a human lifetime, and a European domination of world history, which was never more confident than at the moment it was about to disappear for ever It is about Queen Victoria, Madame Curie and the Kodak Girl, and the novel social world of cloth caps, golf clubs and brassieres, about Nietzsche, Carnegie, William Morris and Dreyfus, about politically ineffective terrorists, one of whom, to his and everyone's surprise, started a world war With the AGE OF EMPIRE, Eric Hobsbawm, Britain's leading historian of the left, brings to a dazzling climax his brilliant interpretative history of 'the long nineteenth century'.
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Age Of Capital: 1848-1875

Eric Hobsbawm

Weidenfeld & Nicolson , 2010 • 400 pages

A magisterial account of the rise of capitalism Eric Hobsbawm's magnificent treatment of the crucial years 1848-1875 is a penetrating analysis of the rise of capitalism and the consolidation of bourgeois culture In the 1860s a new word entered the economic and political vocabulary of the world: 'capitalism' The global triumph of capitalism is the major theme of history in the decades after 1848

The extension of capitalist economy to four corners of the globe, the mounting concentration of wealth, the migration of men, the domination of Europe and European culture made the third quarter of the nineteenth century a watershed This is a history not only of Europe but of the world Eric Hobsbawm's intention is not to summarise facts, but to draw facts together into a historical synthesis, to 'make sense of' the period, and to trace the roots of the present world back to it He integrates economics with political and intellectual developments in this objective yet original account of revolution and the failure of revolution, of the cycles of boom and slump that characterise capitalist economies, of the victims and victors of the bourgeois ethos.
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A Man in Full

Tom Wolfe

Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2010 • 756 pages

The Bonfire of the Vanities defined an era--and established Tom Wolfe as our prime fictional chronicler of America at its most outrageous and alive With A Man in Full, the time the setting is Atlanta, Georgia--a racially mixed late-century boomtown full of fresh wealth, avid speculators, and worldly-wise politicians Big men

Big money Big games Big libidos Big trouble The protagonist is Charles Croker, once a college football star, now a late-middle-aged Atlanta real-estate entrepreneur turned conglomerate king, whose expansionist ambitions and outsize ego have at last hit up against reality

Charlie has a 28,000-acre quail-shooting plantation, a young and demanding second wife--and a half-empty office tower with a staggering load of debt When star running back Fareek Fanon--the pride of one of Atlanta's grimmest slums--is accused of raping an Atlanta blueblood's daughter, the city's delicate racial balance is shattered overnight Networks of illegal Asian immigrants crisscrossing the continent, daily life behind bars, shady real-estate syndicates, cast-off first wives of the corporate elite, the racially charged politics of college sports--Wolfe shows us the disparate worlds of contemporary America with all the verve, wit, and insight that have made him our most phenomenal, most admired contemporary novelist A Man in Full is a 1998 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.
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A Failed Empire

Vladislav M. Zubok

Univ of North Carolina Press , 2009 • 504 pages

In this widely praised book, Vladislav Zubok argues that Western interpretations of the Cold War have erred by exaggerating either the Kremlin's pragmatism or its aggressiveness Explaining the interests, aspirations, illusions, fears, and misperceptions of the Kremlin leaders and Soviet elites, Zubok offers a Soviet perspective on the greatest standoff of the twentieth century

Using recently declassified Politburo records, ciphered telegrams, diaries, and taped conversations, among other sources, Zubok offers the first work in English to cover the entire Cold War from the Soviet side A Failed Empire provides a history quite different from those written by the Western victors In a new preface for this edition, the author adds to our understanding of today's events in Russia, including who the new players are and how their policies will affect the state of the world in the twenty-first century.
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A City on Mars

Kelly Weinersmith, Zach Weinersmith

Penguin , 2023 • 449 pages

* THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Scientific American’s #1 Book for 2023 * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * A Times Best Science and Environment Book of 2023 * “Exceptional. . Forceful, engaging and funny . . This book will make you happy to live on this planet — a good thing, because you’re not leaving anytime soon.” —New York Times Book Review From the bestselling authors of Soonish, a brilliant and hilarious off-world investigation into space settlement Earth is not well

The promise of starting life anew somewhere far, far away—no climate change, no war, no Twitter—beckons, and settling the stars finally seems within our grasp Or is it Critically acclaimed, bestselling authors Kelly and Zach Weinersmith set out to write the essential guide to a glorious future of space settlements, but after years of research, they aren’t so sure it’s a good idea

Space technologies and space business are progressing fast, but we lack the knowledge needed to have space kids, build space farms, and create space nations in a way that doesn’t spark conflict back home In a world hurtling toward human expansion into space, A City on Mars investigates whether the dream of new worlds won’t create nightmares, both for settlers and the people they leave behind In the process, the Weinersmiths answer every question about space you’ve ever wondered about, and many you’ve never considered: Can you make babies in space

Should corporations govern space settlements What about space war Are we headed for a housing crisis on the Moon’s Peaks of Eternal Light—and what happens if you’re left in the Craters of Eternal Darkness Why do astronauts love taco sauce

Speaking of meals, what’s the legal status of space cannibalism With deep expertise, a winning sense of humor, and art from the beloved creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, the Weinersmiths investigate perhaps the biggest questions humanity will ever ask itself—whether and how to become multiplanetary Get in, we’re going to Mars.
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The Soviet Union and the Construction of the Global Market

Oscar Sanchez-Sibony

Cambridge University Press , 2023 • 259 pages

Tells the story of how the Soviet Union helped bring about the financialized world of capital we live in today.
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Treasury's War

Juan Zarate

PublicAffairs , 2013 • 265 pages

For more than a decade, America has been waging a new kind of war against the financial networks of rogue regimes, proliferators, terrorist groups, and criminal syndicates Juan Zarate, a chief architect of modern financial warfare and a former senior Treasury and White House official, pulls back the curtain on this shadowy world In this gripping story, he explains in unprecedented detail how a small, dedicated group of officials redefined the Treasury's role and used its unique powers, relationships, and reputation to apply financial pressure against America's enemies

This group unleashed a new brand of financial power -- one that leveraged the private sector and banks directly to isolate rogues from the international financial system By harnessing the forces of globalization and the centrality of the American market and dollar, Treasury developed a new way of undermining America's foes Treasury and its tools soon became, and remain, critical in the most vital geopolitical challenges facing the United States, including terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and the regimes in Iran, North Korea, and Syria

This book is the definitive account, by an unparalleled expert, of how financial warfare has taken pride of place in American foreign policy and how America's competitors and enemies are now learning to use this type of power themselves This is the unique story of the United States' financial war campaigns and the contours and uses of financial power, and of the warfare to come.
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Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA

Phillip Charles Saunders, Arthur S. Ding, Andrew Scobell, Andrew N. D. Yang, Joel Wuthnow

2019 • 784 pages

Integral to Xi Jinping's vision of restoring China to greatness--what he defines as the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" [zhonghua minzu weida fuxing, 中华民族伟大复兴]--is building a more modern, capable, and disciplined military China's economic development, territorial integrity, and even the survival of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself cannot be guaranteed without an army that can fight and prevail in modern warfare Articulating the need for a stronger military, Xi and his colleagues have reflected on periods of Chinese weakness, such as the era of imperial decline in the late 19th century and the Japanese occupation in the 1930s and 1940s

In Xi's words, a "nation's backwardness in military affairs has a profound influence on a nation's security I often peruse the annals of modern Chinese history and feel heartbroken at the tragic scenes of us being beaten because of our ineptitude." Such humiliations, in his view, should never be repeated.Xi's ambition to reshape and modernize the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been apparent from his early days as CCP general secretary and Central Military Commission (CMC) chairman

At the third plenum of the 18th Party Congress, held in October 2013, Xi and other Party elites declared their intention to overhaul the military's command structure, update its training and logistics systems, adjust the size and composition of the services, unveil new rules and regulations governing military personnel, and strengthen civil-military cooperation in technological development and other areas.2 In early 2014, Xi assumed leadership of a leading group on military reform, symbolizing his central role in the process At the group's first meeting, Xi declared that "national defense and military reform are an important part and an important symbol of China's overall reform," noting that the overriding goal was to produce a military that can "fight and win battles."
On China cover

On China

Henry Kissinger

Penguin Canada , 2011 • 793 pages

In his new book on China, Henry Kissinger turns for the first time at book-length to the country he has known intimately for decades, and whose modern relations with the West he helped shape Drawing on historical records as well as his conversations with Chinese leaders over the past forty years, Kissinger examines how China has approached diplomacy, strategy, and negotiation throughout its history, and reflects on the consequences for the 21st-century world

As Kissinger underscores, the unique conditions under which China developed continue to shape its policies and attitudes toward the outside world For millennia, China rarely encountered other societies of comparable size and sophistication China was the "Middle Kingdom," treating the peoples on its periphery as vassal states

At the same time, Chinese statesmen—facing threats of invasion from without, and the contests of competing factions within—developed a canon of strategic thought that emphasized long-term structural advantage rather than zero-sum absolute victory, and that prized the virtues of subtlety, patience, and indirection over feats of martial prowess With the enduring institutions of Chinese statecraft and civilization clearly in mind, Kissinger's book on China examines key episodes in Chinese foreign policy from the earliest days through the 20th century, with a particular emphasis on the modern era

Kissinger illuminates the inner workings of Chinese diplomacy during such events as the initial encounters between China and modern European powers, the formation and breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance, the Korean War, the opening of relations with the United States, the Tiananmen Square crackdown, and China's accession to the World Trade Organization Drawing on both historical records and personal experience, Kissinger traces the evolution of Sino-American relations in the past sixty years, following their course from estrangement, to strategic partnership, and toward an uncertain future

He analyzes the two towering figures of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, and their divergent visions of China's modern destiny With a final chapter on the future of Sino-American relations and China's 21st-century world role, Kissinger's book on China provides a sweeping historical perspective on Chinese foreign policy from one of the premier statesmen of the 20th century.
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Twilight of the Idols

Friedrich Nietzsche

Hackett Publishing , 1997 • 130 pages

Twilight of the Idols presents a vivid, compressed overview of many of Nietzsche’s mature ideas, including his attack on Plato’s Socrates and on the Platonic legacy in Western philosophy and culture Polt provides a trustworthy rendering of Nietzsche’s text in contemporary American English, complete with notes prepared by the translator and Tracy Strong An authoritative Introduction by Strong makes this an outstanding edition Select Bibliography and Index.
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Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West

William Cronon

W. W. Norton & Company , 2009 • 590 pages

A Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Winner of the Bancroft Prize. "No one has written a better book about a city…Nature's Metropolis is elegant testimony to the proposition that economic, urban, environmental, and business history can be as graceful, powerful, and fascinating as a novel." —Kenneth T Jackson, Boston Globe
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Plunder

Brendan Ballou

PublicAffairs , 2023 • 341 pages

The authoritative exposé of private equity: what it is, how it kills businesses and jobs, how the government helps, and how we stop it Private equity surrounds us Firms like Blackstone, Carlyle, and KKR are among the largest employers in America and hold assets that rival those of small countries Yet few understand what these firms are or how they work

In Plunder, Brendan Ballou explains how private equity has reshaped American business by raising prices, reducing quality, cutting jobs, and shifting resources from productive to unproductive parts of the economy Ballou vividly illustrates how many private equity firms buy up retailers, medical practices, prison services, nursing-home chains, and mobile-home parks, among other businesses, using little of their own money to do it and avoiding debt and liability for their actions

Forced to take on huge debts and pay extractive fees, companies purchased by private equity firms are often left bankrupt, or shells of their former selves, with consequences to communities that long depended on them Perhaps most startling is Ballou’s insight into how this is happening with the active support of various arms of the government But, as Ballou reveals in an agenda for reining in the industry, private equity can be stopped from wreaking further havoc.
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The Journals of Captain Cook

James Cook

Graphic Arts Books , 2020 • 428 pages

Depicted by the man himself, The Journals of James Cook is an intimate first-hand account, providing an uncensored and reliable narrative of adventures spanning across the globe The Journals of James Cook depict three of Captain James Cook’s most glorious expeditions, starting in 1768 and leading to Cook’s tragic death in 1779 Having ventured all over the Pacific, Cook encountered lands not yet charted by the British

Though his discoveries and maps inadvertently led to British colonization, Cook held a deep respect for the native people he encountered He recorded their practices and wrote of them fondly Cook even befriended some of the native people he encountered, including a Tahitian man who, after hearing of Cook’s homeland, wanted to visit it as well

Per the man’s request, Cook sailed him to Britain, where the man stayed until he and Cook sailed back to Tahiti three years later After charting Australia, and the whole coast of New Zealand, Cook was involved in a plot to kidnap a Hawaiian monarch and ransom them in order to recover stolen property He was killed during this expedition, leaving behind a legacy of a detailed description of the Pacific Ocean and its coasts

James Cook’s expeditions around the world and his detailed and innovative work as a cartographer inspired advancements in scientific, medical, historical and geological fields His influence has also reached the literary world, inspiring novel series and characters, including the infamous Captain Hook Exuding ambition, courage, and confidence, The Journals of James Cook provide a privileged peak into the travels and accomplishments of an adventurous, and invaluable man

Packed with wonder but free of imperialistic arrogance, The Journals of James Cook serve as a valuable an intriguing primary source of a time when places in the world were yet to be mapped Now presented in an easy-to-read font and redesigned with a stunning new cover, James Cook’ The Journals of James Cook is accommodating to contemporary readers, providing a fresh version of the esteemed literary work while preserving its wonders and adventures.
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The Socialist System

János Kornai

Princeton University Press , 2021 • 675 pages

To understand the dramatic collapse of the socialist order and the current turmoil in the formerly communist world, this comprehensive work examines the most important common properties of all socialist societies JNBnos Kornai brings a life-long study of the problems of the socialist system to his explanation of why inherent attributes of socialism inevitably produced in-efficiency In his past work he has focused on the economic sphere, maintaining consistently that the weak economic performance of socialist countries resulted from the system itself, not from the personalities of top leaders or mistakes made by leading organizations and planners

This book synthesizes themes from his earlier investigations, while broadening the discussion to include the role of the political power structure and of communist ideology Kornai distinguishes between two types, or historical phases, of socialism The "classical socialism" of Stalin, Mao, and their followers is totalitarian and brutally repressive, but its components fit together and make up a coherent edifice

Associated with names like Tito, KNBdar, Deng-Xiaoping, and Gorbachev, "reform socialism" relaxes repression, but brings about a sharpening of inner contradictions and the eventual dissolution of the system Kornai examines the classical system in the first half of the book, and moves on to explore the complex process of reform in the second half The Socialist System is addressed to economists in the first place, but also to political scientists, sociologists, and historians In addition, it will appeal to policymakers, business analysts, and government officials who need to understand either formerly or presently communist countries.
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Private Equity at Work

Eileen Appelbaum, Rosemary Batt

Russell Sage Foundation , 2014 • 396 pages

Private equity firms have long been at the center of public debates on the impact of the financial sector on Main Street companies Are these firms financial innovators that save failing businesses or financial predators that bankrupt otherwise healthy companies and destroy jobs The first comprehensive examination of this topic, Private Equity at Work provides a detailed yet accessible guide to this controversial business model

Economist Eileen Appelbaum and Professor Rosemary Batt carefully evaluate the evidence—including original case studies and interviews, legal documents, bankruptcy proceedings, media coverage, and existing academic scholarship—to demonstrate the effects of private equity on American businesses and workers They document that while private equity firms have had positive effects on the operations and growth of small and mid-sized companies and in turning around failing companies, the interventions of private equity more often than not lead to significant negative consequences for many businesses and workers

Prior research on private equity has focused almost exclusively on the financial performance of private equity funds and the returns to their investors Private Equity at Work provides a new roadmap to the largely hidden internal operations of these firms, showing how their business strategies disproportionately benefit the partners in private equity firms at the expense of other stakeholders and taxpayers In the 1980s, leveraged buyouts by private equity firms saw high returns and were widely considered the solution to corporate wastefulness and mismanagement

And since 2000, nearly 11,500 companies—representing almost 8 million employees—have been purchased by private equity firms As their role in the economy has increased, they have come under fire from labor unions and community advocates who argue that the proliferation of leveraged buyouts destroys jobs, causes wages to stagnate, saddles otherwise healthy companies with debt, and leads to subsidies from taxpayers Appelbaum and Batt show that private equity firms’ financial strategies are designed to extract maximum value from the companies they buy and sell, often to the detriment of those companies and their employees and suppliers

Their risky decisions include buying companies and extracting dividends by loading them with high levels of debt and selling assets These actions often lead to financial distress and a disproportionate focus on cost-cutting, outsourcing, and wage and benefit losses for workers, especially if they are unionized Because the law views private equity firms as investors rather than employers, private equity owners are not held accountable for their actions in ways that public corporations are

And their actions are not transparent because private equity owned companies are not regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission Thus, any debts or costs of bankruptcy incurred fall on businesses owned by private equity and their workers, not the private equity firms that govern them For employees this often means loss of jobs, health and pension benefits, and retirement income

Appelbaum and Batt conclude with a set of policy recommendations intended to curb the negative effects of private equity while preserving its constructive role in the economy These include policies to improve transparency and accountability, as well as changes that would reduce the excessive use of financial engineering strategies by firms A groundbreaking analysis of a hotly contested business model, Private Equity at Work provides an unprecedented analysis of the little-understood inner workings of private equity and of the effects of leveraged buyouts on American companies and workers This important new work will be a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers, and the informed public alike.
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Hero of Two Worlds

Mike Duncan

Hachette UK , 2021 • 535 pages

From the bestselling author of The Storm Before the Storm and host of the Revolutions podcast comes the thrilling story of the Marquis de Lafayette’s lifelong quest to defend the principles of liberty and equality A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A
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The Makers of Rome

Plutarch

Penguin UK , 2004 • 714 pages

These nine biographies illuminate the careers, personalities and military campaigns of some of Rome's greatest statesmen, whose lives span the earliest days of the Republic to the establishment of the Empire Selected from Plutarch's Roman Lives, they include prominent figures who achieved fame for their pivotal roles in Roman history, such as soldierly Marcellus, eloquent Cato and cautious Fabius Here too are vivid portraits of ambitious, hot-tempered Coriolanus; objective, principled Brutus and open-hearted Mark Anthony, who would later be brought to life by Shakespeare In recounting the lives of these great leaders, Plutarch also explores the problems of statecraft and power and illustrates the Roman people's genius for political compromise, which led to their mastery of the ancient world.
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The Future of Money

Eswar S. Prasad

Harvard University Press , 2021 • 497 pages

A cutting-edge look at how accelerating financial change, from the end of cash to the rise of cryptocurrencies, will transform economies for better and worse We think weÕve seen financial innovation We bank from laptops and buy coffee with the wave of a phone But these are minor miracles compared with the dizzying experiments now underway around the globe, as businesses and governments alike embrace the possibilities of new financial technologies

As Eswar Prasad explains, the world of finance is at the threshold of major disruption that will affect corporations, bankers, states, and indeed all of us The transformation of money will fundamentally rewrite how ordinary people live Above all, Prasad foresees the end of physical cash The driving force wonÕt be phones or credit cards but rather central banks, spurred by the emergence of cryptocurrencies to develop their own, more stable digital currencies

Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies themselves will evolve unpredictably as global corporations like Facebook and Amazon join the game The changes will be accompanied by snowballing innovations that are reshaping finance and have already begun to revolutionize how we invest, trade, insure, and manage risk Prasad shows how these and other changes will redefine the very concept of money, unbundling its traditional functions as a unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value

The promise lies in greater efficiency and flexibility, increased sensitivity to the needs of diverse consumers, and improved market access for the unbanked The risk is instability, lack of accountability, and erosion of privacy A lucid, visionary work, The Future of Money shows how to maximize the best and guard against the worst of what is to come.
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The Triumph of Broken Promises

Fritz Bartel

Harvard University Press , 2022 • 441 pages

Communist and capitalist states alike were scarred by the economic shocks of the 1970s Why did only communist governments fall in their wake Fritz Bartel argues that Western democracies were insulated by neoliberalism While austerity was fatal to the legitimacy of communism, democratic politicians could win votes by pushing market discipline.
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Inventing Temperature

Hasok Chang

Oxford University Press , 2004 • 305 pages

The author presents simple yet challenging epistemic and technical questions about temperature-measuring instruments, and the complex web of abstract philosophical issues surrounding them He also shows that many items of knowledge we take for granted are in fact spectacular achievements obtained after a great deal of innovative thinking.
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Inventing Accuracy

Donald MacKenzie

MIT Press , 1993 • 484 pages

Mackenzie has achieved a masterful synthesis of engrossing narrative, imaginative concepts, historical perspective, and social concern." Donald MacKenzie follows one line of technology—strategic ballistic missile guidance through a succession of weapons systems to reveal the workings of a world that is neither awesome nor unstoppable He uncovers the parameters, the pressures, and the politics that make up the complex social construction of an equally complex technology.
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Death, Dominance, and State-Building

Roger D. Petersen

Oxford University Press , 2024 • 593 pages

The definitive work on the course, conduct, and aftermath of the Iraq war In Death, Dominance, and State-Building, the eminent scholar of conflict Roger D Petersen provides the first comprehensive analytic history of post-invasion Iraq Although the war is almost universally derided as one of the biggest foreign policy blunders of the post-Cold War era, Petersen argues that the course and conduct of the conflict is poorly understood

He begins by outlining an accessible framework for analyzing complex, fluid, and violent internal conflicts He then applies that framework to a variety of diverse case studies to break down the strategic interplay among the US military forces and Shia and Sunni insurgent organizations as it played out in Baghdad, Anbar, and Hawija Highlighting the struggle for dominance between Shia and Sunni in Baghdad, Petersen offers a reconsideration of the Surge

He also addresses failures of state-building in Iraqi Kurdistan Critically, he shows how the legacy of the US occupation and presence from 2003-2011 shaped Iraq's political and security contours from 2011-2023 Comprehensive, analytically sophisticated, and subtle, this book draws lessons relevant to future American military interventions from what most regard as the US's most disastrous foreign policy adventure since Vietnam

The US cannot simply wish away insurgencies, which are always going to occur The question is what the US and other great powers might do about them in the future.
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Addiction by Design

Natasha Dow Schüll

Princeton University Press , 2014 • 456 pages

Recent decades have seen a dramatic shift away from social forms of gambling played around roulette wheels and card tables to solitary gambling at electronic terminals Slot machines, revamped by ever more compelling digital and video technology, have unseated traditional casino games as the gambling industry's revenue mainstay Addiction by Design takes readers into the intriguing world of machine gambling, an increasingly popular and absorbing form of play that blurs the line between human and machine, compulsion and control, risk and reward

Drawing on fifteen years of field research in Las Vegas, anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll shows how the mechanical rhythm of electronic gambling pulls players into a trancelike state they call the "machine zone," in which daily worries, social demands, and even bodily awareness fade away Once in the zone, gambling addicts play not to win but simply to keep playing, for as long as possible--even at the cost of physical and economic exhaustion In continuous machine play, gamblers seek to lose themselves while the gambling industry seeks profit

Schüll describes the strategic calculations behind game algorithms and machine ergonomics, casino architecture and "ambience management," player tracking and cash access systems--all designed to meet the market's desire for maximum "time on device." Her account moves from casino floors into gamblers' everyday lives, from gambling industry conventions and Gamblers Anonymous meetings to regulatory debates over whether addiction to gambling machines stems from the consumer, the product, or the interplay between the two Addiction by Design is a compelling inquiry into the intensifying traffic between people and machines of chance, offering clues to some of the broader anxieties and predicaments of contemporary life At stake in Schüll's account of the intensifying traffic between people and machines of chance is a blurring of the line between design and experience, profit and loss, control and compulsion.
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The Money Miners

Trevor Sykes

Allen & Unwin , 1995 • 410 pages

This text recaptures the days of the 1969-70 Australian mining share spree The scandals of Endurance, Tasminex and Queensland mines, and the collapse of the general securities are all traced here It also tells how and why mining shares rose and fell, explaining the techniques of exploration.
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The Rise And Fall of Athens

Plutarch

Random House , 2024 • 496 pages

Plutarch traces the fortunes of Athens through nine lives - from Theseus, its founder, to Lysander, its Spartan conqueror - in this seminal work What makes a leader For Plutarch the answer lay not in great victories, but in moral strengths In these nine biographies, taken from his Parallel Lives, Plutarch illustrates the rise and fall of Athens through nine lives, from the legendary days of Theseus, the city's founder, through Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias and Alcibiades, to the razing of its walls by Lysander

Plutarch ultimately held the weaknesses of its leaders responsible for the city's fall His work is invaluable for its imaginative reconstruction of the past, and profound insights into human life and achievement This edition of Ian Scott-Kilvert's seminal translation, fully revised with a new introduction and notes by John Marincola, now also contains Plutarch's attack on the first historian, 'On the Malice of Herodotus'.
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The Greeks

H.D.F. Kitto

Routledge , 2017 • 396 pages

Most ancient cultures disappeared with scarcely a trace, their effect upon our modern way of life of little consequence The Greeks, however, continue to influence contemporary man through their drama, philosophy and art, their political cognizance and knowledge of science There are many books introducing the Greek world to the modern reader, but this volume was recognized as a classic in the field upon its publication by Penguin Books

It now appears in a new paperback edition, with a new preface by the author and 32 pages of photographs selected especially for the American reader The Greeks introduces us to the people who formed and founded a new and distinct way of life, the democratic city-state The author presents--frequently in the words of the Greeks themselves--the formation of the people as a nation, the nature of the country, the impact of Homer, and the rise and decline of the city-state

The book includes an intensive study of the classical period, and provides an illuminating view of the Greek mind, myths and religion, life and character.The Greeks is a recognized classic, written with remarkable grace and wit In its new, richly illustrated and permanent form, it will endure as perhaps the best reconstruction of one of the greatest episodes in the history of civilized man H

D F Kitto (1897-1982) was professor of Greek at the University of Bristol and is well known as a scholar, teacher and writer in his field He wrote several books on Greek drama, and his In the Mountains of Greece resulted from extensive travel throughout the country.
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Drunk

Edward Slingerland

Little, Brown Spark , 2021 • 341 pages

An "entertaining and enlightening" deep dive into the alcohol-soaked origins of civilization—and the evolutionary roots of humanity's appetite for intoxication (Daniel E Lieberman, author of Exercised) While plenty of entertaining books have been written about the history of alcohol and other intoxicants, none have offered a comprehensive, convincing answer to the basic question of why humans want to get high in the first place

Drunk elegantly cuts through the tangle of urban legends and anecdotal impressions that surround our notions of intoxication to provide the first rigorous, scientifically-grounded explanation for our love of alcohol Drawing on evidence from archaeology, history, cognitive neuroscience, psychopharmacology, social psychology, literature, and genetics, Drunk shows that our taste for chemical intoxicants is not an evolutionary mistake, as we are so often told

In fact, intoxication helps solve a number of distinctively human challenges: enhancing creativity, alleviating stress, building trust, and pulling off the miracle of getting fiercely tribal primates to cooperate with strangers Our desire to get drunk, along with the individual and social benefits provided by drunkenness, played a crucial role in sparking the rise of the first large-scale societies We would not have civilization without intoxication

From marauding Vikings and bacchanalian orgies to sex-starved fruit flies, blind cave fish, and problem-solving crows, Drunk is packed with fascinating case studies and engaging science, as well as practical takeaways for individuals and communities The result is a captivating and long overdue investigation into humanity's oldest indulgence—one that explains not only why we want to get drunk, but also how it might actually be good for us to tie one on now and then.
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Silent Spring Revolution

Douglas Brinkley

HarperCollins , 2022 • 702 pages

New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed presidential historian Douglas Brinkley chronicles the rise of environmental activism during the Long Sixties (1960-1973), telling the story of an indomitable generation that saved the natural world under the leadership of John F Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon With the detonation of the Trinity explosion in the New Mexico desert in 1945, the United States took control of Earth’s destiny for the first time

After the Truman administration dropped atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II, a grim new epoch had arrived During the early Cold War years, the federal government routinely detonated nuclear devices in the Nevada desert and the Marshall Islands Not only was nuclear fallout a public health menace, but entire ecosystems were contaminated with radioactive materials

During the 1950s, an unprecedented postwar economic boom took hold, with America becoming the world’s leading hyperindustrial and military giant But with this historic prosperity came a heavy cost: oceans began to die, wilderness vanished, the insecticide DDT poisoned ecosystems, wildlife perished, and chronic smog blighted major cities In Silent Spring Revolution, Douglas Brinkley pays tribute to those who combated the mauling of the natural world in the Long Sixties: Rachel Carson (a marine biologist and author), David Brower (director of the Sierra Club), Barry Commoner (an environmental justice advocate), Coretta Scott King (an antinuclear activist), Stewart Udall (the secretary of the interior), William O

Douglas (Supreme Court justice), Cesar Chavez (a labor organizer), and other crusaders are profiled with verve and insight Carson’s book Silent Spring, published in 1962, depicted how detrimental DDT was to living creatures The exposé launched an ecological revolution that inspired such landmark legislation as the Wilderness Act (1964), the Clean Air Acts (1963 and 1970), and the Endangered Species Acts (1966, 1969, and 1973)

In intimate detail, Brinkley extrapolates on such epic events as the Donora (Pennsylvania) smog incident, JFK’s Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Great Lakes preservation, the Santa Barbara oil spill, and the first Earth Day With the United States grappling with climate change and resource exhaustion, Douglas Brinkley’s meticulously researched and deftly written Silent Spring Revolution reminds us that a new generation of twenty-first-century environmentalists can save the planet from ruin Silent Spring Revolution features two 8-page color photo inserts.
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The Achilles Trap

Steve Coll

Penguin , 2024 • 479 pages

From bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Steve Coll, the definitive story of the decades-long relationship between the United States and Saddam Hussein, and a deeply researched and news-breaking investigation into how human error, cultural miscommunication, and hubris led to one of the costliest geopolitical conflicts of our time When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, its message was clear: Iraq, under the control of strongman Saddam Hussein, possessed weapons of mass destruction that, if left unchecked, posed grave danger to the world But when no WMDs were found, the United States and its allies were forced to examine the political and intelligence failures that had led to the invasion and the occupation, and the civil war that followed

One integral question has remained unsolved: Why had Saddam seemingly sacrificed his long reign in power by giving the false impression that he had hidden stocks of dangerous weapons The Achilles Trap masterfully untangles the people, ploys of power, and geopolitics that led to America’s disastrous war with Iraq and, for the first time, details America’s fundamental miscalculations during its decades-long relationship with Saddam Hussein Beginning with Saddam’s rise to power in 1979 and the birth of Iraq’s secret nuclear weapons program, Steve Coll traces Saddam’s motives by way of his inner circle

He brings to life the diplomats, scientists, family members, and generals who had no choice but to defer to their leader—a leader directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, as well as the torture or imprisonment of hundreds of thousands more This was a man whose reasoning was impossible to reduce to a simple explanation, and the CIA and successive presidential administrations failed to grasp critical nuances of his paranoia, resentments, and inconsistencies—even when the stakes were incredibly high

Calling on unpublished and underreported sources, interviews with surviving participants, and Saddam’s own transcripts and audio files, Coll pulls together an incredibly comprehensive portrait of a man who was convinced the world was out to get him and acted accordingly A work of great historical significance, The Achilles Trap is the definitive account of how corruptions of power, lies of diplomacy, and vanity—on both sides—led to avoidable errors of statecraft, ones that would enact immeasurable human suffering and forever change the political landscape as we know it.
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Hyperion

Dan Simmons

Spectra , 2011 • 532 pages

A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike There are those who worship it

There are those who fear it And there are those who have vowed to destroy it In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives

Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands Praise for Dan Simmons and Hyperion “Dan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.”—The Washington Post Book World “An unfailingly inventive narrative . . . generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed.”—The New York Times Book Review “Simmons’s own genius transforms space opera into a new kind of poetry.”—The Denver Post “An essential part of any science fiction collection.”—Booklist
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Collapse

Vladislav M. Zubok

Yale University Press , 2021 • 468 pages

A major study of the collapse of the Soviet Union—showing how Gorbachev’s misguided reforms led to its demise “A deeply informed account of how the Soviet Union fell apart.”—Rodric Braithwaite, Financial Times “[A] masterly analysis.”—Joshua Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal In 1945 the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations By 1991, it had an army four million strong with five thousand nuclear-tipped missiles and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world

But soon afterward the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the twentieth century Thirty years on, Vladislav Zubok offers a major reinterpretation of the final years of the USSR, refuting the notion that the breakup of the Soviet order was inevitable

Instead, Zubok reveals how Gorbachev’s misguided reforms, intended to modernize and democratize the Soviet Union, deprived the government of resources and empowered separatism Collapse sheds new light on Russian democratic populism, the Baltic struggle for independence, the crisis of Soviet finances—and the fragility of authoritarian state power.
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Routledge Revivals: Man and Technics (1932)

Oswald Spengler

Routledge , 2016 • 59 pages

First published in 1932, this book, based on an address delivered in 1931, presents a concise and lucid summary of the philosophy of the author of The Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler It was his conviction that the technical age — the culture of the machine age — which man had created in virtue of his unique capacity for individual as well as racial technique, had already reached its peak, and that the future held only catastrophe He argued it lacked progressive cultural life and instead was dominated by a lust for power and possession The triumph of the machine led to mass regimentation rather than fewer workers and less work — spelling the doom of Western civilization.
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The New Roman Empire

Anthony Kaldellis

Oxford University Press , 2024 • 1169 pages

This is the first comprehensive, single-author history of the eastern Roman empire (or Byzantium) to appear in over a generation It begins with the foundation of Constantinople in 324 AD and ends with the fall of the empire to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century, covering political and military history as well as all major changes in religion, society, demography, and economy In recent decades, the study of Byzantium has been revolutionized by new approaches and sophisticated models for how its society and state operated

The book's core is an accessible and lively narrative of events, free of jargon, which incorporates new findings, explains recent models, and presents well-known historical characters and events in new light Two overarching themes shape the narrative First, by projecting accountability the Roman state persuaded its subjects that it was working in their interests and thereby forestalled separatist movements

To do so, it had to restrain the tendency of elites to extract ever more resources from the labor-force Second, the effort to sustain a common identity, both Roman and Christian, was subject to powerful forces of internal division and put under severe strain by western Europeans in the later Middle Ages

The book explains in detail the alternating periods of success and failure in the long history of this polity It foregrounds the dynamics of Christian identity, asking why it tended to fracture along lines of doctrine, practice, and ultimately over Union with the Catholic West"--
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China's Age of Abundance

Feng Wang

Cambridge University Press , 2024 • 273 pages

Between the 1980s and the present day, China has experienced one of the most consequential economic transformations in world history One-fifth of the Earth's population has left behind a life of scarcity and subsistence for one of abundance and material comfort, while their nation has emerged as a preeminent economic and political power In a systematic historical and sociological analysis of this unique juncture, Wang Feng charts the origins, forces, and consequences of this meteoric rise in living standards

He shifts the focus away from institutions and policies to offer new perspectives based on consumption among poorer, rural populations as a driver of global economic change But is this 'Age of Abundance' coming to an end Anticipating potential headwinds, including an aging population, increasing inequality, and intensifying political control, Wang explores whether this preeminence could be coming to a close.
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Princes of the Yen

Richard Werner

Routledge , 2015 • 516 pages

This eye-opening book offers a disturbing new look at Japan's post-war economy and the key factors that shaped it It gives special emphasis to the 1980s and 1990s when Japan's economy experienced vast swings in activity According to the author, the most recent upheaval in the Japanese economy is the result of the policies of a central bank less concerned with stimulating the economy than with its own turf battles and its ideological agenda to change Japan's economic structure

The book combines new historical research with an in-depth behind-the-scenes account of the bureaucratic competition between Japan's most important institutions: the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan Drawing on new economic data and first-hand eyewitness accounts, it reveals little known monetary policy tools at the core of Japan's business cycle, identifies the key figures behind Japan's economy, and discusses their agenda The book also highlights the implications for the rest of the world, and raises important questions about the concentration of power within central banks.
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Radical Hamilton

Christian Parenti

Verso Books , 2020 • 305 pages

A bold, revisionist history and political biography of the polarizing Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton, that reframes the founding of the United States and the history of capitalism In retelling the story of the radical Alexander Hamilton, Parenti rewrites the history early America and global economic history writ large For much of the twentieth century, Hamilton—sometimes seen as the bad boy of the founding fathers or portrayed as the patron saint of bankers—was out of fashion

In contrast his rival Thomas Jefferson, the patrician democrat and slave owner who feared government overreach, was claimed by all But more recently, Hamilton has become a subject of serious interest again He was a contradictory mix: a tough soldier, austere workaholic, exacting bureaucrat, yet also a sexual libertine, and a glory-obsessed romantic with suicidal tendencies

As Parenti argues, we have yet to fully appreciate Hamilton as the primary architect of American capitalism and the developmental state In exploring his life and work, Parenti rediscovers this gadfly as a path breaking political thinker and institution builder In this vivid historical portrait, Hamilton emerges as a singularly important historical figure: a thinker and politico who laid the foundation for America's ascent to global supremacy—for better or worse. “Wide-ranging, carefully researched, and forcefully written.” —Alan Taylor, author of Thomas Jefferson's Education
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Secrets of the Temple

William Greider

Simon and Schuster , 1989 • 804 pages

Reveals how the Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker engineered changes in America's economy.
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The Early Chinese Empires

Mark Edward Lewis

Harvard University Press , 2010 • 334 pages

In 221 BC, the First Emperor of Qin unified the lands that would become the heart of a Chinese empire Though forged by conquest, this vast domain depended for its political survival on a fundamental reshaping of Chinese culture With this informative book, we are present at the creation of an ancient imperial order whose major features would endure for two millennia

The Qin and Han constitute the “classical period” of Chinese history—a role played by the Greeks and Romans in the West Mark Edward Lewis highlights the key challenges faced by the court officials and scholars who set about governing an empire of such scale and diversity of peoples He traces the drastic measures taken to transcend, without eliminating, these regional differences: the invention of the emperor as the divine embodiment of the state; the establishment of a common script for communication and a state-sponsored canon for the propagation of Confucian ideals; the flourishing of the great families, whose domination of local society rested on wealth, landholding, and elaborate kinship structures; the demilitarization of the interior; and the impact of non-Chinese warrior-nomads in setting the boundaries of an emerging Chinese identity The first of a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, The Early Chinese Empires illuminates many formative events in China’s long history of imperialism—events whose residual influence can still be discerned today.
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The Park Chung Hee Era

Byung-Kook Kim, Ezra F. Vogel

Harvard University Press , 2013 • 753 pages

In 1961 South Korea was mired in poverty By 1979 it had a powerful industrial economy and a vibrant civil society in the making, which would lead to a democratic breakthrough eight years later The transformation took place during the years of Park Chung Hee's presidency Park seized power in a coup in 1961 and ruled as a virtual dictator until his assassination in October 1979

He is credited with modernizing South Korea, but at a huge political and social cost South Korea's political landscape under Park defies easy categorization The state was predatory yet technocratic, reform-minded yet quick to crack down on dissidents in the name of political order The nation was balanced uneasily between opposition forces calling for democratic reforms and the Park government's obsession with economic growth

The chaebol (a powerful conglomerate of multinationals based in South Korea) received massive government support to pioneer new growth industries, even as a nationwide campaign of economic shock therapy-interest hikes, devaluation, and wage cuts-met strong public resistance and caused considerable hardship This landmark volume examines South Korea's era of development as a study in the complex politics of modernization Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources in both English and Korean, these essays recover and contextualize many of the ambiguities in South Korea's trajectory from poverty to a sustainable high rate of economic growth.
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Where the Money Was

Willie Sutton, Edward Linn

Crown , 2004 • 396 pages

The Broadway Books Library of Larceny Luc Sante, General Editor For more than fifty years, Willie Sutton devoted his boundless energy and undoubted genius exclusively to two activities at which he became better than any man in history: breaking in and breaking out The targets in the first instance were banks and in the second, prisons Unarguably America’s most famous bank robber, Willie never injured a soul, but took on almost a hundred banks and departed three of America’s most escape-proof penitentiaries This is the stuff of myth—rascally and cautionary by turns—yet true in every searing, diverting, and brilliantly recalled detail.
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Why Minsky Matters

L. Randall Wray

Princeton University Press , 2017 • 285 pages

Perhaps no economist was more vindicated by the global financial crisis than Hyman P Minsky (1919–96) Although a handful of economists raised alarms as early as 2000, Minsky's warnings began a half-century earlier, with writings that set out a compelling theory of financial instability Yet even today he remains largely outside mainstream economics; few people have a good grasp of his writings, and fewer still understand their full importance

Why Minsky Matters makes the maverick economist’s critically valuable insights accessible to general readers for the first time L Randall Wray shows that by understanding Minsky we will not only see the next crisis coming but we might be able to act quickly enough to prevent it As Wray explains, Minsky’s most important idea is that "stability is destabilizing": to the degree that the economy achieves what looks to be robust and stable growth, it is setting up the conditions in which a crash becomes ever more likely

Before the financial crisis, mainstream economists pointed to much evidence that the economy was more stable, but their predictions were completely wrong because they disregarded Minsky’s insight Wray also introduces Minsky’s significant work on money and banking, poverty and unemployment, and the evolution of capitalism, as well as his proposals for reforming the financial system and promoting economic stability A much-needed introduction to an economist whose ideas are more relevant than ever, Why Minsky Matters is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why economic crises are becoming more frequent and severe—and what we can do about it.
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Party of One

Chun Han Wong

Simon and Schuster , 2024 • 416 pages

Drawing on his years of first-hand reporting across China, including insights from scholars and diplomats and analyses of official speeches and documents, a Wall Street Journal correspondent provides a broad, lucid account of China's leader and how he inspires fear and fervor in his Party, his nation and beyond.
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No Sense of Place

Joshua Meyrowitz

Oxford University Press , 1986 • 432 pages

How have changes in media affected our everyday experience, behavior, and sense of identity Such questions have generated endless arguments and speculations, but no thinker has addressed the issue with such force and originality as Joshua Meyrowitz in No Sense of Place Advancing a daring and sophisticated theory, Meyrowitz shows how television and other electronic media have created new social situations that are no longer shaped by where we are or who is "with" us

While other media experts have limited the debate to message content, Meyrowitz focuses on the ways in which changes in media rearrange "who knows what about whom" and "who knows what compared to whom," making it impossible for us to behave with each other in traditional ways No Sense of Place explains how the electronic landscape has encouraged the development of: -More adultlike children and more childlike adults; -More career-oriented women and more family-oriented men; and -Leaders who try to act more like the "person next door" and real neighbors who want to have a greater say in local, national, and international affairs

The dramatic changes fostered by electronic media, notes Meyrowitz, are neither entirely good nor entirely bad In some ways, we are returning to older, pre-literate forms of social behavior, becoming "hunters and gatherers of an information age." In other ways, we are rushing forward into a new social world New media have helped to liberate many people from restrictive, place-defined roles, but the resulting heightened expectations have also led to new social tensions and frustrations

Once taken-for-granted behaviors are now subject to constant debate and negotiation The book richly explicates the quadruple pun in its title: Changes in media transform how we sense information and how we make sense of our physical and social places in the world.
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Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China

Ezra F. Vogel

Harvard University Press , 2013 • 553 pages

Winner of the Lionel Gelber Prize National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist An Economist Best Book of the Year | A Financial Times Book of the Year | A Wall Street Journal Book of the Year | A Washington Post Book of the Year | A Bloomberg News Book of the Year | An Esquire China Book of the Year | A Gates Notes Top Read of the Year Perhaps no one in the twentieth century had a greater long-term impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping And no scholar of contemporary East Asian history and culture is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the many contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of China’s boldest strategist

Once described by Mao Zedong as a “needle inside a ball of cotton,” Deng was the pragmatic yet disciplined driving force behind China’s radical transformation in the late twentieth century He confronted the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Mao’s cult of personality, and loosened the economic and social policies that had stunted China’s growth Obsessed with modernization and technology, Deng opened trade relations with the West, which lifted hundreds of millions of his countrymen out of poverty

Yet at the same time he answered to his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in June 1989 at Tiananmen Square Deng’s youthful commitment to the Communist Party was cemented in Paris in the early 1920s, among a group of Chinese student-workers that also included Zhou Enlai Deng returned home in 1927 to join the Chinese Revolution on the ground floor

In the fifty years of his tumultuous rise to power, he endured accusations, purges, and even exile before becoming China’s preeminent leader from 1978 to 1989 and again in 1992 When he reached the top, Deng saw an opportunity to creatively destroy much of the economic system he had helped build for five decades as a loyal follower of Mao—and he did not hesitate.
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Arid Empire

Natalie Koch

Verso Books , 2023 • 209 pages

A revelatory new history of the colonization of the American West The iconic deserts of the American southwest could not have been colonized and settled without the help of desert experts from the Middle East For example: In 1856, a caravan of thirty-three camels arrived in Indianola, Texas, led by a Syrian cameleer the Americans called "Hi Jolly." This "camel corps," the US government hoped, could help the army secure the new southwest swath of the country just wrested from Mexico

Though the dream of the camel corps - and sadly, the camels - died, the idea of drawing on expertise, knowledge, and practices from the desert countries of the Middle East did not As Natalie Koch demonstrates in this evocative, narrative history, the exchange of colonial technologies between the Arabian Peninsula and United States over the past two centuries - from date palm farming and desert agriculture to the utopian sci-fi dreams of Biosphere 2 and Frank Herbert's Dune - bound the two regions together, solidifying the colonization of the US West and, eventually, the reach of American power into the Middle East Koch teaches us to see deserts anew, not as mythic sites of romance or empty wastelands but as an "arid empire," a crucial political space where imperial dreams coalesce.
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Development after Statism

Adnan Naseemullah

Cambridge University Press , 2017 • 351 pages

The Acquisition of Finance -- Labor Management -- Appendix B List of Interviews -- References -- Index
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The Chile Project

Sebastian Edwards

Princeton University Press , 2023 • 376 pages

"After a modest increase in Metro fares in Santiago, Chile, last October, twenty Metro stations were simultaneously set on fire The fare increase was the tipping point of years of social malaise Days later there were more than a million protesters on the streets The people of Chile were rejecting low pensions, highway tolls, school segregation, low-quality education, and poor public-health services-the result of decades of neoliberalism

Chile was the prototype for neoliberal policies, first set up under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet with the first-hand guidance of economists from the University of Chicago Under neoliberalism Chile was long seen as an exemplary developing economy, and a testament to the power of privatization and free trade But all was not well

Sebastian Edwards tells the story of how Chile went from being the posterchild of market-oriented reforms and capitalist modernization to a nation rocked by violence and political upheaval He narrates the origins of neoliberalism and the role of the "Chicago boys" in designing and implementing these reforms He explains the tension between poverty reduction and income inequality, which led to seething discontent under the surface of strong economic numbers

The book tells the story of the signature policies first enacted in Chile that came to define the neoliberal way more broadly: the replacement of a traditional pension system with a privately managed system of individual savings accounts, openness and globalization, the fiscal rule, the taming of inflation, and austere health, education, and environmental policies As Chile now sets out to draft a new constitution, and other countries come to terms with the same set of policies, all under the looming specter of reactionary populism, the book is an authoritative and important assessment of the success of neoliberalism at a pivotal moment in its history"--
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Team of Teams

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, Chris Fussell

Penguin , 2015 • 304 pages

From the New York Times bestselling author of My Share of the Task and Leaders, a manual for leaders looking to make their teams more adaptable, agile, and unified in the midst of change When General Stanley McChrystal took command of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in 2004, he quickly realized that conventional military tactics were failing Al Qaeda in Iraq was a decentralized network that could move quickly, strike ruthlessly, then seemingly vanish into the local population

The allied forces had a huge advantage in numbers, equipment, and training—but none of that seemed to matter To defeat Al Qaeda, they would have to combine the power of the world’s mightiest military with the agility of the world’s most fearsome terrorist network They would have to become a "team of teams"—faster, flatter, and more flexible than ever

In Team of Teams, McChrystal and his colleagues show how the challenges they faced in Iraq can be rel­evant to countless businesses, nonprofits, and or­ganizations today In periods of unprecedented crisis, leaders need practical management practices that can scale to thousands of people—and fast By giving small groups the freedom to experiment and share what they learn across the entire organiza­tion, teams can respond more quickly, communicate more freely, and make better and faster decisions Drawing on compelling examples—from NASA to hospital emergency rooms—Team of Teams makes the case for merging the power of a large corporation with the agility of a small team to transform any organization.
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P.G. and E. of California

Charles M. Coleman

1952 • 474 pages

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America's Frozen Neighborhoods

Robert C. Ellickson

Yale University Press , 2022 • 318 pages

This book examines local zoning policies and suggests reforms that states and the federal government might adopt to counter the negative effects of exclusionary zoning In this book, Robert Ellickson asserts that local zoning policies are the most consequential regulatory program in the United States Many localities have created barriers to the development of less costly forms of housing Numerous economists have found that current zoning practices inflict major damage on the national economy

Using Silicon Valley, the Greater New Haven area, and the northwestern portion of Greater Austin as case studies, Ellickson shows in unprecedented detail how the zoning system works and recommends steps for its reform Zoning regulations, Ellickson demonstrates, are hard to dislodge once localities have enacted them He develops metrics to measure the existence and costs of exclusionary zoning, and suggests reforms that states and the federal government could undertake to counter the detrimental effects of local policies These include the cartelization of housing markets and the aggravation of racial and class segregation.
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The Spy and the Traitor

Ben Macintyre

Signal , 2018 • 443 pages

The celebrated author of A Spy Among Friends and Rogue Heroes returns with his greatest spy story yet, a thrilling Cold War-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the collapse of the Soviet Union If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine

He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6 For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States's nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war

Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky's name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain's obviously top-level source Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky's nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre's latest may be his best yet Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man's hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations.
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With the Old Breed

E.B. Sledge

Presidio Press , 2007 • 402 pages

“Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir, With The Old Breed He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who turns the extremes of the war in the Pacific—the terror, the camaraderie, the banal and the extraordinary—into terms we mortals can grasp.”—Tom Hanks NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In The Wall Street Journal, Victor Davis Hanson named With the Old Breed one of the top five books on epic twentieth-century battles Studs Terkel interviewed the author for his definitive oral history, The Good War

Now E B Sledge’s acclaimed first-person account of fighting at Peleliu and Okinawa returns to thrill, edify, and inspire a new generation An Alabama boy steeped in American history and enamored of such heroes as George Washington and Daniel Boone, Eugene B

Sledge became part of the war’s famous 1st Marine Division—3rd Battalion, 5th Marines Even after intense training, he was shocked to be thrown into the battle of Peleliu, where “the world was a nightmare of flashes, explosions, and snapping bullets.” By the time Sledge hit the hell of Okinawa, he was a combat vet, still filled with fear but no longer with panic Based on notes Sledge secretly kept in a copy of the New Testament, With the Old Breed captures with utter simplicity and searing honesty the experience of a soldier in the fierce Pacific Theater

Here is what saved, threatened, and changed his life Here, too, is the story of how he learned to hate and kill—and came to love—his fellow man. “In all the literature on the Second World War, there is not a more honest, realistic or moving memoir than Eugene Sledge’s This is the real deal, the real war: unvarnished, brutal, without a shred of sentimentality or false patriotism, a profound primer on what it actually was like to be in that war It is a classic that will outlive all the armchair generals’ safe accounts of—not the ‘good war’—but the worst war ever.”—Ken Burns
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The Plot to Save South Africa

Justice Malala

Simon and Schuster , 2023 • 352 pages

A “gripping and important” (The Guardian) account of nine tumultuous days, as the assassination of Nelson Mandela’s protégé by a white supremacist threatens to derail South Africa’s democratic transition and plunge the nation into civil war Johannesburg, Easter weekend, 1993 Nelson Mandela had been released after twenty-seven years in prison and was in power sharing talks with President F.W. de Klerk

After decades of resistance, the apartheid regime seemed poised to fall…until a white supremacist shot and killed Mandela’s popular heir apparent, Chris Hani, in a last desperate attempt to provoke civil war Twenty-two-year-old rookie journalist Justice Malala was one of the first people at the crime scene And as he covered the growing chaos of the next nine days—the protests and police brutality, reprisal killings and calls for paramilitary units to get combat-ready—he was terrified the assassin’s plot might succeed

In The Plot to Save South Africa, Malala “masterfully” (Foreign Affairs) unspools this political history in the style of a thriller, alternating between the perspectives of participants across the political spectrum in a riveting, kaleidoscopic account of a country on the brink Through vivid archival research and shocking original interviews, he digs into questions that were never fully answered in all the tumult at the time: How involved were far-right elements within the South African government in inciting—or even planning—the assassination And as the time bomb ticked on, how did these political rivals work together with opponents whose ideology they’d long abhorred—despite provocation and their own failures, doubts, and fears—to keep their country from descending into civil war?
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The Inheritors

Eve Fairbanks

Jonathan Ball Publishers , 2023 • 386 pages

'Lyrical, deep, chilling, and prescient, this is a book we will be talking about for years to come.' - Justice Malala, author and commentator South Africans face a reckoning: mourn a miracle nation that never came into being, fight on to give it birth, or make something else out of 1994's ashes In The Inheritors, award-winning writer Eve Fairbanks tells the stories of ordinary people facing this stupendous question

These are the kinds of lives rarely examined in such depth: political activist Dipuo, her born-free daughter Malaika, and Christo, one of the last Afrikaner men drafted to fight for the apartheid regime All three have to remake their own lives while facing the questions: what do I owe to my forebears, and what does history owe to me They tell of the unresolved rage, generational guilt, and enduring hope that many South Africans struggle to speak aloud to themselves in private, let alone share

Observing subtle truths about power and inheritance, Fairbanks explores questions that preoccupy so many South Africans today: how can one let go of one's past How should historical debts be paid And how can a person live an honourable life in a society that – for better or worse – they no longer recognise?
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Gifts, Favors, and Banquets

Mayfair Mei-Hui Yang

Cornell University Press , 2016 • 382 pages

An elaborate and pervasive set of practices, called guanxi, underlies everyday social relationships in contemporary China Obtaining and changing job assignments, buying certain foods and consumer items, getting into good hospitals, buying train tickets, obtaining housing, even doing business—all such tasks call for the skillful and strategic giving of gifts and cultivating of obligation, indebtedness, and reciprocity Mayfair Mei-hui Yang's close scrutiny of this phenomenon serves as a window to view facets of a much broader and more complex cultural, historical, and political formation Using rich and varied ethnographic examples of guanxi stemming from her fieldwork in China in the 1980s and 1990s, the author shows how this "gift economy" operates in the larger context of the socialist state redistributive economy.
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The Scorching of Washington

Alan Lloyd

1975 • 224 pages

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Translation State

Ann Leckie

Orbit , 2023 • 327 pages

The mystery of a missing translator sets three lives on a collision course that will have a ripple effect across the stars in this powerful novel from a Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C Clarke award-winning author. "There are few who write science fiction like Ann Leckie can There are few who ever could." —John Scalzi Qven was created to be a Presger translator

The pride of their Clade, they always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, and eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presger and the human worlds The realization that they might want something else isn't "optimal behavior" It's the type of behavior that results in elimination

But Qven rebels And in doing so, their path collides with those of two others Enae, a reluctant diplomat whose dead grandmaman has left hir an impossible task as an inheritance: hunting down a fugitive who has been missing for over 200 years And Reet, an adopted mechanic who is increasingly desperate to learn about his genetic roots—or anything that might explain why he operates so differently from those around him

As a Conclave of the various species approaches—and the long-standing treaty between the humans and the Presger is on the line—the decisions of all three will have ripple effects across the stars Masterfully merging space adventure and mystery, and a poignant exploration about relationships and belonging, Translation State is a triumphant new standalone story set in the celebrated Imperial Radch universe. "Leckie’s humane, emotionally intelligent, and deeply perceptive writing makes this tautly plotted adventure feel fundamentally true while also offering longtime fans a much anticipated glimpse into the Radch’s most mysterious species Readers will be thrilled." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Another of Leckie’s beautiful mergings of the political, philosophical, and personal." —Kirkus (starred review)
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Some Desperate Glory

Emily Tesh

Tordotcom , 2023 • 378 pages

Instant National Bestseller and International Bestseller A thrillingly told queer space opera about the wreckage of war, the family you find, and who you must become when every choice is stripped from you, Some Desperate Glory is Astounding Award Winner Emily Tesh’s explosive debut novel. "Some Desperate Glory surprised me at every turn At once a space thriller, a tale of deprogramming, and a missive on identity and meaning, the result is a vitally refreshing addition to the SFF genre

This book has earned a permanent place on my favorites shelf."—V E Schwab "Masterful, audacious storytelling Relentless, unsentimental, a completely wild ride."—Tamsyn Muir "This is the sort of debut novel every novelist hopes to write."—John Scalzi "Deserves a space on shelves alongside Ursula K

Le Guin and Octavia Butler."—Publishers Weekly (starred review) National Bestseller | Sunday Times Bestseller | An Indie Next Pick | A LibraryReads Pick | a Goodreads Choice Finalist | With three starred reviews A Best Of Pick for The Guardian | GoodReads | Publishers Weekly | Powell's | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Audible | Gizmodo | Book Riot | LitHub | Financial Times | Discover Sci-Fi | Locus | NPR | Library Journal While we live, the enemy shall fear us

Since she was born, Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of planet Earth Raised in the bowels of Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she readies herself to face the Wisdom, the powerful, reality-shaping weapon that gave the majoda their victory over humanity They are what’s left

They are what must survive Kyr is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet When Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to Nursery to bear sons until she dies trying, she knows she must take humanity's revenge into her own hands Alongside her brother’s brilliant but seditious friend and a lonely, captive alien, Kyr escapes from everything she’s known into a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could have imagined At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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The Saint of Bright Doors

Vajra Chandrasekera

Tordotcom , 2023 • 273 pages

A 2023 New York Times Notable Book “The best book I've read all year Protean, singular, original.” —Amal El-Mohtar for the New York Times The Saint of Bright Doors sets the high drama of divine revolutionaries and transcendent cults against the mundane struggles of modern life, resulting in a novel that is revelatory and resonant Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father

This gave him plenty to talk about in therapy He walked among invisible powers: devils and anti-gods that mock the mortal form He learned a lethal catechism, lost his shadow, and gained a habit for secrecy

After a blood-soaked childhood, Fetter escaped his rural hometown for the big city, and fell into a broader world where divine destinies are a dime a dozen Everything in Luriat is more than it seems Group therapy is recruitment for a revolutionary cadre Junk email hints at the arrival of a god

Every door is laden with potential, and once closed may never open again The city is scattered with Bright Doors, looming portals through which a cold wind blows In this unknowable metropolis, Fetter will discover what kind of man he is, and his discovery will rewrite the world At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

Shannon Chakraborty

HarperCollins , 2023 • 307 pages

"A thrilling, transportative adventure that is everything promised–Chakraborty's storytelling is fantasy at its best." -- R.F Kuang, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and The Poppy War "An exhilarating, propulsive adventure, stitched from the threads of real history, Amina’s adventures are the reason to read fantasy." -- Ava Reid, internationally bestselling author of Juniper & Thorn Shannon Chakraborty, the bestselling author of The City of Brass, spins a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman’s determined quest to seize a final chance at glory—and write her own legend

Amina al-Sirafi should be content After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum

The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.
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Made in China

Elizabeth O'Brien Ingleson

Harvard University Press , 2024 • 353 pages

Elizabeth Ingleson explores the roots of bilateral trade between the United States and China Telling the story of the 1970s US activists and entrepreneurs who pressed for access to China's vast labor market, Ingleson shows how not just Chinese reform but also US deindustrialization fueled a dramatic, unanticipated shift in global capitalism.
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The Guns of August

Barbara W. Tuchman

Random House , 2009 • 658 pages

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • “A brilliant piece of military history which proves up to the hilt the force of Winston Churchill’s statement that the first month of World War I was ‘a drama never surpassed.’”—Newsweek Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time In this landmark account, renowned historian Barbara W Tuchman re-creates the first month of World War I: thirty days in the summer of 1914 that determined the course of the conflict, the century, and ultimately our present world

Beginning with the funeral of Edward VII, Tuchman traces each step that led to the inevitable clash And inevitable it was, with all sides plotting their war for a generation Dizzyingly comprehensive and spectacularly portrayed with her famous talent for evoking the characters of the war’s key players, Tuchman’s magnum opus is a classic for the ages

The Proud Tower, the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Guns of August, and The Zimmermann Telegram comprise Barbara W Tuchman’s classic histories of the First World War era
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The Sleepwalkers

Christopher Clark

Harper Collins , 2013 • 736 pages

One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History) The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 is historian Christopher Clark’s riveting account of the explosive beginnings of World War I Drawing on new scholarship, Clark offers a fresh look at World War I, focusing not on the battles and atrocities of the war itself, but on the complex events and relationships that led a group of well-meaning leaders into brutal conflict

Clark traces the paths to war in a minute-by-minute, action-packed narrative that cuts between the key decision centers in Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Paris, London, and Belgrade, and examines the decades of history that informed the events of 1914 and details the mutual misunderstandings and unintended signals that drove the crisis forward in a few short weeks Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers is a dramatic and authoritative chronicle of Europe’s descent into a war that tore the world apart.
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Reconstruction Updated Edition

Eric Foner

Harper Collins , 2014 • 752 pages

From the "preeminent historian of Reconstruction" (New York Times Book Review), the prize-winning classic work on the post-Civil War period that shaped modern America Eric Foner's "masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history" (New Republic) redefined how the post-Civil War period was viewed Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery

It addresses the ways in which the emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans This "smart book of enormous strengths" (Boston Globe) remains the standard work on the wrenching post-Civil War period—an era whose legacy still reverberates in the United States today.
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US National Security and Foreign Direct Investment

Edward Montgomery Graham, David Matthew Marchick

Peterson Institute , 2006 • 236 pages

Examines foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States, the national security concerns associated with this investment, and treatment of these concerns under US policy This book asks whether the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) process can be improved and answers in the affirmative.Does foreign ownership of American businesses pose a threat to the United States (like the abortive attempt by CNOOC, a Chinese company, to purchase Unocal during the summer of 2005)

This important new book examines foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States, the national security concerns associated with this investment, and treatment of these concerns under US policy It asks whether the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) process can be improved and answers in the affirmative The book starts by looking at the review process for foreign takeovers of US firms (including a historical review), looks at the economic and political impact on the United States of foreign direct investment, takes a detailed look at issues relating to FDI posed by the rise of China as an economic and geopolitical power and finally suggests some changes to the Exon-Florio process.
Saudi America cover

Saudi America

Bethany McLean

Trustees of Columbia Univ - City of New York , 2018

Argues that obtaining energy through the hydraulic fracturing of shale rock is based on unstable economic foundations, and is having much more destructive effects on the economy and the government of the United States than its advocates claim"--
The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth cover

The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth

Benjamin M. Friedman

Vintage , 2010 • 594 pages

From the author of Day of Reckoning, the acclaimed critique of Ronald Reagan’s economic policy (“Every citizen should read it,” said The New York Times): a persuasive, wide-ranging argument that economic growth provides far more than material benefits In clear-cut prose, Benjamin M Friedman examines the political and social histories of the large Western democracies–particularly of the United States since the Civil War–to demonstrate the fact that incomes on the rise lead to more open and democratic societies

He explains that growth, rather than simply a high standard of living, is key to effecting political and social liberalization in the third world, and shows that even the wealthiest of nations puts its democratic values at risk when income levels stand still Merely being rich is no protection against a turn toward rigidity and intolerance when a country’s citizens lose the sense that they are getting ahead With concrete policy suggestions for pursuing growth at home and promoting worldwide economic expansion, this volume is a major contribution to the ongoing debate about the effects of economic growth and globalization.
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Zhou Enlai

Jian Chen

Harvard University Press - T , 2024 • 841 pages

The definitive biography of Zhou Enlai, the first premier and preeminent diplomat of the People’s Republic of China, who protected his country against the excesses of his boss—Chairman Mao Zhou Enlai spent twenty-seven years as premier of the People’s Republic of China and ten as its foreign minister He was the architect of the country’s administrative apparatus and its relationship to the world, as well as its legendary spymaster

Richard Nixon proclaimed him “the greatest statesman of our era.” Yet Zhou has always been overshadowed by Chairman Mao Chen Jian brings Zhou into the light, offering a nuanced portrait of his complex life as a revolutionary, a master diplomat, and a man with his own vision and aspirations who did much to make China, as well as the larger world, what it is today Born to a declining mandarin family in 1898, Zhou received a classical education and as a teenager spent time in Japan

As a young man, driven by the desire for China’s development, Zhou embraced the communist revolution as a vehicle of China’s salvation He helped Mao govern through a series of transformations, including the disastrous Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution Yet, as Chen shows, Zhou was never a committed Maoist

His extraordinary political and bureaucratic skill, combined with his centrist approaches, enabled him to mitigate the enormous damage caused by Mao’s radicalism When Zhou died in 1976, the PRC that we know of was not yet visible on the horizon; he never saw glistening twenty-first-century Shanghai or the broader emergence of Chinese capitalism But it was Zhou’s work that shaped the nation whose influence and power are today felt in every corner of the globe.
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The Power to Destroy

Michael J. Graetz

Princeton University Press , 2024 • 368 pages

How the antitax fringe went mainstream—and now threatens America’s future The postwar United States enjoyed large, widely distributed economic rewards—and most Americans accepted that taxes were a reasonable price to pay for living in a society of shared prosperity Then in 1978 California enacted Proposition 13, a property tax cap that Ronald Reagan hailed as a “second American Revolution,” setting off an antitax, antigovernment wave that has transformed American politics and economic policy

In The Power to Destroy, Michael Graetz tells the story of the antitax movement and how it holds America hostage—undermining the nation’s ability to meet basic needs and fix critical problems In 1819, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that the power to tax entails “the power to destroy.” But The Power to Destroy argues that tax opponents now wield this destructive power Attacking the IRS, protecting tax loopholes, and pushing tax cuts from Reagan to Donald Trump, the antitax movement is threatening the nation’s social safety net, increasing inequality, ballooning the national debt, and sapping America’s financial strength

The book chronicles how the movement originated as a fringe enterprise promoted by zealous outsiders using false economic claims and thinly veiled racist rhetoric, and how—abetted by conservative media and Grover Norquist’s “taxpayer protection pledge"—it evolved into a mainstream political force The important story of how the antitax movement came to dominate and distort politics, and how it impedes rational budgeting, equality, and opportunities, The Power to Destroy is essential reading for understanding American life today.
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Beneath the United States

Lars Schoultz

Harvard University Press , 1998 • 497 pages

In this sweeping history of United States policy toward Latin America, Lars Schoultz shows that the United States has always perceived Latin America as a fundamentally inferior neighbor, unable to manage its affairs and stubbornly underdeveloped This perception of inferiority was apparent from the beginning John Quincy Adams, who first established diplomatic relations with Latin America, believed that Hispanics were "lazy, dirty, nasty...a parcel of hogs." In the early nineteenth century, ex-President John Adams declared that any effort to implant democracy in Latin America was "as absurd as similar plans would be to establish democracies among the birds, beasts, and fishes." Drawing on extraordinarily rich archival sources, Schoultz, one of the country's foremost Latin America scholars, shows how these core beliefs have not changed for two centuries

We have combined self-interest with a "civilizing mission"--a self-abnegating effort by a superior people to help a substandard civilization overcome its defects William Howard Taft felt the way to accomplish this task was "to knock their heads together until they should maintain peace," while in 1959 CIA Director Allen Dulles warned that "the new Cuban officials had to be treated more or less like children." Schoultz shows that the policies pursued reflected these deeply held convictions

While political correctness censors the expression of such sentiments today, the actions of the United States continue to assume the political and cultural inferiority of Latin America Schoultz demonstrates that not until the United States perceives its southern neighbors as equals can it anticipate a constructive hemispheric alliance.
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Nixonland

Rick Perlstein

Simon and Schuster , 2008 • 896 pages

“Perlstein...aims here at nothing less than weaving a tapestry of social upheaval His success is dazzling.” —Los Angeles Times “Both brilliant and fun, a consuming journey back into the making of modern politics.” —Jon Meacham “Nixonland is a grand historical epic Rick Perlstein has turned a story we think we know—American politics between the opposing presidential landslides of 1964 and 1972—into an often-surprising and always-fascinating new narrative.” —Jeffrey Toobin Rick Perlstein’s bestselling account of how the Nixon era laid the groundwork for the political divide that marks our country today

Told with vivid urgency and sharp political insight, Nixonland recaptures America’s turbulent 1960s and early 1970s and reveals how Richard Nixon rose from the political grave to seize and hold the presidency of the United States Perlstein’s epic account begins in the blood and fire of the 1965 Watts riots, nine months after Lyndon Johnson’s historic landslide victory over Barry Goldwater appeared to herald a permanent liberal consensus in the United States

Yet the next year, scores of liberals were tossed out of Congress, America was more divided than ever, and a disgraced politician was on his way to a shocking comeback: Richard Nixon Between 1965 and 1972 America experienced no less than a second civil war Out of its ashes, the political world we know now was born Filled with prodigious research and driven by a powerful narrative, Rick Perlstein’s magisterial account of how it all happened confirms his place as one of our country’s most celebrated historians.
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The Jakarta Method

Vincent Bevins

PublicAffairs , 2020 • 362 pages

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2020 BY NPR, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, AND GQ The hidden story of the wanton slaughter -- in Indonesia, Latin America, and around the world -- backed by the United States In 1965, the U.S. government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians This was one of the most important turning points of the twentieth century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile

But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA's secret interventions were so successful In this bold and comprehensive new history, Vincent Bevins builds on his incisive reporting for the Washington Post, using recently declassified documents, archival research and eye-witness testimony collected across twelve countries to reveal a shocking legacy that spans the globe For decades, it's been believed that parts of the developing world passed peacefully into the U.S.-led capitalist system The Jakarta Method demonstrates that the brutal extermination of unarmed leftists was a fundamental part of Washington's final triumph in the Cold War.
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Lenin's Tomb

David Remnick

Vintage , 2014 • 626 pages

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times From the editor of The New Yorker: a riveting account of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which has become the standard book on the subject Lenin’s Tomb combines the global vision of the best historical scholarship with the immediacy of eyewitness journalism Remnick takes us through the tumultuous 75-year period of Communist rule leading up to the collapse and gives us the voices of those who lived through it, from democratic activists to Party members, from anti-Semites to Holocaust survivors, from Gorbachev to Yeltsin to Sakharov An extraordinary history of an empire undone, Lenin’s Tomb stands as essential reading for our times.
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The Rise of Merchant Banking

Stanley Chapman

Routledge , 2013 • 240 pages

This is the first serious history of merchant banking, based on the archives of the leading houses and the records of their activities throughout the world It combines scholarly insight with readability, and offers a totally new assessment of the origins of one of the most dynamic sectors of the City of London money market, of the British economy as a whole and of a major aspect of the growth of international business Dr Chapman has researched new material from the archives of Rothschilds, Barings, Kleinwort Benson and other leading houses together with a wide range of archives and published work in Europe, America and South Africa to trace the roots of British enterprise in financing international trade, exporting capital, floating companies, arbitrage, and other activities of the merchant banks

While mindful of the subtleties of international financial connections, this book assumes no previous acquaintance with the jargon of banking, economics and sociology It will therefore prove equally interesting to students of history, business and finance, and offers a 'good read' to anyone interested in the City of London and the international economy.
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Inside Money

Zachary Karabell

Penguin , 2021 • 457 pages

A sweeping history of the legendary private investment firm Brown Brothers Harriman, exploring its central role in the story of American wealth and its rise to global power Conspiracy theories have always swirled around Brown Brothers Harriman, and not without reason Throughout the nineteenth century, when America was convulsed by a devastating financial panic essentially every twenty years, Brown Brothers quietly went from strength to strength, propping up the U.S. financial system at crucial moments and catalyzing successive booms, from the cotton trade and the steamship to the railroad, while largely managing to avoid the unwelcome attention that plagued some of its competitors

By the turn of the twentieth century, Brown Brothers was unquestionably at the heart of what was meant by an American Establishment As America's reach extended beyond its shores, Brown Brothers worked hand in glove with the State Department, notably in Nicaragua in the early twentieth century, where the firm essentially took over the country's economy To the Brown family, the virtue of their dealings was a given; their form of muscular Protestantism, forged on the playing fields of Groton and Yale, was the acme of civilization, and it was their duty to import that civilization to the world

When, during the Great Depression, Brown Brothers ensured their strength by merging with Averell Harriman's investment bank to form Brown Brothers Harriman, the die was cast for the role the firm would play on the global stage during World War II and thereafter, as its partners served at the highest levels of government to shape the international system that defines the world to this day In Inside Money, acclaimed historian, commentator, and former financial executive Zachary Karabell offers the first full and frank look inside this institution against the backdrop of American history

Blessed with complete access to the company's archives, as well as a thrilling understanding of the larger forces at play, Karabell has created an X-ray of American power--financial, political, cultural--as it has evolved from the early 1800s to the present Today, unlike many of its competitors, Brown Brothers Harriman remains a private partnership and a beacon of sustainable capitalism, having forgone the heady speculative upsides of the past thirty years but also having avoided any role in the devastating downsides

The firm is no longer in the command capsule of the American economy, but, arguably, that is to its credit If its partners cleaved to any one adage over the generations, it is that a relentless pursuit of more can destroy more than it creates.
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Volt Rush

Henry Sanderson

Simon and Schuster , 2022 • 290 pages

A remarkably hopeful and useful book...The climate crisis leaves us no choice but to build a new world and as Sanderson makes clear, we are capable of making it a better one than the dirty and dangerous planet we’ve come to take for granted.' Bill McKibben, Observer book of the week We depend on a handful of metals and rare earths to power our phones and computers Increasingly, we rely on them to power our cars and our homes Whoever controls these finite commodities will become rich beyond imagining Sanderson journeys to meet the characters, companies, and nations scrambling for the new resources, linking remote mines in the Congo and Chile’s Atacama Desert to giant Chinese battery factories, shadowy commodity traders, secretive billionaires, a new generation of scientists attempting to solve the dilemma of a ‘greener’ world.
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Journey to the Jones ACT

Charlie Papavizas

Fortis , 2024

Charlie Papavizas captures a rich history from the early 17th century English Navigation Acts to the building of a great merchant fleet of vessels to make permanent America's place in the maritime world with that fleet.
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Development in Multiple Dimensions

Alexander Lee

University of Michigan Press , 2019 • 305 pages

Why do some states provide infrastructure and social services to their citizens, and others do not In Development in Multiple Dimensions, Alexander Lee examines the origins of success and failure in the public services of developing countries Comparing states within India, this study examines how elites either control, or are shut out of, policy decisions and how the interests of these elites influence public policy

He shows that social inequalities are not single but multiple, creating groups of competing elites with divergent policy interests Since the power of these elites varies, states do not necessarily focus on the same priorities: some focus on infrastructure, others on social services, and still others on both or neither The author develops his ideas through quantitative comparisons and case studies focusing on four northern Indian states: Gujarat, West Bengal, Bihar, and Himachal Pradesh, each of which represents different types of political economy and has a different set of powerful caste groups The evidence indicates that regional variation in India is a consequence of social differences, and the impact of these differences on carefully considered distributional strategies, rather than differences in ideology, geography, or institutions.
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The Regional Roots of Developmental Politics in India

Aseema Sinha

Indiana University Press , 2005 • 388 pages

A comparative chapter applies the model to data from China, Brazil, Russia, and the former Soviet Union.
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Locked in Place

Vivek Chibber

Princeton University Press , 2011 • 360 pages

Why were some countries able to build "developmental states" in the decades after World War II while others were not Through a richly detailed examination of India's experience, Locked in Place argues that the critical factor was the reaction of domestic capitalists to the state-building project

During the 1950s and 1960s, India launched an extremely ambitious and highly regarded program of state-led development But it soon became clear that the Indian state lacked the institutional capacity to carry out rapid industrialization

Drawing on newly available archival sources, Vivek Chibber mounts a forceful challenge to conventional arguments by showing that the insufficient state capacity stemmed mainly from Indian industrialists' massive campaign, in the years after Independence, against a strong developmental state Chibber contrasts India's experience with the success of a similar program of state-building in South Korea, where political elites managed to harness domestic capitalists to their agenda

He then develops a theory of the structural conditions that can account for the different reactions of Indian and Korean capitalists as rational responses to the distinct development models adopted in each country Provocative and marked by clarity of prose, this book is also the first historical study of India's post-colonial industrial strategy Emphasizing the central role of capital in the state-building process, and restoring class analysis to the core of the political economy of development, Locked in Place is an innovative work of theoretical power that will interest development specialists, political scientists, and historians of the subcontinent.
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My Life as a Quant

Emanuel Derman

John Wiley & Sons , 2016 • 311 pages

In My Life as a Quant, Emanuel Derman relives his exciting journey as one of the first high-energy particle physicists to migrate to Wall Street Page by page, Derman details his adventures in this field—analyzing the incompatible personas of traders and quants, and discussing the dissimilar nature of knowledge in physics and finance Throughout this tale, he also reflects on the appropriate way to apply the refined methods of physics to the hurly-burly world of markets.
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The Long Game

Rush Doshi

Oxford University Press , 2021 • 433 pages

For more than a century, no US adversary or coalition of adversaries - not Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or the Soviet Union - has ever reached sixty percent of US GDP China is the sole exception, and it is fast emerging into a global superpower that could rival, if not eclipse, the United States What does China want, does it have a grand strategy to achieve it, and what should the United States do about it

In The Long Game, Rush Doshi draws from a rich base of Chinese primary sources, including decades worth of party documents, leaked materials, memoirs by party leaders, and a careful analysis of China's conduct to provide a history of China's grand strategy since the end of the Cold War Taking readers behind the Party's closed doors, he uncovers Beijing's long, methodical game to displace America from its hegemonic position in both the East Asia regional and global orders through three sequential "strategies of displacement." Beginning in the 1980s, China focused for two decades on "hiding capabilities and biding time." After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, it became more assertive regionally, following a policy of "actively accomplishing something." Finally, in the aftermath populist elections of 2016, China shifted to an even more aggressive strategy for undermining US hegemony, adopting the phrase "great changes unseen in century." After charting how China's long game has evolved, Doshi offers a comprehensive yet asymmetric plan for an effective US response Ironically, his proposed approach takes a page from Beijing's own strategic playbook to undermine China's ambitions and strengthen American order without competing dollar-for-dollar, ship-for-ship, or loan-for-loan.
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China's Gilded Age

Yuen Yuen Ang

Cambridge University Press , 2020 • 275 pages

Unbundles corruption into different types, examining corruption as access money in China through a comparative-historical lens.
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The Making of the Modern Middle East

Jeremy Bowen

Picador , 2023

A Spectator and New Statesman Book of the Year 'An illuminating and riveting read.' - Jonathan Dimbleby Jeremy Bowen, the International Editor of the BBC, has been covering the Middle East since 1989 and is uniquely placed to explain its complex past and its troubled present Here, Bowen offers readers a gripping and invaluable guide to the modern Middle East, how it came to be and what its future might hold In The Making of the Modern Middle East - in part based on his acclaimed podcast, 'Our Man in the Middle East' - Bowen takes us on a journey across the Middle East and through its history

He meets ordinary men and women on the front line, their leaders, whether brutal or benign, and he explores the power games that have so often wreaked devastation on civilian populations as those leaders, whatever their motives, jostle for political, religious and economic control Clear throughout is Bowen's deep understanding of the political, cultural and religious differences between countries as diverse as Erdogan's Turkey, Assad's Syria, Netanyahu's Israel and Palestine, whether Hamas-controlled Gaza or the West Bank, and his long experience of covering events in the region.
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A Companion to Chinese History

Michael Szonyi

John Wiley & Sons , 2017 • 475 pages

A Companion to Chinese History presents a collection of essays offering a comprehensive overview of the latest intellectual developments in the study of China’s history from the ancient past up until the present day Covers the major trends in the study of Chinese history from antiquity to the present day Considers the latest scholarship of historians working in China and around the world Explores a variety of long-range questions and themes which serves to bridge the conventional divide between China’s traditional and modern eras Addresses China’s connections with other nations and regions and enables non-specialists to make comparisons with their own fields Features discussion of traditional topics and chronological approaches as well as newer themes such as Chinese history in relation to sexuality, national identity, and the environment
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The Decline of Socialism in America, 1912-1925

James Weinstein

1984 • 392 pages

covers the decline of socialism in america from 1912-1925
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Restless Empire

Odd Arne Westad

Basic Books , 2012 • 544 pages

As the twenty-first century dawns, China stands at a crossroads The largest and most populous country on earth and currently the world's second biggest economy, China has recently reclaimed its historic place at the center of global affairs after decades of internal chaos and disastrous foreign relations But even as China tentatively reengages with the outside world, the contradictions of its development risks pushing it back into an era of insularity and instability—a regression that, as China's recent history shows, would have serious implications for all other nations

In Restless Empire, award-winning historian Odd Arne Westad traces China's complex foreign affairs over the past 250 years, identifying the forces that will determine the country's path in the decades to come Since the height of the Qing Empire in the eighteenth century, China's interactions—and confrontations—with foreign powers have caused its worldview to fluctuate wildly between extremes of dominance and subjugation, emulation and defiance From the invasion of Burma in the 1760s to the Boxer Rebellion in the early 20th century to the 2001 standoff over a downed U.S. spy plane, many of these encounters have left Chinese with a lingering sense of humiliation and resentment, and inflamed their notions of justice, hierarchy, and Chinese centrality in world affairs

Recently, China's rising influence on the world stage has shown what the country stands to gain from international cooperation and openness But as Westad shows, the nation's success will ultimately hinge on its ability to engage with potential international partners while simultaneously safeguarding its own strength and stability An in-depth study by one of our most respected authorities on international relations and contemporary East Asian history, Restless Empire is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the recent past and probable future of this dynamic and complex nation.
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Wild Ride

Anne Stevenson-Yang

Bui Jones Limited , 2024

How did China grow from an impoverished country to become the second largest economy in the world in just over four decades And how did this economic miracle come to an end, as seems the case today To understand the story of China's rapid rise and equally rapid fall, author Anne Stevenson-Yang takes us back to the beginning, when Deng Xiaoping took over and opened its moribund economy to Western money and know-how

Stevenson-Yang, who lived and worked in China for a quarter of a century, traces each decade of China's tumultuous development, from the roaring 1980s to today's malaise In her first-hand account, Wild Ride, Stevenson-Yang concludes that China is returning to the poverty and isolation of the Mao era What happened to the promise of the political change that would come with the opening of the economy

And the institutional reforms of the last four decades The author says all that change was all an illusion Communist China, being interested only in survival, played along and the West fell for it With the rise of Xi Jinping, that capitalist experiment is over. 'It took me years to understand that I was an unwitting player in an elaborate dramatic confection.'
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American Plastic

Jeffrey L. Meikle

Rutgers University Press , 1995 • 440 pages

(Meikle) traces the course of plastics from 19th-century celluloid and the first wholly synthetic bakelite, in 1907, through the proliferation of compounds (vinyls, acrylics, nylon, etc.) and recent ecological concerns".--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Winner of the 1996 Dexter Prize from the Society for the History of Technology and a 1996 CHOICE Oustanding Academic Book. 70 illustrations.
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Autonomous Technology

Langdon Winner

MIT Press , 1978 • 400 pages

The truth of the matter is that our deficiency does not lie in the want of well-verified "facts." What we lack is our bearings The contemporary experience of things technological has repeatedly confounded our vision, our expectations, and our capacity to make intelligent judgments Categories, arguments, conclusions, and choices that would have been entirely obvious in earlier times are obvious no longer

Patterns of perceptive thinking that were entirely reliable in the past now lead us systematically astray Many of our standard conceptions of technology reveal a disorientation that borders on dissociation from reality And as long as we lack the ability to make our situation intelligible, all of the "data" in the world will make no difference From the Introduction
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Private Equity

Carrie Sun

Bloomsbury Publishing , 2024 • 353 pages

Named a most-anticipated book of 2024 by the Sunday Times, Financial Times, Stylist, Vogue, NPR.org, Oprah Daily, Town & Country and more.'A moving story of how easily a life can be submerged by work, and what it takes to regain one's soul' Oliver Burkeman, bestselling author of Four Thousand WeeksWhat are you willing to sacrifice to get to the top?What it might take to break free and leave it all behind?Carrie Sun can't shake the feeling that she's wasting her life At twenty-nine, she's left her job, dropped out of an MBA program and is trapped in an unhappy engagement

So when she gets the opportunity to work at one of the most prestigious hedge funds in the world, she can't say no Carrie is the sole assistant to the ¬firm's billionaire founder: she manages his work life, becomes his right hand and learns that money can solve nearly everything.But amid the ultimate winners in our winner-take-all economy, Carrie soon¬ finds her identity swallowed whole With her physical and mental health deteriorating, she begins to rethink what it actually means to waste one's life

A searing examination of our relationship to work, Private Equity is a universal tale of self-invention from a dazzling new voice.----------------------'A penetrating but all the more necessary critique of extreme wealth and toxic work culture as [Sun] questions what it really means to waste one's life' Oprah Daily, The Most Anticipated Books of 2024'Bound to fascinate and terrify titans of finance in equal measure That's because Sun writes of her own experience as the right hand to a billionaire banker, and shares incredible insights from the world that he inhabited, and in which she herself got lost It's an observant, fascinating look at a rarefied space of power and privilege that's rarely on public view, and an unparalleled peek inside a system that shapes us all, whether we know it or not.' Town & Country, Must-Read Books of Winter 2024
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Shadow Empires

Thomas J. Barfield

Princeton University Press , 2023 • 384 pages

An original study of empire creation and its consequences, from ancient through early modern times The world’s first great empires established by the ancient Persians, Chinese, and Romans are well known, but not the empires that emerged on their margins in response to them over the course of 2,500 years These counterempires or shadow empires, which changed the course of history, include the imperial nomad confederacies that arose in Mongolia and extorted resources from China rather than attempting to conquer it, as well as maritime empires such as ancient Athens that controlled trade without seeking territorial hegemony

In Shadow Empires, Thomas Barfield identifies seven kinds of counterempire and explores their rise, politics, economics, and longevity What all these counterempires had in common was their interactions with existing empires that created the conditions for their development When highly successful, these counterempires left the shadows to become the world’s largest empires—for example, those of the medieval Muslim Arabs and of the Mongol heirs of Chinggis Khan

Three former shadow empires—Manchu Qing China, Tsarist Russia, and British India—made this transformation in the late eighteenth century and came to rule most of Eurasia However, the DNA of their origins endured in their unique ruling strategies Indeed, world powers still use these strategies today, long after their roots in shadow empires have been forgotten Looking afresh at the histories of important types of empires that are often ignored, Shadow Empires provides an original account of empire formation from the ancient world to the early modern period.
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The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics

Richard C. Koo

John Wiley & Sons , 2011 • 373 pages

The revised edition of this highly acclaimed work presents crucial lessons from Japan's recession that could aid the US and other economies as they struggle to recover from the current financial crisis This book is about Japan's 15-year long recession and how it affected current theoretical thinking about its causes and cures It has a detailed explanation on what happened to Japan, but the discoveries made are so far-reaching that a large portion of economics literature will have to be modified to accommodate another half to the macroeconomic spectrum of possibilities that conventional theorists have overlooked

The author developed the idea of yin and yang business cycles where the conventional world of profit maximization is the yang and the world of balance sheet recession, where companies are minimizing debt, is the yin Once so divided, many varied theories developed in macro economics since the 1930s can be nicely categorized into a single comprehensive theory- The Holy Grail of Macro Economics
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Asad

Patrick Seale

Univ of California Press , 1989 • 570 pages

From the John Holmes Library collection.
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Bomb Power

Garry Wills

Penguin , 2011 • 269 pages

From Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills, a groundbreaking examination of how the atomic bomb profoundly altered the nature of American democracy and has left us in a state of war alert ever since Look out for a new book from Garry Wills, What the Qur'an Meant, coming fall 2017 In Bomb Power, Garry Wills reveals how the atomic bomb transformed our nation down to its deepest constitutional roots-by dramatically increasing the power of the modern presidency and redefining the government as a national security state-in ways still felt today

A masterful reckoning from one of America's preeminent historians, Bomb Power draws a direct line from the Manhattan Project to the usurpations of George W Bush The invention of the atomic bomb was a triumph of official secrecy and military discipline-the project was covertly funded at the behest of the president and, despite its massive scale, never discovered by Congress or the press

This concealment was perhaps to be expected in wartime, but Wills persuasively argues that the Manhattan Project then became a model for the covert operations and overt authority that have defined American government in the nuclear era The wartime emergency put in place during World War II extended into the Cold War and finally the war on terror, leaving us in a state of continuous war alert for sixty-eight years and counting The bomb forever changed the institution of the presidency since only the president controls "the button" and, by extension, the fate of the world

Wills underscores how radical a break this was from the division of powers established by our founding fathers and how it in turn has enfeebled Congress and the courts The bomb also placed new emphasis on the president's military role, creating a cult around the commander in chief The tendency of modern presidents to flaunt military airs, Wills points out, is entirely a postbomb phenomenon

Finally, the Manhattan Project inspired the vast secretive apparatus of the national security state, including intelligence agencies such as the CIA and NSA, which remain largely unaccountable to Congress and the American people Wills recounts how, following World War II, presidential power increased decade by decade until reaching its stunning apogee with the Bush administration Both provocative and illuminating, Bomb Power casts the history of the postwar period in a new light and sounds an alarm about the continued threat to our Constitution.
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The Shining Path: Love, Madness, and Revolution in the Andes

Orin Starn, Miguel La Serna

W. W. Norton & Company , 2019 • 384 pages

A narrative history of the unlikely Maoist rebellion that terrorized Peru even after the fall of global Communism On May 17, 1980, on the eve of Peru’s presidential election, five masked men stormed a small town in the Andean heartland They set election ballots ablaze and vanished into the night, but not before planting a red hammer-and-sickle banner in the town square

The lone man arrested the next morning later swore allegiance to a group called Shining Path The tale of how this ferocious group of guerrilla insurgents launched a decade-long reign of terror, and how brave police investigators and journalists brought it to justice, may be the most compelling chapter in modern Latin American history, but the full story has never been told Described by a U.S

State Department cable as “cold-blooded and bestial,” Shining Path orchestrated bombings, assassinations, and massacres across the cities, countryside, and jungles of Peru in a murderous campaign to seize power and impose a Communist government At its helm was the professor-turned-revolutionary Abimael Guzmán, who launched his single-minded insurrection alongside two women: his charismatic young wife, Augusta La Torre, and the formidable Elena Iparraguirre, who married Guzmán soon after Augusta’s mysterious death

Their fanatical devotion to an outmoded and dogmatic ideology, and the military’s bloody response, led to the death of nearly 70,000 Peruvians Orin Starn and Miguel La Serna’s narrative history of Shining Path is both panoramic and intimate, set against the socioeconomic upheavals of Peru’s rocky transition from military dictatorship to elected democracy They take readers deep into the heart of the rebellion, and the lives and country it nearly destroyed

We hear the voices of the mountain villagers who organized a fierce rural resistance, and meet the irrepressible black activist María Elena Moyano and the Nobel Prize–winning novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, who each fought to end the bloodshed Deftly written, The Shining Path is an exquisitely detailed account of a little-remembered war that must never be forgotten.
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The Sciences of the Artificial, reissue of the third edition with a new introduction by John Laird

Herbert A. Simon

MIT Press , 2019 • 256 pages

Herbert Simon's classic work on artificial intelligence in the expanded and updated third edition from 1996, with a new introduction by John E Laird Herbert Simon's classic and influential The Sciences of the Artificial declares definitively that there can be a science not only of natural phenomena but also of what is artificial

Exploring the commonalities of artificial systems, including economic systems, the business firm, artificial intelligence, complex engineering projects, and social plans, Simon argues that designed systems are a valid field of study, and he proposes a science of design For this third edition, originally published in 1996, Simon added new material that takes into account advances in cognitive psychology and the science of design while confirming and extending the book's basic thesis: that a physical symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means for intelligent action

Simon won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1978 for his research into the decision-making process within economic organizations and the Turing Award (considered by some the computer science equivalent to the Nobel) with Allen Newell in 1975 for contributions to artificial intelligence, the psychology of human cognition, and list processing The Sciences of the Artificial distills the essence of Simon's thought accessibly and coherently This reissue of the third edition makes a pioneering work available to a new audience.
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Breaking Through

Katalin Karikó

Crown , 2023 • 345 pages

A powerful memoir from Katalin Karikó, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, whose decades-long research led to the COVID-19 vaccines “Katalin Karikó’s story is an inspiration.”—Bill Gates “Riveting . . . a true story of a brilliant biochemist who never gave up or gave in.”—Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Katalin Karikó has had an unlikely journey The daughter of a butcher in postwar communist Hungary, Karikó grew up in an adobe home that lacked running water, and her family grew their own vegetables

She saw the wonders of nature all around her and was determined to become a scientist That determination eventually brought her to the United States, where she arrived as a postdoctoral fellow in 1985 with $1,200 sewn into her toddler’s teddy bear and a dream to remake medicine Karikó worked in obscurity, battled cockroaches in a windowless lab, and faced outright derision and even deportation threats from her bosses and colleagues

She balked as prestigious research institutions increasingly conflated science and money Despite setbacks, she never wavered in her belief that an ephemeral and underappreciated molecule called messenger RNA could change the world Karikó believed that someday mRNA would transform ordinary cells into tiny factories capable of producing their own medicines on demand

She sacrificed nearly everything for this dream, but the obstacles she faced only motivated her, and eventually she succeeded Karikó’s three-decade-long investigation into mRNA would lead to a staggering achievement: vaccines that protected millions of people from the most dire consequences of COVID-19 These vaccines are just the beginning of mRNA’s potential

Today, the medical community eagerly awaits more mRNA vaccines—for the flu, HIV, and other emerging infectious diseases Breaking Through isn’t just the story of an extraordinary woman It’s an indictment of closed-minded thinking and a testament to one woman’s commitment to laboring intensely in obscurity—knowing she might never be recognized in a culture that is driven by prestige, power, and privilege—because she believed her work would save lives.
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Empires of the Steppes

Kenneth W. Harl

Harlequin , 2023 • 695 pages

A narrative history of how Attila, Genghis Khan and the so-called barbarians of the steppes shaped world civilization The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their achievements have gone largely unnoticed These nomadic tribes have produced some of the world’s greatest conquerors: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, among others

Their deeds still resonate today Indeed, these nomads built long-lasting empires, facilitated the first global trade of the Silk Road and disseminated religions, technology, knowledge and goods of every description that enriched and changed the lives of so many across Europe, China and the Middle East From a single region emerged a great many peoples—the Huns, the Mongols, the Magyars, the Turks, the Xiongnu, the Scythians, the Goths—all of whom went on to profoundly and irrevocably shape the modern world

In this new, comprehensive history, Professor Kenneth W Harl vividly re-creates the lives and world of these often-forgotten peoples from their beginnings to the early modern age Their brutal struggle to survive on the steppes bred a resilient, pragmatic people ever ready to learn from their more advanced neighbors

In warfare, they dominated the battlefield for over fifteen hundred years Under charismatic rulers, they could topple empires and win their own.
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Foucault's Pendulum

Umberto Eco

Random House , 2014 • 656 pages

Three book editors, jaded by reading far too many crackpot manuscripts on the mystic and the occult, are inspired by an extraordinary conspiracy story told to them by a strange colonel to have some fun They start feeding random bits of information into a powerful computer capable of inventing connections between the entries, thinking they are creating nothing more than an amusing game, but then their game starts to take over, the deaths start mounting, and they are forced into a frantic search for the truth
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Administrative Behavior, 4th Edition

Herbert A. Simon

Simon and Schuster , 2013 • 384 pages

In this fourth edition of his ground-breaking work, Herbert A Simon applies his pioneering theory of human choice and administrative decision-making to concrete organizational problems To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the book's original publication, Professor Simon enhances his timeless observations on the human decision-making process with commentaries examining new facets of organizational behavior

Investigating the impact of changing social values and modem technology on the operation of organizations, the new ideas featured in this revised edition update a book that has become a worldwide classic Named by Public Administration Review as "Book of the Half Century," Administrative Behavior is considered one of the most influential books on social science thinking, and was referred to by the Nobel Committee as "epoch-making." Written for managers and other professionals who wish to understand the decision-making processes at the heart of organization and management, it is also essential reading for students in business and management, economics, sociology, psychology computer science, government, and law.
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The Age of Anxiety

Andrea Tone

Basic Books , 2008 • 320 pages

Anxious Americans have increasingly pursued peace of mind through pills and prescriptions In 2006, the National Institute of Mental Health estimated that 40 million adult Americans suffer from an anxiety disorder in any given year: more than double the number thought to have such a disorder in 2001 Anti-anxiety drugs are a billion-dollar business

Yet as recently as 1955, when the first tranquilizer—Miltown—went on the market, pharmaceutical executives worried that there wouldn't be interest in anxiety-relief At mid-century, talk therapy remained the treatment of choice But Miltown became a sensation—the first psychotropic blockbuster in United States history

By 1957, Americans had filled 36 million prescriptions Patients seeking made-to-order tranquility emptied drugstores, forcing pharmacists to post signs reading “more Miltown tomorrow.” The drug's financial success and cultural impact revolutionized perceptions of anxiety and its treatment, inspiring the development of other lifestyle drugs including Valium and Prozac In The Age of Anxiety, Andrea Tone draws on a broad array of original sources—manufacturers' files, FDA reports, letters, government investigations, and interviews with inventors, physicians, patients, and activists—to provide the first comprehensive account of the rise of America's tranquilizer culture

She transports readers from the bomb shelters of the Cold War to the scientific optimism of the Baby Boomers, to the “just say no” Puritanism of the late 1970s and 1980s A vibrant history of America's long and turbulent affair with tranquilizers, The Age of Anxiety casts new light on what it has meant to seek synthetic solutions to everyday angst.
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The Bankers’ New Clothes

Anat Admati, Martin Hellwig

Princeton University Press , 2024 • 624 pages

A Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Bloomberg Businessweek Book of the Year Why our banking system is broken—and what we must do to fix it New bank failures have been a rude awakening for everyone who believed that the banking industry was reformed after the Global Financial Crisis—and that we’d never again have to choose between massive bailouts and financial havoc The Bankers’ New Clothes uncovers just how little things have changed—and why banks are still so dangerous

Writing in clear language that anyone can understand, Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig debunk the false and misleading claims of bankers, regulators, politicians, academics, and others who oppose effective reform, and they explain how the banking system can be made safer and healthier Thoroughly updated for a world where bank failures have made a dramatic return, this acclaimed and important book now features a new preface and four new chapters that expose the shortcomings of current policies and reveal how the dominance of banking even presents dangers to the rule of law and democracy itself.
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Energy and Civilization

Vaclav Smil

MIT Press , 2018 • 564 pages

A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie In his latest book, Energy and Civilization: A History, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10,000 years. —Bill Gates, Gates Notes, Best Books of the Year Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done

The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence

In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment

Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994) Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.
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Homicide

David Simon

Holt Paperbacks , 2007 • 672 pages

From the creator of HBO's The Wire, the classic book about homicide investigation that became the basis for the hit television show The scene is Baltimore Twice every three days another citizen is shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned to death At the center of this hurricane of crime is the city's homicide unit, a small brotherhood of hard men who fight for whatever justice is possible in a deadly world

David Simon was the first reporter ever to gain unlimited access to a homicide unit, and this electrifying book tells the true story of a year on the violent streets of an American city The narrative follows Donald Worden, a veteran investigator; Harry Edgerton, a black detective in a mostly white unit; and Tom Pellegrini, an earnest rookie who takes on the year's most difficult case, the brutal rape and murder of an eleven-year-old girl Originally published fifteen years ago, Homicide became the basis for the acclaimed television show of the same name This new edition—which includes a new introduction, an afterword, and photographs—revives this classic, riveting tale about the men who work on the dark side of the American experience.
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Labor and Monopoly Capital

Harry Braverman

New York : Monthly Review Press , 1974 • 488 pages

This widely acclaimed book, first published in 1974, was a classic from its first day in print Written in a direct, inviting way by Harry Braverman, whose years as an industrial worker gave him rich personal insight into work, Labor and Monopoly Capital overturned the reigning ideologies of academic sociology This new edition features an introduction by John Bellamy Foster that sets the work in historical and theoretical context, as well as two rare articles by Braverman, "The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century" (1975) and "Two Comments" (1976), that add much to our understanding of the book.
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The Economic Government of the World

Martin Daunton

Penguin UK , 2023 • 889 pages

An epic history of money, trade and development since 1933 In 1933, Keynes reflected on the crisis of the Great Depression that arose from individualistic capitalism: 'It is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous - and it doesn't deliver the goods .. But when we wonder what to put in its place, we are extremely perplexed.' We are now in a similar state of perplexity, wondering how to respond to the economic problems of the world

Martin Daunton examines the changing balance over ninety years between economic nationalism and globalization, explaining why one economic order breaks down and how another one is built, in a wide-ranging history of the institutions and individuals who have managed the global economy In 1933, the World Monetary and Economic Conference brought together the nations of the world: it failed Trade and currency warfare led to economic nationalism and a turn from globalization that culminated in war

During the Second World War, a new economic order emerged - the embedded liberalism of Bretton Woods, the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development - and the post-war General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade These institutions and their rules created a balance between domestic welfare and globalization, complemented by a social contract between labour, capital and the state to share the benefits of economic growth

Yet this embedded liberalism reflected the interests of the 'west' in the Cold War: in the 1970s, it faced collapse, caused by its internal weaknesses and the breakdown of the social contract, and was challenged by the Third World as a form of neo-colonialism It was succeeded by neoliberalism, financialisation and hyper-globalization In 2008, the global financial crash exposed the flaws of neoliberalism without leading to a fundamental change

Now, as leading nations are tackling the fall-out from Covid-19 and the threats of inflation, food security and the existential risk of climate change, Martin Daunton calls for a return to a globalization that benefits many of the world's poor and a fairer capitalism that delivers domestic welfare and equality The Economic Government of the World is the first history to show how trade, international monetary relations, capital mobility and development impacted on and influenced each other

Martin Daunton places these economic relations in the geo-political context of the twentieth century, and considers the importance of economic ideas and of political ideology, of electoral calculations and institutional design The book rests on extensive archival research to provide a powerful analysis of the origins of our current global crisis, and suggests how we might build a fairer international order.
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Black Earth

Timothy Snyder

Tim Duggan Books , 2015 • 480 pages

A brilliant, haunting, and profoundly original portrait of the defining tragedy of our time In this epic history of extermination and survival, Timothy Snyder presents a new explanation of the great atrocity of the twentieth century, and reveals the risks that we face in the twenty-first Based on new sources from eastern Europe and forgotten testimonies from Jewish survivors, Black Earth recounts the mass murder of the Jews as an event that is still close to us, more comprehensible than we would like to think, and thus all the more terrifying

The Holocaust began in a dark but accessible place, in Hitler's mind, with the thought that the elimination of Jews would restore balance to the planet and allow Germans to win the resources they desperately needed Such a worldview could be realized only if Germany destroyed other states, so Hitler's aim was a colonial war in Europe itself In the zones of statelessness, almost all Jews died

A few people, the righteous few, aided them, without support from institutions Much of the new research in this book is devoted to understanding these extraordinary individuals The almost insurmountable difficulties they faced only confirm the dangers of state destruction and ecological panic These men and women should be emulated, but in similar circumstances few of us would do so

By overlooking the lessons of the Holocaust, Snyder concludes, we have misunderstood modernity and endangered the future The early twenty-first century is coming to resemble the early twentieth, as growing preoccupations with food and water accompany ideological challenges to global order Our world is closer to Hitler's than we like to admit, and saving it requires us to see the Holocaust as it was --and ourselves as we are Groundbreaking, authoritative, and utterly absorbing, Black Earth reveals a Holocaust that is not only history but warning.
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A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States, 1961–2021

Alan S. Blinder

Princeton University Press , 2024 • 440 pages

From the New York Times bestselling author, the fascinating story of U.S. economic policy from Kennedy to Biden—filled with lessons for today In this book, Alan Blinder, one of the world’s most influential economists and one of the field’s best writers, draws on his deep firsthand experience to provide an authoritative account of sixty years of monetary and fiscal policy in the United States Spanning twelve presidents, from John F Kennedy to Joe Biden, and eight Federal Reserve chairs, from William McChesney Martin to Jerome Powell, this is an insider’s story of macroeconomic policy that hasn’t been told before—one that is a pleasure to read, and as interesting as it is important

Focusing on the most significant developments and long-term changes, Blinder traces the highs and lows of monetary and fiscal policy, which have by turns cooperated and clashed through many recessions and several long booms over the past six decades From the fiscal policy of Kennedy’s New Frontier to Biden’s responses to the pandemic, the book takes readers through the stagflation of the 1970s, the conquest of inflation under Jimmy Carter and Paul Volcker, the rise of Reaganomics, and the bubbles of the 2000s before bringing the story up through recent events—including the financial crisis, the Great Recession, and monetary policy during COVID-19 A lively and concise narrative that is sure to become a classic, A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States, 1961–2021 is filled with vital lessons for anyone who wants to better understand where the economy has been—and where it might be headed.
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Red Plenty

Francis Spufford

Faber & Faber , 2010 • 450 pages

Bizarre and quite brilliant.' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times'Thrilling.' Michael Burleigh, Sunday Telegraph'Francis Spufford has one of the most original minds in contemporary literature.' Nick HornbyThe Soviet Union was founded on a fairytale It was built on 20th-century magic called 'the planned economy', which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the penny-pinching lands of capitalism could never match And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late 1950s, the magic seemed to be working.Red Plenty is about that moment in history, and how it came, and how it went away; about the brief era when, under the rash leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Union looked forward to a future of rich communists and envious capitalists, when Moscow would out-glitter Manhattan, every Lada would be better engineered than a Porsche and sputniks would lead the way to the stars And it's about the scientists who did their genuinely brilliant best to make the dream come true, to give the tyranny its happy ending.
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Mimesis

Erich Auerbach, Edward W. Said

Princeton University Press , 2013 • 616 pages

More than half a century after its translation into English, Erich Auerbach's Mimesis remains a masterpiece of literary criticism A brilliant display of erudition, wit, and wisdom, his exploration of how great European writers from Homer to Virginia Woolf depicted reality has taught generations how to read Western literature This new expanded edition includes a substantial essay in introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay, never before translated into English, in which Auerbach responds to his critics

A German Jew, Auerbach was forced out of his professorship at the University of Marburg in 1935 He left for Turkey, where he taught at the state university in Istanbul There he wrote Mimesis, publishing it in German after the end of the war Displaced as he was, Auerbach produced a work of great erudition that contains no footnotes, basing his arguments instead on searching, illuminating readings of key passages from his primary texts

His aim was to show how from antiquity to the twentieth century literature progressed toward ever more naturalistic and democratic forms of representation This essentially optimistic view of European history now appears as a defensive--and impassioned--response to the inhumanity he saw in the Third Reich Ranging over works in Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English, Auerbach used his remarkable skills in philology and comparative literature to refute any narrow form of nationalism or chauvinism, in his own day and ours

For many readers, both inside and outside the academy, Mimesis is among the finest works of literary criticism ever written This Princeton Classics edition includes a substantial introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay in which Auerbach responds to his critics.
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The Dialogic Imagination

M. M. Bakhtin

University of Texas Press , 2010 • 749 pages

These essays reveal Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975)—known in the West largely through his studies of Rabelais and Dostoevsky—as a philosopher of language, a cultural historian, and a major theoretician of the novel The Dialogic Imagination presents, in superb English translation, four selections from Voprosy literatury i estetiki (Problems of literature and esthetics), published in Moscow in 1975 The volume also contains a lengthy introduction to Bakhtin and his thought and a glossary of terminology

Bakhtin uses the category "novel" in a highly idiosyncratic way, claiming for it vastly larger territory than has been traditionally accepted For him, the novel is not so much a genre as it is a force, "novelness," which he discusses in "From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse." Two essays, "Epic and Novel" and "Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel," deal with literary history in Bakhtin's own unorthodox way In the final essay, he discusses literature and language in general, which he sees as stratified, constantly changing systems of subgenres, dialects, and fragmented "languages" in battle with one another.
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When We Cease to Understand the World

Benjamin Labatut

New York Review of Books , 2021 • 193 pages

One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2021 Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize and the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature A fictional examination of the lives of real-life scientists and thinkers whose discoveries resulted in moral consequences beyond their imagining When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction

Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger—these are some of luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the reader, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence They have strokes of unparalleled genius, alienate friends and lovers, descend into isolation and insanity Some of their discoveries reshape human life for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering

The lines are never clear At a breakneck pace and with a wealth of disturbing detail, Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.
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The New Kings of New York

Adam Piore

2022 • 380 pages

There's a story behind every apartment sale, every building development, and each real estatetransaction in New York City And many of those stories involve the uber-wealthy behaving badly-the blood sport that is New York real estate is defined by billion-dollar feuds THE NEW KINGSOF NEW YORK: Renegades, Moguls, Gamblers and the Remaking of the World's MostFamous Skyline, by journalist Adam Piore (The Real Deal; April 12, 2022; hardcover $29.95),charts the extraordinary transformation of America's greatest city from a near-bankrupt urbancombat zone into the land of Billionaires' Row and Hudson Yards-a luxury playground for theglobal 1 percent-and provides an inside look at the bombastic developers behind the biggest realestate deals of this century.The first two decades of the twenty-first century were a giddy, hyperbolic era of dizzying highs anddeep, dark lows

The headlines told the story: the largest residential and commercial development inNorth America, the largest condo conversion in the history of the world, the most expensivepenthouse sale in the city, the most lucrative office skyscraper sale in history, the tallest condo everbuilt Yet 2020 brought in a new era: 95 percent of Manhattan's office space sat empty amid apandemic, retail stores were boarded up, and restaurants went belly-up.THE NEW KINGS OF NEW YORK offers a behind-the-scenes picture of what it's like tooperate at the highest levels of the industry, and how some of the skyline-transforming deals wereaccomplished

And it features the larger-than-life characters behind the deals.Written and published by the team behind The Real Deal, New York's preeminent real estate-focusedpublication, THE NEW KINGS OF NEW YORK is a book about the history of the city, thedawn of New York real estate's second gilded age, the opportunists who sought to exploit it, and theadventures they had along the way It is a look at where we have come from as we consider where togo next.
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Shoe Dog

Phil Knight

Simon and Schuster , 2016 • 368 pages

In this instant and tenacious New York Times bestseller, Nike founder and board chairman Phil Knight “offers a rare and revealing look at the notoriously media-shy man behind the swoosh” (Booklist, starred review), illuminating his company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands Bill Gates named Shoe Dog one of his five favorite books of 2016 and called it “an amazing tale, a refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like

It’s a messy, perilous, and chaotic journey, riddled with mistakes, endless struggles, and sacrifice Phil Knight opens up in ways few CEOs are willing to do.” Fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed fifty dollars from his father and launched a company with one simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost running shoes from Japan Selling the shoes from the trunk of his car in 1963, Knight grossed eight thousand dollars that first year

Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion In this age of start-ups, Knight’s Nike is the gold standard, and its swoosh is one of the few icons instantly recognized in every corner of the world But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always been a mystery In Shoe Dog, he tells his story at last

At twenty-four, Knight decides that rather than work for a big corporation, he will create something all his own, new, dynamic, different He details the many risks he encountered, the crushing setbacks, the ruthless competitors and hostile bankers—as well as his many thrilling triumphs Above all, he recalls the relationships that formed the heart and soul of Nike, with his former track coach, the irascible and charismatic Bill Bowerman, and with his first employees, a ragtag group of misfits and savants who quickly became a band of swoosh-crazed brothers Together, harnessing the electrifying power of a bold vision and a shared belief in the transformative power of sports, they created a brand—and a culture—that changed everything.
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Cadillac Desert

Marc Reisner

Penguin , 1993 • 612 pages

“I’ve been thinking a lot about Cadillac Desert in the past few weeks, as the rain fell and fell and kept falling over California, much of which, despite the pouring heavens, seems likely to remain in the grip of a severe drought Reisner anticipated this moment He worried that the West’s success with irrigation could be a mirage — that it took water for granted and didn’t appreciate the precariousness of our capacity to control it.” – Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times, January 20,2023 "The definitive work on the West's water crisis." --Newsweek The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water

It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruption and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecological and economic disaster In his landmark book, Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S

Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West Based on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning expose and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of an Eden--an Eden that may only be a mirage This edition includes a new postscript by Lawrie Mott, a former staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, that updates Western water issues over the last two decades, including the long-term impact of climate change and how the region can prepare for the future.
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When We Walk By

Kevin F. Adler, Donald W. Burnes

North Atlantic Books , 2023 • 326 pages

How to end homelessness in America: a must-read guide to understanding housing instability, supporting our unhoused neighbors, and reclaiming our humanity A deeply humanizing analysis that will change the way you think about poverty and homelessness—for the socially engaged reader of Isabel Wilkerson's Caste and Matthew Desmond's Evicted Think about the last time that you saw or interacted with an unhoused person

What did you do What did you say Did you offer money or a smile, or did you avert your gaze When We Walk By takes an urgent look at homelessness in America, showing us what we lose—in ourselves and as a society—when we choose to walk past and ignore our neighbors in shelters, insecure housing, or on the streets

And it brilliantly shows what we stand to gain when we embrace our humanity and move toward evidence-based people-first, community-driven solutions, offering social analysis, economic and political histories, and the real stories of unhoused people Authors Kevin F Adler and Donald W Burnes, with Amanda Banh and Andrijana Bilbija, recast chronic homelessness in the U.S. as a byproduct of twin crises: our social services systems are failing, and so is our humanity Readers will learn: Why our brains have been trained to overlook our unhoused neighbors The social, economic, and political forces that shape myths like “all homeless people are addicts” and “they’d have a house if they got a job” What conservative economics gets wrong about housing insecurity What relational poverty is, and how to shift away from “us versus them” thinking That for many Americans, housing insecurity is just one missed paycheck away Who “the homeless” really are—and why that might surprise you What you can do to help, starting today A necessary, deeply humanizing read that goes beyond theory and policy analysis to offer engaged solutions with compassion and heart, When We Walk By is a must-read for anyone who cares about homelessness, housing solutions, and their own humanity.
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Sinews of War and Trade

Laleh Khalili

Verso Books , 2020 • 369 pages

How shipping is central to the very fabric of global capitalism In our networked world, the realities governing the international movement of freight are easily forgotten But maritime transport remains the bedrock of trade Convoys perpetually crisscross the oceans, carrying gas, oil, ore – indeed, every type of consumable and commodity

These movements, though practically invisible, mean that control of the seas is vital in an age when no nation can survive on domestic products alone Professor and author Laleh Khalili travelled the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean aboard gigantic container ships to investigate the secretive and sometimes dangerous world of maritime trade What she discovered was strangely disturbing: brutally exploited seafarers enduring loneliness and risking injury to keep the cogs of trade turning

In the Arabian peninsula’s ports, forbidden places encircled by barbed wire and moats of highways, the dockers struggle for benefits and political rights, as they have for generations Environmental catastrophes threaten with increasing intensity and frequency Around the oil-trading nations of the Middle East, a history of British colonialism, modern US imperialism, and local autocracies combine to worsen the conditions of modern seafarers, and piracy persists near the Horn of Africa From her research riding the sea lanes and visiting the major Middle Eastern ports, Khalili has produced a book that exposes the frayed and tense sinews of modern capital, a physical network without which none of our more abstracted webs and systems could operate.
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Default

Gregory Makoff

Georgetown University Press , 2024 • 250 pages

The dramatic inside story of the most important case in the history of sovereign debt law Unlike individuals or corporations that become insolvent, nations do not have access to bankruptcy protection from their creditors When a country defaults on its debt, the international financial system is ill equipped to manage the crisis Decisions by key individuals—from national leaders to those at the International Monetary Fund, from holdout creditors to judges—determine the fate of an entire national economy

A prime example is Argentina’s 2001 default on $100 billion in bonds, which stands out for its messy outcomes and outsized impact on sovereign debt markets, sovereign debt law, and IMF policy Default is the riveting story of Argentina’s sovereign debt drama, which reveals the obscure inner workings of sovereign debt restructuring This detailed case study describes the intense fight over the role of the IMF in Argentina’s 2005 debt restructuring and the ensuing bitter decade of litigation with holdout creditors, demonstrating that outcomes for sovereign debt are determined by a complex interplay between financial markets, governments, the IMF, the press, and the courts

This cautionary tale lays bare the institutional, political, and legal pressures that come into play when a country cannot repay its debts It offers a deeper understanding of how global financial capitalism functions for those who work in or study debt markets, international finance, international relations, and international law.
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The Elements of Power

David S. Abraham

Yale University Press , 2015 • 334 pages

Our future hinges on a set of elements that few of us have even heard of In this surprising and revealing book, David S Abraham unveils what rare metals are and why our electronic gadgets, the most powerful armies, and indeed the fate of our planet depend on them These metals have become the building blocks of modern society; their properties are now essential for nearly all our electronic, military, and “green” technologies

But their growing use is not without environmental, economic, and geopolitical consequences Abraham traces these elements’ hidden paths from mines to our living rooms, from the remote hills of China to the frozen Gulf of Finland, providing vivid accounts of those who produce, trade, and rely on rare metals He argues that these materials are increasingly playing a significant role in global affairs, conferring strength to countries and companies that can ensure sustainable supplies

Just as oil, iron, and bronze revolutionized previous eras, so too will these metals The challenges this book reveals, and the plans it proposes, make it essential reading for our rare metal age.
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Back to the Futures: Crashing Dirt Bikes, Chasing Cows, and Unraveling the Mystery of Commodity Futures Markets

Scott Irwin, Doug Peterson

Ceres Books LLC , 2023 • 382 pages

Whoever said learning about futures markets had to be boring Futures markets are a mystery Fortunes are made and lost in these markets, yet most people know little about how they work In Back to the Futures, agricultural economist Scott Irwin explains why it’s essential to understand futures markets, whether you’re talking about grain, cattle, or the largest market of them all—crude oil

These massive markets lie at the heart of our economy, affecting us all Irwin’s engaging storytelling style brings the madcap world of futures trading to life, drawing you in by sharing his wild, life-threatening adventures with motorcycles, snowmobiles, race cars, farm equipment, and renegade cows while growing up on an Iowa farm Back to the Futures will keep you riveted as he explains how to reduce risk in today’s intense arena of commodity trading

This unique book brings in other experts as well, such as Terry Duffy, CEO of the CME Group (the largest commodity trading exchange in the world), and Leo Melamed, the man who revolutionized the market with electronic trading Together, these experts combine their knowledge and experiences to provide clarity on the following topics: Why future markets are crucial for farmers and consumers The critical role future markets play in our financial system

The role speculators play in making these markets work And much more Commodity futures trading has become a vital part of doing business in America So, get ready to learn something new–and don’t be surprised if you find yourself highly entertained along the journey!
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Postwar

Tony Judt

Penguin , 2006 • 1000 pages

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize • Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award • One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year “Impressive . . Mr. Judt writes with enormous authority.” —The Wall Street Journal “Magisterial . . It is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive, authoritative, and yes, readable postwar history.” —The Boston Globe Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the world's most esteemed historians and intellectuals is a singular achievement

Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through thirty-four nations and sixty years of political and cultural change-all in one integrated, enthralling narrative Both intellectually ambitious and compelling to read, thrilling in its scope and delightful in its small details, Postwar is a rare joy Judt's book, Ill Fares the Land, republished in 2021 featuring a new preface by bestselling author of Between the World and Me and The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates.
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Eighteen Days in October

Uri Kaufman

St. Martin's Press , 2023 • 323 pages

"Pacy and enthralling." —Financial Times "Tells the story brilliantly." —Senator Joseph I Lieberman "Stimulating and insightful...will no doubt find a permanent place on the Arab-Israeli bookshelf." —Michael Oren, New York Times bestselling author of Six Days of War October 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, a conflict that shaped the modern Middle East The War was a trauma for Israel, a dangerous superpower showdown, and, following the oil embargo, a pivotal reordering of the global economic order

The Jewish State came shockingly close to defeat A panicky cabinet meeting debated the use of nuclear weapons

After the war, Prime Minister Golda Meir resigned in disgrace, and a 9/11-style commission investigated the “debacle.” But, argues Uri Kaufman, from the perspective of a half century, the War can be seen as a pivotal victory for Israel After nearly being routed, the Israeli Defense Force clawed its way back to threaten Cairo and Damascus In the war’s aftermath both sides had to accept unwelcome truths: Israel could no longer take military superiority for granted—but the Arabs could no longer hope to wipe Israel off the map

A straight line leads from the battlefields of 1973 to the Camp David Accords of 1978 and all the treaties since Like Michael Oren’s Six Days of War, this is the definitive account of a critical moment in history.
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Dead in the Water

Matthew Campbell, Kit Chellel

National Geographic Books , 2022

Shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award “A triumph of investigative journalism.” —Tom Wright, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Billion Dollar Whale "Truly one of the most nail-biting, page-turning, terrifying true-crime books I've ever read." —Nick Bilton, New York Times bestselling author of American Kingpin From award-winning journalists Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel, the gripping, true-crime story of a notorious maritime hijacking at the heart of a massive conspiracy—and the unsolved murder that threatened to unravel it all In July 2011, the oil tanker Brillante Virtuoso was drifting through the treacherous Gulf of Aden when a crew of pirates attacked and set her ablaze in a devastating explosion

But when David Mockett, a maritime surveyor working for Lloyd’s of London, inspected the damaged vessel, he was left with more questions than answers How had the pirates gotten aboard so easily And if they wanted to steal the ship and bargain for its return, then why did they destroy it The questions didn’t add up—and Mockett would never answer them

Soon after his inspection, David Mockett was murdered Dead in the Water is a shocking expose of the criminal inner workings of international shipping, told through the lens of the Brillante hijacking and its aftermath Through first-hand accounts of those who lived it—from members of the ship’s crew and witnesses to the attacks, to the ex-London detectives turned private investigators seeking to solve Mockett’s murder and bring justice to his family—award-winning Bloomberg reporters Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel piece together the astounding truth behind one of the most brazen financial frauds in history The ambitious culmination of more than four years of reporting, Dead in the Water uncovers an intricate web of conspiracy amidst the lawless, old-world industry at the backbone of our new global economy.
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The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

Richard Rothstein

Liveright Publishing , 2017 • 246 pages

New York Times Bestseller • Notable Book of the Year • Editors' Choice Selection One of Bill Gates’ “Amazing Books” of the Year One of Publishers Weekly’s 10 Best Books of the Year Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction An NPR Best Book of the Year Winner of the Hillman Prize for Nonfiction Gold Winner • California Book Award (Nonfiction) Finalist • Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History) Finalist • Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize This “powerful and disturbing history” exposes how American governments deliberately imposed racial segregation on metropolitan areas nationwide (New York Times Book Review) Widely heralded as a “masterful” (Washington Post) and “essential” (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law offers “the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation” (William Julius Wilson)

Exploding the myth of de facto segregation arising from private prejudice or the unintended consequences of economic forces, Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods A groundbreaking, “virtually indispensable” study that has already transformed our understanding of twentieth-century urban history (Chicago Daily Observer), The Color of Law forces us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past.
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A Peace to End All Peace

David Fromkin

Holt Paperbacks , 2010 • 693 pages

Published with a new afterword from the author—the classic, bestselling account of how the modern Middle East was created The Middle East has long been a region of rival religions, ideologies, nationalisms, and ambitions All of these conflicts—including the hostilities between Arabs and Israelis, and the violent challenges posed by Iraq's competing sects—are rooted in the region's political inheritance: the arrangements, unities, and divisions imposed by the Allies after the First World War

In A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin reveals how and why the Allies drew lines on an empty map that remade the geography and politics of the Middle East Focusing on the formative years of 1914 to 1922, when all seemed possible, he delivers in this sweeping and magisterial book the definitive account of this defining time, showing how the choices narrowed and the Middle East began along a road that led to the conflicts and confusion that continue to this day A new afterword from Fromkin, written for this edition of the book, includes his invaluable, updated assessment of this region of the world today, and on what this history has to teach us.
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Limitless

Jeanna Smialek

Knopf , 2023 • 385 pages

This fascinating deep dive into one of the most powerful and least understood American institutions—the Federal Reserve—is “a riveting narrative...[and] an invaluable guide to the monetary policy debates of the last few years" (Liaquat Ahamed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lords of Finance). “The best book on the Fed in our time and a model of financial writing.” –Kirkus The marble halls of the Federal Reserve have always held secrets; for decades the Fed did the utmost to preserve its room to maneuver, operating behind the scenes as much as possible Yet over the past two decades, this elite world of bankers and economists speaking a language that only monetary experts could understand has been forced to change its ways

Amid rising inequality, weakening global economic prospects, and a pandemic, the central bank has entered into a new era of transparency and activism that has changed its role in modern society in subtle but remarkable ways Limitless tells the inside story of this deeply impactful transformation, and what it means for ordinary Americans Focusing on characters such as the Fed chairman Jerome Powell; the Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles; Vice Chair Lael Brainard; the Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari; and the long-ago Fed Chair Marriner S Eccles—and driven by the rising tension between Main Street and Wall Street—this is a page-turning account of the modern Fed’s inner workings during a crucial inflection point in history.
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Modi's India

Christophe Jaffrelot

Princeton University Press , 2023 • 656 pages

A riveting account of how a popularly elected leader has steered the world's largest democracy toward authoritarianism and intolerance Over the past two decades, thanks to Narendra Modi, Hindu nationalism has been coupled with a form of national-populism that has ensured its success at the polls, first in Gujarat and then in India at large Modi managed to seduce a substantial number of citizens by promising them development and polarizing the electorate along ethno-religious lines

Both facets of this national-populism found expression in a highly personalized political style as Modi related directly to the voters through all kinds of channels of communication in order to saturate the public space Drawing on original interviews conducted across India, Christophe Jaffrelot shows how Modi's government has moved India toward a new form of democracy, an ethnic democracy that equates the majoritarian community with the nation and relegates Muslims and Christians to second-class citizens who are harassed by vigilante groups

He discusses how the promotion of Hindu nationalism has resulted in attacks against secularists, intellectuals, universities, and NGOs. Jaffrelot explains how the political system of India has acquired authoritarian features for other reasons, too Eager to govern not only in New Delhi, but also in the states, the government has centralized power at the expense of federalism and undermined institutions that were part of the checks and balances, including India's Supreme Court Modi's India is a sobering account of how a once-vibrant democracy can go wrong when a government backed by popular consent suppresses dissent while growing increasingly intolerant of ethnic and religious minorities.
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Black Wave

Kim Ghattas

Henry Holt and Company , 2020 • 278 pages

A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 “[A] sweeping and authoritative history" (The New York Times Book Review), Black Wave is an unprecedented and ambitious examination of how the modern Middle East unraveled and why it started with the pivotal year of 1979 Kim Ghattas seamlessly weaves together history, geopolitics, and culture to deliver a gripping read of the largely unexplored story of the rivalry between between Saudi Arabia and Iran, born from the sparks of the 1979 Iranian revolution and fueled by American policy

With vivid story-telling, extensive historical research and on-the-ground reporting, Ghattas dispels accepted truths about a region she calls home She explores how Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, once allies and twin pillars of US strategy in the region, became mortal enemies after 1979 She shows how they used and distorted religion in a competition that went well beyond geopolitics

Feeding intolerance, suppressing cultural expression, and encouraging sectarian violence from Egypt to Pakistan, the war for cultural supremacy led to Iran’s fatwa against author Salman Rushdie, the assassination of countless intellectuals, the birth of groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the rise of ISIS Ghattas introduces us to a riveting cast of characters whose lives were upended by the geopolitical drama over four decades: from the Pakistani television anchor who defied her country’s dictator, to the Egyptian novelist thrown in jail for indecent writings all the way to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018 Black Wave is both an intimate and sweeping history of the region and will significantly alter perceptions of the Middle East.
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When the Clock Broke

John Ganz

Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2024 • 245 pages

John Ganz is the most important young political writer of his generation—just the one our dark moment needs." —Rick Perlstein "Lively and kaleidoscopic." —Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker "John Ganz belongs to a species of public intellectual that is almost extinct . . When the Clock Broke is the first of what I hope will be a shelf of books that help us uncover the true history of our times." —Jeet Heer A lively, revelatory look back at the convulsions at the end of the Reagan era—and their dark legacy today

With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.” Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today In When the Clock Broke, the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents Ranging from upheavals in Crown Heights and Los Angeles to the advent of David Duke and the heartland survivalists, the broadcasts of Rush Limbaugh, and the bitter disputes between neoconservatives and the “paleo-con” right, Ganz immerses us in a time when what Philip Roth called the “indigenous American berserk” took new and ever-wilder forms

In the 1992 campaign, Pat Buchanan's and Ross Perot’s insurgent populist bids upended the political establishment, all while Americans struggled through recession, alarm about racial and social change, the specter of a new power in Asia, and the end of Cold War–era political norms Conspiracy theories surged, and intellectuals and activists strove to understand the “Middle American Radicals” whose alienation fueled new causes

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton appeared to forge a new, vital center, though it would not hold for long In a rollicking, eye-opening book, Ganz narrates the fall of the Reagan order and the rise of a new and more turbulent America.
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Taming the Street

Diana B. Henriques

Random House , 2023 • 465 pages

The “extraordinary” (New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice) story of FDR’s fight for the soul of American capitalism—from award-winning journalist Diana B Henriques, author of The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust “I thought I was well versed in the New Deal, but it turns out I knew next to nothing Diana Henriques’s chronicle is meticulous, illuminating, and riveting.”—Kurt Andersen, New York Times bestselling author of Evil Geniuses and Fantasyland Taming the Street describes how President Franklin D

Roosevelt battled to regulate Wall Street in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash and the ensuing Great Depression With deep reporting and vivid storytelling, Diana B Henriques takes readers back to a time when America’s financial landscape was a jungle ruled by the titans of vast wealth, largely unrestrained by government

Roosevelt ran for office in 1932 vowing to curb that ruthless capitalism and make the world of finance safer for ordinary savers and investors His deeply personal campaign to tame the Street is one of the great untold dramas in American history Success in this political struggle was far from certain for FDR and his New Deal allies, who included the political dynasty builder Joseph P

Kennedy and the future Supreme Court justice William O Douglas Wall Street’s old guard, led by New York Stock Exchange president Richard Whitney, fought every new rule to the “last legal ditch.” That clash—between two sharply different visions of financial power and federal responsibility—has shaped how “other people’s money” is managed in the United States to this day

As inequality once again reaches Jazz Age levels, Henriques brings to life a time when the system worked—an idealistic moment when ordinary Americans knew what had to be done and supported leaders who could do it A vital history and a riveting true-life thriller, Taming the Street raises an urgent and troubling question: What does capitalism owe to the common good?
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Storage and Stability

Benjamin Graham

McGraw-Hill Companies , 1957 • 330 pages

According to Graham, this innovative storage plan would then serve to adjust supply and demand, stabilize prices, and increase the overall standard of living.
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Second-hand Time

Svetlana Alexievich

Juggernaut Books , 2016 • 582 pages

Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich invents a new genre of narrative non-fiction as she writes the life stories of housewives, artists, party workers, students, soldiers, traders, living through a time of political upheaval -- the fall of the Soviet Union and the two decades that followed it.

Zinky Boys

Svetlana Aleksievich

W. W. Norton , 1992 • 197 pages

Looks at the Soviet Union's role in the Afghanistan War and discusses its similarities to America's Vietnam War
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Underground Empire

Henry Farrell, Abraham Newman

Henry Holt and Company , 2023 • 166 pages

A deeply researched investigation that reveals how the United States is like a spider at the heart of an international web of surveillance and control, which it weaves in the form of globe-spanning networks such as fiber optic cables and obscure payment systems America’s security state first started to weaponize these channels after 9/11, when they seemed like necessities to combat terrorism—but now they’re a matter of course Multinational companies like AT&T and Citicorp build hubs, which they use to make money, but which the government can also deploy as choke points

Today’s headlines about trade wars, sanctions, and technology disputes are merely tremors hinting at far greater seismic shifts beneath the surface Slowly but surely, Washington has turned the most vital pathways of the world economy into tools of domination over foreign businesses and countries, whether they are rivals or allies, allowing the U.S. to maintain global supremacy In the process, we have sleepwalked into a new struggle for empire Using true stories, field-defining findings, and original reporting, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman show how the most ordinary aspects of the post–Cold War economy have become realms of subterfuge and coercion, and what we must do to ensure that this new arms race doesn’t spiral out of control.
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Invisible China

Scott Rozelle, Natalie Hell

University of Chicago Press , 2020 • 242 pages

A study of how China’s changing economy may leave its rural communities in the dust and launch a political and economic disaster As the glittering skyline in Shanghai seemingly attests, China has quickly transformed itself from a place of stark poverty into a modern, urban, technologically savvy economic powerhouse But as Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell show in Invisible China, the truth is much more complicated and might be a serious cause for concern

China’s growth has relied heavily on unskilled labor Most of the workers who have fueled the country’s rise come from rural villages and have never been to high school While this national growth strategy has been effective for three decades, the unskilled wage rate is finally rising, inducing companies inside China to automate at an unprecedented rate and triggering an exodus of companies seeking cheaper labor in other countries

Ten years ago, almost every product for sale in an American Walmart was made in China Today, that is no longer the case With the changing demand for labor, China seems to have no good back-up plan For all of its investment in physical infrastructure, for decades China failed to invest enough in its people

Recent progress may come too late Drawing on extensive surveys on the ground in China, Rozelle and Hell reveal that while China may be the second-largest economy in the world, its labor force has one of the lowest levels of education of any comparable country Over half of China’s population—as well as a vast majority of its children—are from rural areas

Their low levels of basic education may leave many unable to find work in the formal workplace as China’s economy changes and manufacturing jobs move elsewhere In Invisible China, Rozelle and Hell speak not only to an urgent humanitarian concern but also a potential economic crisis that could upend economies and foreign relations around the globe If too many are left structurally unemployable, the implications both inside and outside of China could be serious

Understanding the situation in China today is essential if we are to avoid a potential crisis of international proportions This book is an urgent and timely call to action that should be read by economists, policymakers, the business community, and general readers alike Praise for Invisible China “Stunningly researched.” —TheEconomist, Best Books of the Year (UK) “Invisible China sounds a wake-up call.” —The Strategist “Not to be missed.” —Times Literary Supplement (UK) “[Invisible China] provides an extensive coverage of problems for China in the sphere of human capital development . . . the book is rich in content and is not constrained only to China, but provides important parallels with past and present developments in other countries.” —Journal of Chinese Political Science
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Free Trade Under Fire

Douglas A. Irwin

Princeton University Press , 2020 • 366 pages

An updated look at global trade and why it remains as controversial as ever Free trade is always under attack, more than ever in recent years The imposition of numerous U.S. tariffs in 2018, and the retaliation those tariffs have drawn, has thrust trade issues to the top of the policy agenda Critics contend that free trade brings economic pain, including plant closings and worker layoffs, and that trade agreements serve corporate interests, undercut domestic environmental regulations, and erode national sovereignty

Why are global trade and agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership so controversial Does free trade deserve its bad reputation In Free Trade under Fire, Douglas Irwin sweeps aside the misconceptions that run rampant in the debate over trade and gives readers a clear understanding of the issues involved In its fifth edition, the book has been updated to address the sweeping new policy developments under the Trump administration and the latest research on the impact of trade.
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How China Escaped Shock Therapy

Isabella M. Weber

Routledge , 2021 • 256 pages

China has become deeply integrated into the world economy Yet, gradual marketization has facilitated the country’s rise without leading to its wholesale assimilation to global neoliberalism This book uncovers the fierce contest about economic reforms that shaped China’s path In the first post-Mao decade, China’s reformers were sharply divided

They agreed that China had to reform its economic system and move toward more marketization—but struggled over how to go about it Should China destroy the core of the socialist system through shock therapy, or should it use the institutions of the planned economy as market creators With hindsight, the historical record proves the high stakes behind the question: China embarked on an economic expansion commonly described as unprecedented in scope and pace, whereas Russia’s economy collapsed under shock therapy

Based on extensive research, including interviews with key Chinese and international participants and World Bank officials as well as insights gleaned from unpublished documents, the book charts the debate that ultimately enabled China to follow a path to gradual reindustrialization Beyond shedding light on the crossroads of the 1980s, it reveals the intellectual foundations of state-market relations in reform-era China through a longue durée lens Overall, the book delivers an original perspective on China’s economic model and its continuing contestations from within and from without.
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Study Gods

Yi-Lin Chiang

Princeton University Press , 2022 • 288 pages

How privileged adolescents in China acquire status and why this helps them succeed Study Gods offers a rare look at the ways privileged youth in China prepare themselves to join the ranks of the global elite Yi-Lin Chiang shows how these competitive Chinese high schoolers first become “study gods” (xueshen), a term describing academically high-performing students Constant studying, however, is not what explains their success, for these young people appear god-like in their effortless abilities to excel

Instead, Chiang explores how elite adolescents achieve by absorbing and implementing the rules surrounding status Drawing from eight years of fieldwork and extensive interviews, Chiang reveals the important lessons that Chinese youth learn in their pursuit of elite status They understand the hierarchy of the status system, recognizing and acquiring the characteristics that are prized, while avoiding those that are not

They maintain status by expecting differential treatment and performing status-based behaviors, which guide their daily interactions with peers, teachers, and parents Lastly, with the help of resourceful parents, they rely on external assistance in the face of potential obstacles and failures Chiang looks at how students hone these skills, applying them as they head to colleges and careers around the world, and in their relationships with colleagues and supervisors Highlighting another facet of China’s rising power, Study Gods announces the arrival of a new generation to the realm of global competition.
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Empire of Silver

Jin Xu

Yale University Press , 2021 • 385 pages

A thousand-year history of how China’s obsession with silver influenced the country’s financial well-being, global standing, and political stability This revelatory account of the ways silver shaped Chinese history shows how an obsession with “white metal” held China back from financial modernization First used as currency during the Song dynasty in around 900 CE, silver gradually became central to China’s economic framework and was officially monetized in the middle of the Ming dynasty during the sixteenth century

However, due to the early adoption of paper money in China, silver was not formed into coins but became a cumbersome “weighing currency,” for which ingots had to be constantly examined for weight and purity—an unwieldy practice that lasted for centuries While China’s interest in silver spurred new avenues of trade and helped increase the country’s global economic footprint, Jin Xu argues that, in the long run, silver played a key role in the struggles and entanglements that led to the decline of the Chinese empire.
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The Politics of Social Solidarity

Peter Baldwin

Cambridge University Press , 1990 • 374 pages

By analyzing the competing concerns of different social "actors" behind the evolution of social policy, this study explains why some nations had an easy time in developing a welfare state while others fought long entrenched battles.
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The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism

Gosta Esping-Andersen

John Wiley & Sons , 2013 • 260 pages

Few discussions in modern social science have occupied as much attention as the changing nature of welfare states in western societies Gosta Esping-Andersen, one of the most distinguished contributors to current debates on this issue, here provides a new analysis of the character and role of welfare states in the functioning of contemporary advanced western societies Esping-Andersen distinguishes several major types of welfare state, connecting these with variations in the historical development of different western countries

Current economic processes, the author argues, such as those moving towards a post-industrial order, are not shaped by autonomous market forces but by the nature of states and state differences Fully informed by comparative materials, this book will have great appeal to everyone working on issues of economic development and post-industrialism Its audience will include students and academics in sociology, economics and politics.
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1587, a Year of No Significance

Ray Huang

Yale University Press , 1981 • 316 pages

Creates a portrait of the world and culture of late imperial China by examining the lives of seven prominent officials and members of the Ming ruling class
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Imperial Twilight

Stephen R. Platt

Vintage , 2018 • 592 pages

As China reclaims its position as a world power, Imperial Twilight looks back to tell the story of the country’s last age of ascendance and how it came to an end in the nineteenth-century Opium War As one of the most potent turning points in the country’s modern history, the Opium War has since come to stand for everything that today’s China seeks to put behind it In this dramatic, epic story, award-winning historian Stephen Platt sheds new light on the early attempts by Western traders and missionaries to “open” China even as China’s imperial rulers were struggling to manage their country’s decline and Confucian scholars grappled with how to use foreign trade to China’s advantage

The book paints an enduring portrait of an immensely profitable—and mostly peaceful—meeting of civilizations that was destined to be shattered by one of the most shockingly unjust wars in the annals of imperial history Brimming with a fascinating cast of British, Chinese, and American characters, this riveting narrative of relations between China and the West has important implications for today’s uncertain and ever-changing political climate.
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The Rise and Fall of Imperial China

Yuhua Wang

Princeton University Press , 2022 • 352 pages

How social networks shaped the imperial Chinese state China was the world’s leading superpower for almost two millennia, falling behind only in the last two centuries and now rising to dominance again What factors led to imperial China’s decline The Rise and Fall of Imperial China offers a systematic look at the Chinese state from the seventh century through to the twentieth

Focusing on how short-lived emperors often ruled a strong state while long-lasting emperors governed a weak one, Yuhua Wang shows why lessons from China’s history can help us better understand state building Wang argues that Chinese rulers faced a fundamental trade-off that he calls the sovereign’s dilemma: a coherent elite that could collectively strengthen the state could also overthrow the ruler This dilemma emerged because strengthening state capacity and keeping rulers in power for longer required different social networks in which central elites were embedded

Wang examines how these social networks shaped the Chinese state, and vice versa, and he looks at how the ruler’s pursuit of power by fragmenting the elites became the final culprit for China’s fall Drawing on more than a thousand years of Chinese history, The Rise and Fall of Imperial China highlights the role of elite social relations in influencing the trajectories of state development.
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A Monetary and Fiscal History of Latin America, 1960–2017

Timothy J. Kehoe, Juan Pablo Nicolini

U of Minnesota Press , 2022 • 643 pages

A major, new, and comprehensive look at six decades of macroeconomic policies across the region What went wrong with the economic development of Latin America over the past half-century Along with periods of poor economic performance, the region’s countries have been plagued by a wide variety of economic crises This major new work brings together dozens of leading economists to explore the economic performance of the ten largest countries in South America and of Mexico

Together they advance the fundamental hypothesis that, despite different manifestations, these crises all have been the result of poorly designed or poorly implemented fiscal and monetary policies Each country is treated in its own section of the book, with a lead chapter presenting a comprehensive database of the country’s fiscal, monetary, and economic data from 1960 to 2017 The chapters are drawn from one-day academic conferences—hosted in all but one case, in the focus country—with participants including noted economists and former leading policy makers

Cowritten with Nobel Prize winner Thomas J Sargent, the editors’ introduction provides a conceptual framework for analyzing fiscal and monetary policy in countries around the world, particularly those less developed A final chapter draws conclusions and suggests directions for further research A vital resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of economics and for economic researchers and policy makers, A Monetary and Fiscal History of Latin America, 1960–2017 goes further than any book in stressing both the singularities and the similarities of the economic histories of Latin America’s largest countries

Contributors: Mark Aguiar, Princeton U; Fernando Alvarez, U of Chicago; Manuel Amador, U of Minnesota; Joao Ayres, Inter-American Development Bank; Saki Bigio, UCLA; Luigi Bocola, Stanford U; Francisco J Buera, Washington U, St. Louis; Guillermo Calvo, Columbia U; Rodrigo Caputo, U of Santiago; Roberto Chang, Rutgers U; Carlos Javier Charotti, Central Bank of Paraguay; Simón Cueva, TNK Economics; Julián P Díaz, Loyola U Chicago; Sebastian Edwards, UCLA; Carlos Esquivel, Rutgers U; Eduardo Fernández Arias, Peking U; Carlos Fernández Valdovinos (former Central Bank of Paraguay); Arturo José Galindo, Banco de la República, Colombia; Márcio Garcia, PUC-Rio; Felipe González Soley, U of Southampton; Diogo Guillen, PUC-Rio; Lars Peter Hansen, U of Chicago; Patrick Kehoe, Stanford U; Carlos Gustavo Machicado Salas, Bolivian Catholic U; Joaquín Marandino, U Torcuato Di Tella; Alberto Martin, U Pompeu Fabra; Cesar Martinelli, George Mason U; Felipe Meza, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México; Pablo Andrés Neumeyer, U Torcuato Di Tella; Gabriel Oddone, U de la República; Daniel Osorio, Banco de la República; José Peres Cajías, U of Barcelona; David Perez-Reyna, U de los Andes; Fabrizio Perri, Minneapolis Fed; Andrew Powell, Inter-American Development Bank; Diego Restuccia, U of Toronto; Diego Saravia, U de los Andes; Thomas J

Sargent, New York U; José A Scheinkman, Columbia U; Teresa Ter-Minassian (formerly IMF); Marco Vega, Pontificia U Católica del Perú; Carlos Végh, Johns Hopkins U; François R Velde, Chicago Fed; Alejandro Werner, IMF.
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Where Does Money Come From?

Josh Ryan-Collins, Tony Greenham, Richard Werner

2014 • 186 pages

Based on detailed research and consultation with experts, including the Bank of England, this book reviews theoretical and historical debates on the nature of money and banking and explains the role of the central bank, the Government and the European Union Following a sell out first edition and reprint, this second edition includes new sections on Libor and quantitative easing in the UK and the sovereign debt crisis in Europe.
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To Rule the Waves

Bruce Jones

Simon and Schuster , 2021 • 416 pages

From a brilliant Brookings Institution expert, an “important” (The Wall Street Journal) and “penetrating historical and political study” (Nature) of the critical role that oceans play in the daily struggle for global power, in the bestselling tradition of Robert Kaplan’s The Revenge of Geography For centuries, oceans were the chessboard on which empires battled for supremacy But in the nuclear age, air power and missile systems dominated our worries about security, and for the United States, the economy was largely driven by domestic production, with trucking and railways that crisscrossed the continent serving as the primary modes of commercial transit

All that has changed, as nine-tenths of global commerce and the bulk of energy trade is today linked to sea-based flows A brightly painted forty-foot steel shipping container loaded in Asia with twenty tons of goods may arrive literally anywhere else in the world; how that really happens and who actually profits from it show that the struggle for power on the seas is a critical issue today Now, in vivid, closely observed prose, Bruce Jones conducts us on a fascinating voyage through the great modern ports and naval bases—from the vast container ports of Hong Kong and Shanghai to the vital naval base of the American Seventh Fleet in Hawaii to the sophisticated security arrangements in the Port of New York

Along the way, the book illustrates how global commerce works, that we are amidst a global naval arms race, and why the oceans are so crucial to America’s standing going forward As Jones reveals, the three great geopolitical struggles of our time—for military power, for economic dominance, and over our changing climate—are playing out atop, within, and below the world’s oceans The essential question, he shows, is this: who will rule the waves and set the terms of the world to come?
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A Nation of Counterfeiters

Stephen Mihm

Harvard University Press , 2009 • 470 pages

Prior to the Civil War, the United States did not have a single, national currency Counterfeiters flourished amid this anarchy, putting vast quantities of bogus bills into circulation Their success, Mihm reveals, is more than an entertaining tale of criminal enterprise: it is the story of the rise of a country defined by freewheeling capitalism and little government control Mihm shows how eventually the older monetary system was dismantled, along with the counterfeit economy it sustained.
Capital cover

Capital

Karl Marx

OUP Oxford , 1999 • 842 pages

A classic of early modernism, Capital combines vivid historical detail with economic analysis to produce a bitter denunciation of mid-Victorian capitalist society It has also proved to be the most influential work in social science in the twentieth century; Marx did for social science what Darwin had done for biology Millions of readers this century have treated Capital as a sacred text, subjecting it to as many different interpretations as the bible itself

No mere work of dry economics, Marx's great work depicts the unfolding of industrial capitalism as a tragic drama - with a message which has lost none of its relevance today This is the only abridged edition to take account of the whole of Capital It offers virtually all of Volume 1, which Marx himself published in 1867, excerpts from a new translation of `The Result of the Immediate Process of Production', and a selection of key chapters from Volume 3, which Engels published in 1895

ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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The Company-State

Philip J. Stern

Oxford University Press , 2012 • 315 pages

The Company-State offers a political and intellectual history of the English East India Company in the century before its acquisition of territorial power It argues the Company was no mere merchant, but a form of early modern, colonial state and sovereign that laid the foundations for the British Empire in India.
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The Man from the Future

Ananyo Bhattacharya

National Geographic Books , 2023

An electrifying biography of one of the most extraordinary scientists of the twentieth century and the world he made The smartphones in our pockets and computers like brains The vagaries of game theory and evolutionary biology Nuclear weapons and self-replicating spacecrafts

All bear the fingerprints of one remarkable, yet largely overlooked, man: John von Neumann Born in Budapest at the turn of the century, von Neumann is one of the most influential scientists to have ever lived A child prodigy, he mastered calculus by the age of eight, and in high school made lasting contributions to mathematics

In Germany, where he helped lay the foundations of quantum mechanics, and later at Princeton, von Neumann’s colleagues believed he had the fastest brain on the planet—bar none He was instrumental in the Manhattan Project and the design of the atom bomb; he helped formulate the bedrock of Cold War geopolitics and modern economic theory; he created the first ever programmable digital computer; he prophesized the potential of nanotechnology; and, from his deathbed, he expounded on the limits of brains and computers—and how they might be overcome

Taking us on an astonishing journey, Ananyo Bhattacharya explores how a combination of genius and unique historical circumstance allowed a single man to sweep through a stunningly diverse array of fields, sparking revolutions wherever he went The Man from the Future is an insightful and thrilling intellectual biography of the visionary thinker who shaped our century.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Richard Rhodes

2012 • 838 pages

Traces the development of the atomic bomb from Leo Szilard's concept through the drama of the race to build a workable device to the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima.
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Trading and Exchanges

Larry Harris

OUP USA , 2003 • 664 pages

Focusing on market microstructure, Harris (chief economist, U.S Securities and Exchange Commission) introduces the practices and regulations governing stock trading markets Writing to be understandable to the lay reader, he examines the structure of trading, puts forward an economic theory of trading, discusses speculative trading strategies, explores liquidity and volatility, and considers the evaluation of trader performance Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
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The Predators' Ball

Connie Bruck

Simon & Schuster , 2020 • 400 pages

“Connie Bruck traces the rise of this empire with vivid metaphors and with a smooth command of high finance’s terminology.” —The New York Times “The Predators’ Ball is dirty dancing downtown.” —New York Newsday From bestselling author Connie Bruck, The Predators’ Ball dramatically captures American business history in the making, uncovering the philosophy of greed that dominated Wall Street in the 1980s During the 1980s, Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert was the Billionaire Junk Bond King

He invented such things as “the highly confident letter” (“I’m highly confident that I can raise the money you need to buy company X”) and the “blind pool” (“Here’s a billion dollars: let us help you buy a company”), and he financed the biggest corporate raiders—men like Carl Icahn and Ronald Perelman And then, on September 7, 1988, things changed.. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Milken and Drexel Burnham Lambert with insider trading and stock fraud

Waiting in the wings was the US District Attorney, who wanted to file criminal and racketeering charges What motivated Milken in his drive for power and money Did Drexel Burnham Lambert condone the breaking of laws?
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The Prize

Daniel Yergin

Simon and Schuster , 2012 • 928 pages

The Prize recounts the panoramic history of oil -- and the struggle for wealth power that has always surrounded oil This struggle has shaken the world economy, dictated the outcome of wars, and transformed the destiny of men and nations The Prize is as much a history of the twentieth century as of the oil industry itself

The canvas of this history is enormous -- from the drilling of the first well in Pennsylvania through two great world wars to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm The cast extends from wildcatters and rogues to oil tycoons, and from Winston Churchill and Ibn Saud to George Bush and Saddam Hussein The definitive work on the subject of oil and a major contribution to understanding our century, The Prize is a book of extraordinary breadth, riveting excitement -- and great importance.
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India Is Broken

Ashoka Mody

Stanford University Press , 2023 • 589 pages

A provocative new account of how India moved relentlessly from its hope-filled founding in 1947 to the dramatic economic and democratic breakdowns of today When Indian leaders first took control of their government in 1947, they proclaimed the ideals of national unity and secular democracy Through the first half century of nation-building, leaders could point to uneven but measurable progress on key goals, and after the mid-1980s, dire poverty declined for a few decades, inspiring declarations of victory

But today, a vast majority of Indians live in a state of underemployment and are one crisis away from despair Public goods—health, education, cities, air and water, and the judiciary—are in woeful condition And good jobs will remain scarce as long as that is the case The lack of jobs will further undermine democracy, which will further undermine job creation

India is Broken provides the most persuasive account available of this economic catch-22 Challenging prevailing narratives, Mody contends that successive post-independence leaders, starting with its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, failed to confront India's true economic problems, seeking easy solutions instead As a popular frustration grew, and corruption in politics became pervasive, India's economic growth relied increasingly on unregulated finance and environmentally destructive construction

The rise of a violent Hindutva has buried all prior norms in civic life and public accountability Combining statistical data with creative media, such as literature and cinema, to create strong, accessible, people-driven narratives, this book is a meditation on the interplay between democracy and economic progress, with lessons extending far beyond India Mody proposes a path forward that is fraught with its own peril, but which nevertheless offers something resembling hope.
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MBS

Ben Hubbard

Crown , 2020 • 394 pages

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A gripping, behind-the-scenes portrait of the rise of Saudi Arabia’s secretive and mercurial new ruler “Revelatory . . . a vivid portrait of how MBS has altered the kingdom during his half-decade of rule.”—The Washington Post Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Kirkus Reviews MBS is the untold story of how a mysterious young prince emerged from Saudi Arabia’s sprawling royal family to overhaul the economy and society of the richest country in the Middle East—and gather as much power as possible into his own hands Since his father, King Salman, ascended to the throne in 2015, Mohammed bin Salman has leveraged his influence to restructure the kingdom’s economy, loosen its strict Islamic social codes, and confront its enemies around the region, especially Iran

That vision won him fans at home and on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, in Hollywood, and at the White House, where President Trump embraced the prince as a key player in his own vision for the Middle East But over time, the sheen of the visionary young reformer has become tarnished, leaving many struggling to determine whether MBS is in fact a rising dictator whose inexperience and rash decisions are destabilizing the world’s most volatile region

Based on years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, MBS reveals the machinations behind the kingdom’s catastrophic military intervention in Yemen, the bizarre detention of princes and businessmen in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton, and the shifting Saudi relationships with Israel and the United States And finally, it sheds new light on the greatest scandal of the young autocrat’s rise: the brutal killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul, a crime that shook Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Washington and left the world wondering whether MBS could get away with murder

MBS is a riveting, eye-opening account of how the young prince has wielded vast powers to reshape his kingdom and the world around him Praise for MBS “Saudi Arabia is testing the extremes of tradition and innovation, of half-baked visions and intensifying repression Ben Hubbard’s authoritative reporting on the inner sanctums of its society offers a perfect synthesis of journalism and area expertise: the best description we have at the moment of why things happen as they do in the kingdom.”—Robert D Kaplan, author of The Return of Marco Polo’s World
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Sovereign Funds

Zongyuan Zoe Liu

Harvard University Press , 2023 • 289 pages

Zongyuan Zoe Liu provides the first in-depth examination of sovereign funds in China Under President Xi, the state has become an aggressive financier, using sovereign funds at home and abroad to secure allies and influence, boost strategic industries like semiconductors and fintech, and pick winners among domestic businesses and multinationals.
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The Wages of Destruction

Adam Tooze

Penguin UK , 2007 • 832 pages

Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy provides a groundbreaking new account of how Hitler established himself in power, mobilized for war - and led his country to annihilation Was the tragedy of the Second World War determined by Nazi Germany's terrifying power, or by its fatal weakness This gripping and universally-acclaimed new history tells the real story of the cost of Hitler's plans for world domination - and will overturn everything you thought you knew about the Third Reich. 'A tour de force' Niall Ferguson 'Masterful ... smashes a gallery of preconceptions' The Times 'This book will change the way we look at Nazi history ... nothing less than a masterpiece Rejoice, rejoice, for a great historian is born' Sunday Telegraph 'A remarkable and gripping revision of the history of Nazi Germany' New Statesman Books of the Year 'A powerful and provocative reassessment of the whole story' Richard Overy
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Slouching Towards Utopia

J. Bradford DeLong

Basic Books , 2022 • 532 pages

An instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller from one of the world’s leading economists, offering a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, but left us unsatisfied “A magisterial history.”—​Paul Krugman Named a Best Book of 2022 by Financial Times * Economist * Fast Company Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again

Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia But it was not so When 1870–2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo Economist Brad DeLong’s Slouching Towards Utopia tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe, and why it failed to deliver us to utopia Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it reveals the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction.
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Money

Jacob Goldstein

Hachette Books , 2020 • 220 pages

The co-host of the popular NPR podcast Planet Money provides a well-researched, entertaining, somewhat irreverent look at how money is a made-up thing that has evolved over time to suit humanity's changing needs Money only works because we all agree to believe in it In Money, Jacob Goldstein shows how money is a useful fiction that has shaped societies for thousands of years, from the rise of coins in ancient Greece to the first stock market in Amsterdam to the emergence of shadow banking in the 21st century

At the heart of the story are the fringe thinkers and world leaders who reimagined money Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor, created paper money backed by nothing, centuries before it appeared in the west John Law, a professional gambler and convicted murderer, brought modern money to France (and destroyed the country's economy)

The cypherpunks, a group of radical libertarian computer programmers, paved the way for bitcoin One thing they all realized: what counts as money (and what doesn't) is the result of choices we make, and those choices have a profound effect on who gets more stuff and who gets less, who gets to take risks when times are good, and who gets screwed when things go bad Lively, accessible, and full of interesting details (like the 43-pound copper coins that 17th-century Swedes carried strapped to their backs), Money is the story of the choices that gave us money as we know it today.
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The Billionaire Raj

James Crabtree

Crown , 2019 • 418 pages

A colorful and revealing portrait of the rise of India’s new billionaire class in a radically unequal society India is the world’s largest democracy, with more than one billion people and an economy expanding faster than China’s But the rewards of this growth have been far from evenly shared, and the country’s top 1% now own nearly 60% of its wealth In megacities like Mumbai, where half the population live in slums, the extraordinary riches of India’s new dynasties echo the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers of America's Gilded Age, funneling profits from huge conglomerates into lifestyles of conspicuous consumption

James Crabtree’s The Billionaire Raj takes readers on a personal journey to meet these reclusive billionaires, fugitive tycoons, and shadowy political power brokers From the sky terrace of the world’s most expensive home to impoverished villages and mass political rallies, Crabtree dramatizes the battle between crony capitalists and economic reformers, revealing a tense struggle between equality and privilege playing out against a combustible backdrop of aspiration, class, and caste The Billionaire Raj is a vivid account of a divided society on the cusp of transformation—and a struggle that will shape not just India’s future, but the world’s.
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How Big Things Get Done

Bent Flyvbjerg, Dan Gardner

Crown Currency , 2023 • 231 pages

“Why do big projects go wrong so often, and are there any lessons you can use when renovating your kitchen Bent Flyvbjerg is the ‘megaproject’ expert and Dan Gardner brings the storytelling skills to How Big Things Get Done, with examples ranging from a Jimi Hendrix studio to the Sydney Opera House.”—Financial Times “Entertaining . . There are lessons here for managers of all stripes.”—The Economist A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Economist, Financial Times, CEO Magazine, Morningstar Finalist for the Porchlight Business Book Award, the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award, and the Inc

Non-Obvious Book Award Nothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant, new reality Think of how the Empire State Building went from a sketch to the jewel of New York’s skyline in twenty-one months, or how Apple’s iPod went from a project with a single employee to a product launch in eleven months These are wonderful stories

But most of the time big visions turn into nightmares Remember Boston’s “Big Dig” Almost every sizeable city in the world has such a fiasco in its backyard In fact, no less than 92% of megaprojects come in over budget or over schedule, or both

The cost of California’s high-speed rail project soared from $33 billion to $100 billon—and won’t even go where promised More modest endeavors, whether launching a small business, organizing a conference, or just finishing a work project on time, also commonly fail Why Understanding what distinguishes the triumphs from the failures has been the life’s work of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg, dubbed “the world’s leading megaproject expert.” In How Big Things Get Done, he identifies the errors in judgment and decision-making that lead projects, both big and small, to fail, and the research-based principles that will make you succeed with yours

For example: • Understand your odds If you don’t know them, you won’t win. • Plan slow, act fast Getting to the action quick feels right But it’s wrong. • Think right to left Start with your goal, then identify the steps to get there. • Find your Lego

Big is best built from small. • Be a team maker You won’t succeed without an “us.” • Master the unknown unknowns Most think they can’t, so they fail Flyvbjerg shows how you can. • Know that your biggest risk is you Full of vivid examples ranging from the building of the Sydney Opera House, to the making of the latest Pixar blockbusters, to a home renovation in Brooklyn gone awry, How Big Things Get Done reveals how to get any ambitious project done—on time and on budget.
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The Black Swan

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Random House Digital, Inc. , 2009 • 388 pages

In the author's point of view, a black swan is an improbable event with three principal characteristics - It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities

We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don't know We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the 'impossible'.
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The History of the GPU - Steps to Invention

Jon Peddie

Springer Nature , 2023 • 424 pages

This is the first book in a three-part series that traces the development of the GPU Initially developed for games the GPU can now be found in cars, supercomputers, watches, game consoles and more GPU concepts go back to the 1970s when computer graphics was developed for computer-aided design of automobiles and airplanes

Early computer graphics systems were adopted by the film industry and simulators for airplanes and high energy physics—exploding nuclear bombs in computers instead of the atmosphere A GPU has an integrated transform and lighting engine, but these were not available until the end of the 1990s Heroic and historic companies expanded the development and capabilities of the graphics controller in pursuit of the ultimate device, a fully integrated self-contained GPU

Fifteen companies worked on building the first fully integrated GPU, some succeeded in the console, and Northbridge segments, and Nvidia was the first to offer a fully integrated GPU for the PC Today the GPU can be found in every platform that involves a computer and a user interface.
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The Price of Time

Edward Chancellor

Grove Press , 2022 • 375 pages

A comprehensive and profoundly relevant history of interest from one of the world’s leading financial writers, The Price of Time explains our current global financial position and how we got here In the beginning was the loan, and the loan carried interest For at least five millennia people have been borrowing and lending at interest The practice wasn’t always popular—in the ancient world, usury was generally viewed as exploitative, a potential path to debt bondage and slavery

Yet as capitalism became established from the late Middle Ages onwards, denunciations of interest were tempered because interest was a necessary reward for lenders to part with their capital And interest performs many other vital functions: it encourages people to save; enables them to place a value on precious assets, such as houses and all manner of financial securities; and allows us to price risk All economic and financial activities take place across time

Interest is often described as the “price of money,” but it is better called the “price of time:” time is scarce, time has value, interest is the time value of money Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, interest rates have sunk lower than ever before Easy money after the global financial crisis in 2007/2008 has produced several ill effects, including the appearance of multiple asset price bubbles, a reduction in productivity growth, discouraging savings and exacerbating inequality, and forcing yield starved investors to take on excessive risk

The financial world now finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place, and Edward Chancellor is here to tell us why In this enriching volume, Chancellor explores the history of interest and its essential function in determining how capital is allocated and priced.
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The World for Sale

Javier Blas, Jack Farchy

Oxford University Press , 2021 • 352 pages

The modern world is built on commodities - from the oil that fuels our cars to the metals that power our smartphones We rarely stop to consider where they have come from But we should In The World for Sale, two leading journalists lift the lid on one of the least scrutinised corners of the world economy: the workings of the billionaire commodity traders who buy, hoard and sell the earth's resources

It is the story of how a handful of swashbuckling businessmen became indispensable cogs in global markets: enabling an enormous expansion in international trade, and connecting resource-rich countries - no matter how corrupt or war-torn - with the world's financial centres And it is the story of how some traders acquired untold political power, right under the noses of western regulators and politicians - helping Saddam Hussein to sell his oil, fuelling the Libyan rebel army during the Arab Spring, and funnelling cash to Vladimir Putin's Kremlin in spite of western sanctions The result is an eye-opening tour through the wildest frontiers of the global economy, as well as a revelatory guide to how capitalism really works.
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Great Planning Disasters

Peter Hall

Univ of California Press , 1982 • 339 pages

Wide-ranging, significant, and readable...It will earn respect in non-academics as well as academic circles A first-rate job."—Lloyd Rodwin
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Normal Accidents

Charles Perrow

Princeton University Press , 2011 • 464 pages

Normal Accidents analyzes the social side of technological risk Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety--building in more warnings and safeguards--fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents. (At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk--complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling--this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them

The first edition fulfilled one reviewer's prediction that it "may mark the beginning of accident research." In the new afterword to this edition Perrow reviews the extensive work on the major accidents of the last fifteen years, including Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Challenger disaster The new postscript probes what the author considers to be the "quintessential 'Normal Accident'" of our time: the Y2K computer problem.
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Petrochemicals in Nontechnical Language

Donald L. Burdick, William L. Leffler

Pennwell Books , 1990 • 366 pages

A new edition of Petrochemicals for the nontechnical person (date unspecified) Useful as a text (includes exercises) and a reference (but no bibliography ) for business and other nontechnical personnel in the petrochemical industry Annotation copyright Book News, Inc Portland, Or.
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The Price of Peace

Zachary D. Carter

Random House Trade Paperbacks , 2021 • 666 pages

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An “outstanding new intellectual biography of John Maynard Keynes [that moves] swiftly along currents of lucidity and wit” (The New York Times), illuminating the world of the influential economist and his transformative ideas “A timely, lucid and compelling portrait of a man whose enduring relevance is always heightened when crisis strikes.”—The Wall Street Journal WINNER: The Arthur Ross Book Award Gold Medal • The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism FINALIST: The National Book Critics Circle Award • The Sabew Best in Business Book Award NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times • The Economist • Bloomberg • Mother Jones At the dawn of World War I, a young academic named John Maynard Keynes hastily folded his long legs into the sidecar of his brother-in-law’s motorcycle for an odd, frantic journey that would change the course of history Swept away from his placid home at Cambridge University by the currents of the conflict, Keynes found himself thrust into the halls of European treasuries to arrange emergency loans and packed off to America to negotiate the terms of economic combat

The terror and anxiety unleashed by the war would transform him from a comfortable obscurity into the most influential and controversial intellectual of his day—a man whose ideas still retain the power to shock in our own time Keynes was not only an economist but the preeminent anti-authoritarian thinker of the twentieth century, one who devoted his life to the belief that art and ideas could conquer war and deprivation As a moral philosopher, political theorist, and statesman, Keynes led an extraordinary life that took him from intimate turn-of-the-century parties in London’s riotous Bloomsbury art scene to the fevered negotiations in Paris that shaped the Treaty of Versailles, from stock market crashes on two continents to diplomatic breakthroughs in the mountains of New Hampshire to wartime ballet openings at London’s extravagant Covent Garden

Along the way, Keynes reinvented Enlightenment liberalism to meet the harrowing crises of the twentieth century In the United States, his ideas became the foundation of a burgeoning economics profession, but they also became a flash point in the broader political struggle of the Cold War, as Keynesian acolytes faced off against conservatives in an intellectual battle for the future of the country—and the world Though many Keynesian ideas survived the struggle, much of the project to which he devoted his life was lost

In this riveting biography, veteran journalist Zachary D Carter unearths the lost legacy of one of history’s most fascinating minds The Price of Peace revives a forgotten set of ideas about democracy, money, and the good life with transformative implications for today’s debates over inequality and the power politics that shape the global order LONGLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE
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Saudi, Inc.

Ellen R Wald

2024

The Saudi Royal family and Aramco leadership are, and almost always have been, motivated by ambitions of longterm strength and profit They use Islamic laws, Wahhabi ideology, gender discrimination, and public beheadings to maintain stability and their own power Underneath the thobes and abayas and behind the religious fanaticism and illiberalism lies a most sophisticated and ruthless enterprise

Today, that enterprise is poised to pull off the biggest IPO in history Over more than a century, fed by ambition and oil wealth, al Saud has come from nothing to rule as absolute monarchs, a contrast with the world around them and modernity itself

The story starts with Saudi Arabia's founder, Abdul Aziz, a lonely refugee embarking on a daring gambit to reconquer his family's ancestral home-the mudwalled city of Riyadh It takes readers almost to present day, when the multinational family business has made al Saud the wealthiest family in the world and on the cusp of a new transformation Now al Saud and its family business, Aramco, are embarking on their most ambitious move: taking the company public.
Chip War cover

Chip War

Chris Miller

Simon and Schuster , 2022 • 464 pages

An epic account of the decades-long battle to control what has emerged as the world’s most critical resource—microchip technology—with the United States and China increasingly in conflict You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips

Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the
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Money and Empire

Perry Mehrling

Cambridge University Press , 2022 • 311 pages

Charles Kindleberger ranks as one of the twentieth century's best known and most influential international economists This book traces the evolution of his thinking in the context of a 'key-currency' approach to the rise of the dollar system, here revealed as the indispensable framework for global economic development since World War II Unlike most of his colleagues, Kindleberger was deeply interested in history, and his economics brimmed with real people and institutional details

His research at the New York Fed and BIS during the Great Depression, his wartime intelligence work, and his role in administering the Marshall Plan gave him deep insight into how the international financial system really operated A biography of both the dollar and a man, this book is also the story of the development of ideas about how money works It throws revealing light on the underlying economic forces and political obstacles shaping our globalized world.
The Great American Transit Disaster cover

The Great American Transit Disaster

Nicholas Dagen Bloom

University of Chicago Press , 2023 • 364 pages

A potent re-examination of America’s history of public disinvestment in mass transit Many a scholar and policy analyst has lamented American dependence on cars and the corresponding lack of federal investment in public transportation throughout the latter decades of the twentieth century But as Nicholas Dagen Bloom shows in The Great American Transit Disaster, our transit networks are so bad for a very simple reason: we wanted it this way

Focusing on Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, and San Francisco, Bloom provides overwhelming evidence that transit disinvestment was a choice rather than destiny He pinpoints three major factors that led to the decline of public transit in the United States: municipal austerity policies that denied most transit agencies the funding to sustain high-quality service; the encouragement of auto-centric planning; and white flight from dense city centers to far-flung suburbs

As Bloom makes clear, these local public policy decisions were not the product of a nefarious auto industry or any other grand conspiracy—all were widely supported by voters, who effectively shut out options for transit-friendly futures With this book, Bloom seeks not only to dispel our accepted transit myths but hopefully to lay new tracks for today’s conversations about public transportation funding.
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The Most Fun I Never Want to Have Again

R. D. Koncerak

CreateSpace , 2013 • 358 pages

In the early 2000's, America was in the midst of an economic boom Nowhere was the prosperity more evident than across metro Atlanta and Georgia's thriving community banking industry Georgia saw more new bank start-ups than almost any other US state between 1997 and 2007…and then suffered more bank failures than most states combined between 2008 and 2012

What happened This book tells that story At year-end 2012, the largest 1% of US banks controlled eighty six percent of American domestic deposits …which means that 99% of America's 7,083 financial institutions held only fourteen percent of domestic deposits Despite their challenges, community-based financial institutions remain America's predominant banking model

This is a story about the “other” 99 percent of American banking.Join author R.D Koncerak on an eye-opening, insider's look at Georgia's community banking industry From the forces that fueled the boom through 2007 to the crises that sent world markets reeling in 2008, this book is part financial documentary, part autobiography, and entirely entertaining

Koncerak combines an engaging writing style with a range of industry sources to deliver a firsthand account of success and failure in the business of banking Chapters include organizing and launching a bank as a new business venture, managing in times of crisis and the FDIC closure process for a financial institution in distress

The book also offers candid leadership and career advice based on the author's adventures in the field This exposé includes trade articles and SEC extracts that provide insight into the greatest financial disaster to hit the United States since the Great Depression.Finally, "TMF" includes two guest chapters: an insightful industry overview from accomplished financial author John Mauldin, and advice on the future of community banking from strategist Karl Nelson.
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The City & The City

China Miéville

Pan Macmillan , 2018 • 400 pages

With an introduction by novelist Kamila Shamsie When the body of a murdered woman is found in the extraordinary, decaying city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks like a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad But as he probes, the evidence begins to point to conspiracies far stranger, and more deadly, than anything he could have imagined Soon his work puts him and those he cares for in danger

Borlú must travel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own, across a border like no other With shades of Kafka and Philip K Dick, Raymond Chandler and George Orwell, the multi-award winning The City & The City by China Miéville is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights.
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Children of Time

Adrian Tchaikovsky

Pan Macmillan , 2015 • 609 pages

Winner of the 30th anniversary Arthur C Clarke Award for Best Novel Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed novel Children of Time, is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet Who will inherit this new Earth

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age – a world terraformed and prepared for human life But all is not right in this new Eden In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit

The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth

Continue the far-reaching space opera with Children of Ruin and Children of Memory. 'Children of Time is a joy from start to finish Entertaining, smart, surprising and unexpectedly human.' - Patrick Ness, author of A Monster Calls.
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Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

Frans de Waal

W. W. Norton & Company , 2016 • 320 pages

A New York Times bestseller: "A passionate and convincing case for the sophistication of nonhuman minds." —Alison Gopnik, The Atlantic Hailed as a classic, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? explores the oddities and complexities of animal cognition—in crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, chimpanzees, and bonobos—to reveal how smart animals really are, and how we’ve underestimated their abilities for too long Did you know that octopuses use coconut shells as tools, that elephants classify humans by gender and language, and that there is a young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame Fascinating, entertaining, and deeply informed, de Waal’s landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal—and human—intelligence.
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An Immense World

Ed Yong

Knopf Canada , 2022 • 484 pages

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A “thrilling” (The New York Times), “dazzling” (The Wall Street Journal) tour of the radically different ways that animals perceive the world that will fill you with wonder and forever alter your perspective, by Pulitzer Prize–winning science journalist Ed Yong “One of this year’s finest works of narrative nonfiction.”—Oprah Daily ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time, People, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Slate, Reader’s Digest, Publishers Weekly, BookPage ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Globe and Mail, The New Yorker, Oprah Daily, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses to encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats

We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called “the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes.”
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Central Asia

Adeeb Khalid

Princeton University Press , 2022 • 576 pages

A major history of Central Asia and how it has been shaped by modern world events Central Asia is often seen as a remote and inaccessible land on the peripheries of modern history Encompassing Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and the Xinjiang province of China, it in fact stands at the crossroads of world events Adeeb Khalid provides the first comprehensive history of Central Asia from the mid-eighteenth century to today, shedding light on the historical forces that have shaped the region under imperial and Communist rule

Predominantly Muslim with both nomadic and settled populations, the peoples of Central Asia came under Russian and Chinese rule after the 1700s Khalid shows how foreign conquest knit Central Asians into global exchanges of goods and ideas and forged greater connections to the wider world He explores how the Qing and Tsarist empires dealt with ethnic heterogeneity, and compares Soviet and Chinese Communist attempts at managing national and cultural difference

He highlights the deep interconnections between the "Russian" and "Chinese" parts of Central Asia that endure to this day, and demonstrates how Xinjiang remains an integral part of Central Asia despite its fraught and traumatic relationship with contemporary China The essential history of one of the most diverse and culturally vibrant regions on the planet, this panoramic book reveals how Central Asia has been profoundly shaped by the forces of modernity, from colonialism and social revolution to nationalism, state-led modernization, and social engineering.
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Building a Ruin

Yakov Feygin

Harvard University Press , 2024 • 289 pages

A masterful account of the global Cold War’s decisive influence on Soviet economic reform, and the national decay that followed What brought down the Soviet Union From some perspectives the answers seem obvious, even teleological—communism was simply destined to fail When Yakov Feygin studied the question, he came to another conclusion: at least one crucial factor was a deep contradiction within the Soviet political economy brought about by the country’s attempt to transition from Stalinist mass mobilization to a consumer society

Building a Ruin explores what happened in the Soviet Union as institutions designed for warfighting capacity and maximum heavy industrial output were reimagined by a new breed of reformers focused on “peaceful socioeconomic competition.” From Khrushchev on, influential schools of Soviet planning measured Cold War success in the same terms as their Western rivals: productivity, growth, and the availability of abundant and varied consumer goods The shift was both material and intellectual, with reformers taking a novel approach to economics

Instead of trumpeting their ideological bona fides and leveraging their connections with party leaders, the new economists stressed technical expertise The result was a long and taxing struggle for the meaning of communism itself, as old-guard management cadres clashed with reformers over the future of central planning and the state’s relationship to the global economic order Feygin argues that Soviet policymakers never resolved these tensions, leading to stagnation, instability, and eventually collapse Yet the legacy of reform lingers, its factional dynamics haunting contemporary Russian politics.
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The Design of Everyday Things

Don Norman

Constellation , 2013 • 370 pages

Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door The fault, argues this ingenious—even liberating—book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization

The Design of Everyday Things shows that good, usable design is possible The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints The goal: guide the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time

In this entertaining and insightful analysis, cognitive scientist Don Norman hails excellence of design as the most important key to regaining the competitive edge in influencing consumer behavior Now fully expanded and updated, with a new introduction by the author, The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how—and why—some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.
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There Are No Accidents

Jessie Singer

Simon and Schuster , 2023 • 352 pages

A journalist recounts the surprising history of accidents and reveals how they’ve come to define all that’s wrong with America We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accident.” And we’ve been deeply conditioned to just accept that explanation and move on But as Jessie Singer argues convincingly: There are no such things as accidents

The vast majority of mishaps are not random but predictable and preventable Singer uncovers just how the term “accident” itself protects those in power and leaves the most vulnerable in harm’s way, preventing investigations, pushing off debts, blaming the victims, diluting anger, and even sparking empathy for the perpetrators As the rate of accidental death skyrockets in America, the poor and people of color end up bearing the brunt of the violence and blame, while the powerful use the excuse of the “accident” to avoid consequences for their actions

Born of the death of her best friend, and the killer who insisted it was an accident, this book is a moving investigation of the sort of tragedies that are all too common, and all too commonly ignored In this revelatory book, Singer tracks accidental death in America from turn of the century factories and coal mines to today’s urban highways, rural hospitals, and Superfund sites Drawing connections between traffic accidents, accidental opioid overdoses, and accidental oil spills, Singer proves that what we call accidents are hardly random

Rather, who lives and dies by an accident in America is defined by money and power She also presents a variety of actions we can take as individuals and as a society to stem the tide of “accidents”—saving lives and holding the guilty to account.
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Billion Dollar Whale

Bradley Hope, Tom Wright

Hachette Books , 2018 • 395 pages

Named a Best Book of 2018 by the Financial Times and Fortune, this "thrilling" (Bill Gates) New York Times bestseller exposes how a "modern Gatsby" swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in "the heist of the century" (Axios) Now a
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Lords of Finance

Liaquat Ahamed

Random House , 2010 • 578 pages

THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE The current financial crisis has only one parallel: the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and subsequent Great Depression of the 1930s, which crippled the future of an entire generation and set the stage for the horrors of the Second World War Yet the economic meltdown could have been avoided, had it not been for the decisions taken by a small number of central bankers

In Lords of Finance, we meet these men, the four bankers who truly broke the world: the enigmatic Norman Montagu of the bank of England, Benjamin Strong of the NY Federal Reserve, the arrogant yet brilliant Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbanlk and the xenophobic Emile Moreau of the Banque de France Their names were lost to history, their lives and actions forgotten, until now Liaquat Ahamed tells their story in vivid and gripping detail, in a timely and arresting reminder that individuals - their ambitions, limitations and human nature - lie at the very heart of global catastrophe.
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The Confidence Game

Steven Solomon

1995 • 616 pages

This first behind-closed-doors look at the elite cadre that controls the international money supply draws on hundreds of exclusive interviews and provides never-before-reported details of cloistered negotiations to reveal how perilously close the global economy has often come to collapsing.
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Trade Wars are Class Wars

Matthew C. Klein, Michael Pettis

Yale University Press , 2020 • 292 pages

This is a very important book."--Martin Wolf, Financial TimesA provocative look at how today's trade conflicts are caused by governments promoting the interests of elites at the expense of workers Longlisted for the 2020 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award "Worth reading for [the authors'] insights into the history of trade and finance."--George Melloan, Wall Street Journal Trade disputes are usually understood as conflicts between countries with competing national interests, but as Matthew C Klein and Michael Pettis show, they are often the unexpected result of domestic political choices to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of workers and ordinary retirees

Klein and Pettis trace the origins of today's trade wars to decisions made by politicians and business leaders in China, Europe, and the United States over the past thirty years Across the world, the rich have prospered while workers can no longer afford to buy what they produce, have lost their jobs, or have been forced into higher levels of debt In this thought-provoking challenge to mainstream views, the authors provide a cohesive narrative that shows how the class wars of rising inequality are a threat to the global economy and international peace--and what we can do about it.
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Our Lives in Their Portfolios

Brett Chistophers

Verso Books , 2023 • 321 pages

All hail the new masters of Capitalism: How asset managers acquired the world Banks have taken a backseat since the global financial crisis over a decade ago Today, our new financial masters are asset managers, like Blackstone and BlackRock And they don’t just own financial assets The roads we drive on; the pipes that supply our drinking water; the farmland that provides our food; energy systems for electricity and heat; hospitals, schools, and even the homes in which many of us live—all now swell asset managers’ bulging investment portfolios

As the owners of more and more of the basic building blocks of everyday life, asset managers shape the lives of each and every one of us in profound and disturbing ways In this eye-opening follow-up to Rentier Capitalism, Brett Christophers peels back the veil on “asset manager society.” Asset managers, he shows, are unlike traditional owners of housing and other essential infrastructure Buying and selling these life-supporting assets at a dizzying pace, the crux of their business model is not long-term investment and careful custodianship but making quick profits for themselves and the investors that back them In asset manager society, the natural and built environments that sustain us become one more vehicle for siphoning money from the many to the few.
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Seeing Like a State

James C. Scott

Yale University Press , 2020 • 462 pages

“One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail—sometimes catastrophically—in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. “Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”—New Yorker “A tour de force.”— Charles Tilly, Columbia University
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Against the World: Anti-Globalism and Mass Politics Between the World Wars

Tara Zahra

W. W. Norton & Company , 2023 • 325 pages

A brilliant, eye-opening work of history that speaks volumes about today’s battles over international trade, immigration, public health and global inequality Before the First World War, enthusiasm for a borderless world reached its height International travel, migration, trade, and progressive projects on matters ranging from women’s rights to world peace reached a crescendo

Yet in the same breath, an undercurrent of reaction was growing, one that would surge ahead with the outbreak of war and its aftermath In Against the World, a sweeping and ambitious work of history, acclaimed scholar Tara Zahra examines how nationalism, rather than internationalism, came to ensnare world politics in the early twentieth century The air went out of the globalist balloon with the First World War as quotas were put on immigration and tariffs on trade, not only in the United States but across Europe, where war and disease led to mass societal upheaval

The “Spanish flu” heightened anxieties about porous national boundaries The global impact of the 1929 economic crash and the Great Depression amplified a quest for food security in Europe and economic autonomy worldwide Demands for relief from the instability and inequality linked to globalization forged democracies and dictatorships alike, from Gandhi’s India to America’s New Deal and Hitler’s Third Reich

Immigration restrictions, racially constituted notions of citizenship, anti-Semitism, and violent outbursts of hatred of the “other” became the norm—coming to genocidal fruition in the Second World War Millions across the political spectrum sought refuge from the imagined and real threats of the global economy in ways strikingly reminiscent of our contemporary political moment: new movements emerged focused on homegrown and local foods, domestically produced clothing and other goods, and back-to-the-land communities

Rich with astonishing detail gleaned from Zahra’s unparalleled archival research in five languages, Against the World is a poignant and thorough exhumation of the popular sources of resistance to globalization With anti-globalism a major tenet of today’s extremist agendas, Zahra's arrestingly clearsighted and wide-angled account is essential reading to grapple with our divided present.
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How Music Works

David Byrne

Crown , 2017 • 384 pages

Updated with a new chapter on digital curation* How Music Works is David Byrne’s incisive and enthusiastic look at the musical art form, from its very inceptions to the influences that shape it, whether acoustical, economic, social or technological Utilizing his incomparable career and inspired collaborations with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and many others, Byrne taps deeply into his lifetime of knowledge to explore the panoptic elements of music, how it shapes the human experience, and reveals the impetus behind how we create, consume, distribute, and enjoy the songs, symphonies, and rhythms that provide the backbeat of life Byrne’s magnum opus uncovers ever-new and thrilling realizations about the redemptive liberation that music brings us all.
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Boom Town

Sam Anderson

Crown , 2018 • 513 pages

A brilliant, kaleidoscopic narrative of Oklahoma City—a great American story of civics, basketball, and destiny, from award-winning journalist Sam Anderson NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Chicago Tribune • San Francisco Chronicle • The Economist • Deadspin Oklahoma City was born from chaos It was founded in a bizarre but momentous “Land Run” in 1889, when thousands of people lined up along the borders of Oklahoma Territory and rushed in at noon to stake their claims

Since then, it has been a city torn between the wild energy that drives its outsized ambitions, and the forces of order that seek sustainable progress Nowhere was this dynamic better realized than in the drama of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team’s 2012-13 season, when the Thunder’s brilliant general manager, Sam Presti, ignited a firestorm by trading future superstar James Harden just days before the first game Presti’s all-in gamble on “the Process”—the patient, methodical management style that dictated the trade as the team’s best hope for long-term greatness—kicked off a pivotal year in the city’s history, one that would include pitched battles over urban planning, a series of cataclysmic tornadoes, and the frenzied hope that an NBA championship might finally deliver the glory of which the city had always dreamed

Boom Town announces the arrival of an exciting literary voice Sam Anderson, former book critic for New York magazine and now a staff writer at the New York Times magazine, unfolds an idiosyncratic mix of American history, sports reporting, urban studies, gonzo memoir, and much more to tell the strange but compelling story of an American city whose unique mix of geography and history make it a fascinating microcosm of the democratic experiment Filled with characters ranging from NBA superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; to Flaming Lips oddball frontman Wayne Coyne; to legendary Great Plains meteorologist Gary England; to Stanley Draper, Oklahoma City's would-be Robert Moses; to civil rights activist Clara Luper; to the citizens and public servants who survived the notorious 1995 bombing of the Alfred P Murrah federal building, Boom Town offers a remarkable look at the urban tapestry woven from control and chaos, sports and civics.
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New York 2140

Kim Stanley Robinson

Orbit , 2017 • 624 pages

New York Times bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson returns with a bold and brilliant vision of New York City in the next century As the sea levels rose, every street became a canal Every skyscraper an island For the residents of one apartment building in Madison Square, however, New York in the year 2140 is far from a drowned city

There is the market trader, who finds opportunities where others find trouble There is the detective, whose work will never disappear -- along with the lawyers, of course There is the internet star, beloved by millions for her airship adventures, and the building's manager, quietly respected for his attention to detail

Then there are two boys who don't live there, but have no other home -- and who are more important to its future than anyone might imagine Lastly there are the coders, temporary residents on the roof, whose disappearance triggers a sequence of events that threatens the existence of all -- and even the long-hidden foundations on which the city rests.
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The Lofts of SoHo

Aaron Shkuda

University of Chicago Press , 2024 • 304 pages

A groundbreaking look at the transformation of SoHo. American cities entered a new phase when, beginning in the 1950s, artists and developers looked upon a decaying industrial zone in Lower Manhattan and saw, not blight, but opportunity: cheap rents, lax regulation, and wide open spaces Thus, SoHo was born From 1960 to 1980, residents transformed the industrial neighborhood into an artist district, creating the conditions under which it evolved into an upper-income, gentrified area

Introducing the idea—still potent in city planning today—that art could be harnessed to drive municipal prosperity, SoHo was the forerunner of gentrified districts in cities nationwide, spawning the notion of the creative class In The Lofts of SoHo, Aaron Shkuda studies the transition of the district from industrial space to artists’ enclave to affluent residential area, focusing on the legacy of urban renewal in and around SoHo and the growth of artist-led redevelopment

Shkuda explores conflicts between residents and property owners and analyzes the city’s embrace of the once-illegal loft conversion as an urban development strategy As Shkuda explains, artists eventually lost control of SoHo’s development, but over several decades they nonetheless forced scholars, policymakers, and the general public to take them seriously as critical actors in the twentieth-century American city.
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The Caesars Palace Coup

Sujeet Indap, Max Frumes

Diversion Books , 2022 • 352 pages

It was the most brutal corporate restructuring in Wall Street history The 2015 bankruptcy brawl for the storied casino giant, Caesars Entertainment, pitted brilliant and ruthless private equity legends against the world's most relentless hedge fund wizards In the tradition of Barbarians at the Gate and The Big Short comes the riveting, multi-dimensional poker game between private equity firms and distressed debt hedge funds that played out from the Vegas Strip to Manhattan boardrooms to Chicago courthouses and even, for a moment, the halls of the United States Congress

On one side: relentless financial engineers Marc Rowan, David Sambur, and David Bonderman with their teams at Apollo Global Management and TPG Capital On the other: superstar distressed debt investors Dave Miller and Ryan Mollett with their cohorts at the likes of Elliott Management, Oaktree Capital, and Appaloosa Management The Caesars bankruptcy put a twist on the old-fashioned casino heist

Through a $27 billion leveraged buyout and a dizzying string of financial engineering transactions, Apollo and TPG--in the midst of the post-Great Recession slump--had seemingly snatched every prime asset of the company from creditors, with the notable exception of Caesars Palace But Caesars' hedge fund lenders and bondholders had scooped up the company's paper for nickels and dimes And with their own armies of lawyers and bankers, they were ready to do everything necessary to take back what they believed was theirs--if they could just stop their own infighting

These modern financiers now dominate the scene in Corporate America as their fight-to-the-death mentality continues to shock workers, politicians, and broader society--and even each other In The Caesars Palace Coup, financial journalists Max Frumes and Sujeet Indap illuminate the brutal tactics of distressed debt mavens--vultures, as they are condemned--in the sale and purchase of even the biggest companies in the world with billions of dollars hanging in the balance.
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The Genesis Machine

Amy Webb, Andrew Hessel

Public Affairs , 2023

A breakthrough investigation of synthetic biology: the promising and controversial technology platform that combines biology and artificial intelligence and has the potential to program biological systems like we program computers Synthetic biology is the technique that enables us not just to read and edit but also write DNA to program living biological structures as though they were tiny computers Unlike cloning Dolly the sheep-which cut and copied existing genetic material-the future of synthetic biology might be something like an app store, where you could download and add new capabilities into any cell, microbe, plant, or animal

This breakthrough science has the potential to mitigate, perhaps solve, humanity's immediate and longer-term existential challenges: climate change; the feeding, clothing, housing, and caring for billions of humans; fighting the next viral outbreak before it becomes a global pandemic; old age as a treatable pathology; bringing back extinct animals It could also be anarchic and socially destructive With our governing structures created in an era before startling advances in technology, we are not prepared for a future in which life could be manipulated or programmed

As futurist Amy Webb and synthetic biologist Andrew Hessel show in this book, within the next decade, we will need to make important decisions: whether to program novel viruses to fight diseases, what genetic privacy will look like, who will "own" living organisms, how companies should earn revenue from engineered cells, and how to contain a synthetic organism in a lab The Genesis Machine​ provides the background for us to understand and grapple with these issues, and think through the religious, philosophical, and ethical implications for the future.
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Superman: Red Son (New Edition)

Mark Millar

DC Comics , 2014 • 172 pages

Imagine a reality where the world’s most powerful super-being does not grow up in Smallville, Kansas - or even America, for that matter… : RED SON is a vivid tale of Cold War paranoia, that reveals how the ship carrying the infant who would later be known as Superman lands in the midst of the 1950s Soviet Union Raised on a collective, the infant grows up and becomes a symbol to the Soviet people, and the world changes drastically from what we know - bringing Superman into conflict with Batman, Lex Luthor and many others

From the mind of Mark Millar, the best-selling writer of THE AUTHORITY and Wanted, comes this strangely different take on the Superman mythos Featuring art by Dave Johnson, Kilian Plunkett, Andrew Robinson, and Walden Wong, with an introduction by film producer Tom DeSanto (X-Men, X2: X-Men United, Transformers), this edition also features an extensive sketch gallery by Johnson, Plunkett and Alex Ross.
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Modern: Genius, Madness, and One Tumultuous Decade That Changed Art Forever

Philip Hook

The Experiment, LLC , 2022 • 434 pages

A revelatory, fast-paced account of the most exciting, frenzied, and revolutionary decade in art history—1905 to the dawn of World War I in 1914—and the avant-garde artists who indelibly changed our visual landscape Modern begins on a specific day—March 22, 1905—at a specific place: the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, where works of art we recognize as modern were first exhibited Drawing on his forty five-year fine art career, author Philip Hook illuminates how this new art came to be—and how truly shocking it was

With Hook’s expert guidance, we witness movement upon movement that burst forth in dizzying succession: Fauvism, Expressionism, Primitivism, Symbolism, Cubism, Futurism, and Abstract art As Hook barnstorms across Europe—to London, Germany, Moscow, Scandinavia, and everywhere modern art was being made—his vivid accounts breathe new life into the work and times of Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Kandinsky, Malevich, Klimt, Schiele, Munch, and nearly two hundred other artists who painted, sculpted, and exhibited alongside them, and whose collective genius was understood and appreciated by few at the time

Hook reconsiders the decade from a series of fresh angles: What was the conventional art against which Modernism sought to rebel Why were avant-garde artists so self-obsessed What persuaded a few bold collectors to buy difficult modern art And why did others pay so much money for Old Masters at the same time Modern helps us answer these questions and more—and to see how avant-garde artists marshaled their genius (and oftentimes their madness) to create works of such profound consequence, they still reverberate today—and which, taken together, made for a movement more influential than even the Renaissance.
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You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again

Julia Phillips

Random House Trade Paperbacks , 2017 • 689 pages

“The Hollywood memoir that tells all . . Sex Drugs Greed Why, it sounds just like a movie.”—The New York Times Every memoir claims to bare it all, but Julia Phillips’s actually does

This is an addictive, gloves-off exposé from the producer of the classic films The Sting, Taxi Driver, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind—and the first woman ever to win an Academy Award for Best Picture—who made her name in Hollywood during the halcyon seventies and the yuppie-infested eighties and lived to tell the tale Wickedly funny and surprisingly moving, You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again takes you on a trip through the dream-manufacturing capital of the world and into the vortex of drug addiction and rehab on the arm of one who saw it all, did it all, and took her leave

Praise for You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again “One of the most honest books ever written about one of the most dishonest towns ever created.”—The Boston Globe “Gossip too hot for even the National Enquirer . . Julia Phillips is not so much Hollywood’s Boswell as its Dante.”—Los Angeles Magazine “A blistering look at La La Land.”—USA Today “One of the nastiest, tastiest tell-alls in showbiz history.”—People
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The Power Broker

Robert A. Caro

Knopf , 1974 • 1338 pages

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A modern American classic, this huge and galvanizing biography of Robert Moses reveals not only the saga of one man’s incredible accumulation of power but the story of his shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York One of the Modern Library’s hundred greatest books of the twentieth century, Robert Caro's monumental book makes public what few outsiders knew: that Robert Moses was the single most powerful man of his time in the City and in the State of New York

And in telling the Moses story, Caro both opens up to an unprecedented degree the way in which politics really happens—the way things really get done in America's City Halls and Statehouses—and brings to light a bonanza of vital information about such national figures as Alfred E Smith and Franklin D Roosevelt (and the genesis of their blood feud), about Fiorello La Guardia, John V

Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller But The Power Broker is first and foremost a brilliant multidimensional portrait of a man—an extraordinary man who, denied power within the normal framework of the democratic process, stepped outside that framework to grasp power sufficient to shape a great city and to hold sway over the very texture of millions of lives We see how Moses began: the handsome, intellectual young heir to the world of Our Crowd, an idealist

How, rebuffed by the entrenched political establishment, he fought for the power to accomplish his ideals How he first created a miraculous flowering of parks and parkways, playlands and beaches—and then ultimately brought down on the city the smog-choked aridity of our urban landscape, the endless miles of (never sufficient) highway, the hopeless sprawl of Long Island, the massive failures of public housing, and countless other barriers to humane living

How, inevitably, the accumulation of power became an end in itself Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor He was held in fear—his dossiers could disgorge the dark secret of anyone who opposed him He was, he claimed, above politics, above deals; and through decade after decade, the newspapers and the public believed

Meanwhile, he was developing his public authorities into a fourth branch of government known as "Triborough"—a government whose records were closed to the public, whose policies and plans were decided not by voters or elected officials but solely by Moses—an immense economic force directing pressure on labor unions, on banks, on all the city's political and economic institutions, and on the press, and on the Church He doled out millions of dollars' worth of legal fees, insurance commissions, lucrative contracts on the basis of who could best pay him back in the only coin he coveted: power

He dominated the politics and politicians of his time—without ever having been elected to any office He was, in essence, above our democratic system Robert Moses held power in the state for 44 years, through the governorships of Smith, Roosevelt, Lehman, Dewey, Harriman and Rockefeller, and in the city for 34 years, through the mayoralties of La Guardia, O'Dwyer, Impellitteri, Wagner and Lindsay, He personally conceived and carried through public works costing 27 billion dollars—he was undoubtedly America's greatest builder

This is how he built and dominated New York—before, finally, he was stripped of his reputation (by the press) and his power (by Nelson Rockefeller) But his work, and his will, had been done.
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The Man Who Broke Capitalism

David Gelles

Simon and Schuster , 2022 • 272 pages

New York Times Bestseller New York Times reporter and “Corner Office” columnist David Gelles reveals legendary GE CEO Jack Welch to be the root of all that’s wrong with capitalism today and offers advice on how we might right those wrongs In 1981, Jack Welch took over General Electric and quickly rose to fame as the first celebrity CEO He golfed with presidents, mingled with movie stars, and was idolized for growing GE into the most valuable company in the world

But Welch’s achievements didn’t stem from some greater intelligence or business prowess Rather, they were the result of a sustained effort to push GE’s stock price ever higher, often at the expense of workers, consumers, and innovation In this captivating, revelatory book, David Gelles argues that Welch single-handedly ushered in a new, cutthroat era of American capitalism that continues to this day

Gelles chronicles Welch’s campaign to vaporize hundreds of thousands of jobs in a bid to boost profits, eviscerating the country’s manufacturing base and destabilizing the middle class Welch’s obsession with downsizing—he eliminated 10% of employees every year—fundamentally altered GE and inspired generations of imitators who have employed his strategies at other companies around the globe In his day, Welch was corporate America’s leading proponent of mergers and acquisitions, using deals to gobble up competitors and giving rise to an economy that is more concentrated and less dynamic

And Welch pioneered the dark arts of “financialization,” transforming GE from an admired industrial manufacturer into what was effectively an unregulated bank The finance business was hugely profitable in the short term and helped Welch keep GE’s stock price ticking up But ultimately, financialization undermined GE and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies

Gelles shows how Welch’s celebrated emphasis on increasing shareholder value by any means necessary (layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, acquisitions, and buybacks, to name but a few tactics) became the norm in American business generally He demonstrates how that approach has led to the greatest socioeconomic inequality since the Great Depression and harmed many of the very companies that have embraced it And he shows how a generation of Welch acolytes radically transformed companies like Boeing, Home Depot, Kraft Heinz, and more Finally, Gelles chronicles the change that is now afoot in corporate America, highlighting companies and leaders who have abandoned Welchism and are proving that it is still possible to excel in the business world without destroying livelihoods, gutting communities, and spurning regulation.
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The Dismal Science

Peter Mountford

Tin House Books , 2014 • 281 pages

The Dismal Science tells of a middle-aged vice president at the World Bank, Vincenzo D’Orsi, who publicly quits his job over a seemingly minor argument with a colleague A scandal inevitably ensues, and he systematically burns every bridge to his former life

After abandoning his career, Vincenzo, a recent widower, is at a complete loss as to what to do with himself The story follows his efforts to rebuild his identity without a vocation or the company of his wife An exploration of the fragile nature of identity, The Dismal Science reveals the terrifying speed with which a person’s sense of self can be annihilated It is at once a study of a man attempting to apply his reason to the muddle of life and a book about how that same ostensible rationality, and the mathematics of finance in particular, operates—with similarly dubious results—in our world.
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Weapons of Math Destruction

Cathy O'Neil

Crown , 2016 • 288 pages

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A former Wall Street quant sounds the alarm on Big Data and the mathematical models that threaten to rip apart our social fabric—with a new afterword “A manual for the twenty-first-century citizen . . . relevant and urgent.”—Financial Times NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Boston Globe • Wired • Fortune • Kirkus Reviews • The Guardian • Nature • On Point We live in the age of the algorithm Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we can get a job or a loan, how much we pay for health insurance—are being made not by humans, but by machines

In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules But as mathematician and data scientist Cathy O’Neil reveals, the mathematical models being used today are unregulated and uncontestable, even when they’re wrong Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination—propping up the lucky, punishing the downtrodden, and undermining our democracy in the process Welcome to the dark side of Big Data.
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Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

Doubleday Canada , 2011 • 614 pages

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The guru to the gurus at last shares his knowledge with the rest of us Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's seminal studies in behavioral psychology, behavioral economics, and happiness studies have influenced numerous other authors, including Steven Pinker and Malcolm Gladwell In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman at last offers his own, first book for the general public

It is a lucid and enlightening summary of his life's work It will change the way you think about thinking Two systems drive the way we think and make choices, Kahneman explains: System One is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System Two is slower, more deliberative, and more logical Examining how both systems function within the mind, Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities as well as the biases of fast thinking and the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and our choices

Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, he shows where we can trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking, contrasting the two-system view of the mind with the standard model of the rational economic agent Kahneman's singularly influential work has transformed cognitive psychology and launched the new fields of behavioral economics and happiness studies In this path-breaking book, Kahneman shows how the mind works, and offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and personal lives--and how we can guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble.
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The Master & Margarita

Mikhail Bulgakov

Rosetta Books , 2016 • 448 pages

Satan, Judas, a Soviet writer, and a talking black cat named Behemoth populate this satire, “a classic of twentieth-century fiction” (The New York Times) In 1930s Moscow, Satan decides to pay the good people of the Soviet Union a visit In old Jerusalem, the fateful meeting of Pilate and Yeshua and the murder of Judas in the garden of Gethsemane unfold

At the intersection of fantasy and realism, satire and unflinching emotional truths, Mikhail Bulgakov’s classic The Master and Margarita eloquently lampoons every aspect of Soviet life under Stalin’s regime, from politics to art to religion, while interrogating the complexities between good and evil, innocence and guilt, and freedom and oppression Spanning from Moscow to Biblical Jerusalem, a vibrant cast of characters—a “magician” who is actually the devil in disguise, a giant cat, a witch, a fanged assassin—sow mayhem and madness wherever they go, mocking artists, intellectuals, and politicians alike

In and out of the fray weaves a man known only as the Master, a writer demoralized by government censorship, and his mysterious lover, Margarita Burned in 1928 by the author and restarted in 1930, The Master and Margarita was Bulgakov’s last completed creative work before his death It remained unpublished until 1966—and went on to become one of the most well-regarded works of Russian literature of the twentieth century, adapted or referenced in film, television, radio, comic strips, theater productions, music, and opera.
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When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long Term Capital Management

Roger Lowenstein

HarperCollins UK , 2014 • 288 pages

Charts are best viewed on a tablet Picking up where Liar’s Poker left off (literally, in the bond dealer’s desks of Salomon Brothers) the story of Long-Term Capital Management is of a group of elite investors who believed they could beat the market and, like alchemists, create limitless wealth for themselves and their partners.
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The Fall of the House of Labor

David Montgomery

Cambridge University Press , 1987 • 600 pages

This book studies the changing ways in which American industrial workers mobilised concerted action in their own interests between the abolition of slavery and the end of open immigration from Europe and Asia Sustained class conflict between 1916 and 1922 reshaped governmental and business policies, but left labour largely unorganised and in retreat The House of Labor, so arduously erected by working-class activists during the preceeding generation, did not collapse, but ossified, so that when labour activism was reinvigorated after 1933, the movement split in two These developments are analysed here in ways which stress the links between migration, neighbourhood life, racial subjugation, business reform, the state, and the daily experience of work itself.
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A Business of State

Rupali Mishra Mishra

Harvard University Press , 2018 • 370 pages

At the height of its power around 1800, the English East India Company controlled half of the world’s trade and deployed a vast network of political influencers at home and abroad Yet the story of the Company’s beginnings in the early seventeenth century has remained largely untold Rupali Mishra’s account of the East India Company’s formative years sheds new light on one of the most powerful corporations in the history of the world

From its birth in 1600, the East India Company lay at the heart of English political and economic life The Company’s fortunes were determined by the leading figures of the Stuart era, from the monarch and his privy counselors to an extended cast of eminent courtiers and powerful merchants

Drawing on a host of overlooked and underutilized sources, Mishra reconstructs the inner life of the Company, laying bare the era’s fierce struggles to define the difference between public and private interests and the use and abuse of power Unlike traditional accounts, which portray the Company as a private entity that came to assume the powers of a state, Mishra’s history makes clear that, from its inception, the East India Company was embedded within—and inseparable from—the state

A Business of State illuminates how the East India Company quickly came to inhabit such a unique role in England’s commercial and political ambitions It also offers critical insights into the rise of the early modern English state and the expansion and development of its nascent empire.
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Unwanted Visionaries

Sergey Radchenko

Oxford University Press , 2014 • 416 pages

Mikhail Gorbachev's relations with the West have captured the imagination of contemporaries and historians alike, but his vision of Soviet leadership in Asia has received far less attention The failure of Gorbachev's Asian initiatives has had dramatic consequences, by the late 1980s, the Soviet Union was in full retreat from Asia, and since the Soviet collapse, Russia has been left on the sidelines of the "Pacific century." In this exceptionally wide-ranging and deeply researched book, Sergey Radchenko offers an illuminating account of the end of the Cold War in the East, tracing the death of Soviet ambitions in Asia

Radchenko shows that Gorbachev began with big gestures, of which the most important was his initiative in Vladivostok in July 1986, the opening salvo of the Soviet charm offensive in Asia Pacific The problem, Radchenko points out, was that no one in Asia bought into Gorbachev's vision If the Soviets had realized earlier that they needed Asia more than Asia needed them, they might have played a much more important role there

Instead, China was largely misunderstood, early gains in India were squandered, Japan was ignored or condescended to, and the Korean scenario played out in ways most unfavorable to Russia Radchenko captures all of this in his compelling narrative, shedding important new light on many key players, including Gorbachev, Deng Xiaoping, Margaret Thatcher, Boris Yeltsin, and George H W

Bush, among others Based on archival research in Russia, China, Mongolia, India, the United States, Britain, and numerous European countries and on interviews with former policy makers in a dozen countries, Unwanted Visionaries presents a deftly narrated and penetrating portrait of the Soviet failure in the East, with a wealth of valuable insight into Asia today.
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Mahogany

Jennifer L. Anderson

Harvard University Press , 2012 • 421 pages

Colonial Americans were enamored with the rich colors and silky surface of mahogany As this exotic wood became fashionable, demand for it set in motion a dark, hidden story of human and environmental exploitation Anderson traces the path from source to sale, revealing how prosperity and desire shaped not just people’s lives but the natural world.
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Industry of Anonymity

Jonathan Lusthaus

Harvard University Press , 2018 • 280 pages

Jonathan Lusthaus lifts the veil on cybercriminals in the most extensive account yet of the lives they lead and the vast international industry they have created Having traveled to hotspots around the world to meet with hundreds of law enforcement agents, security gurus, hackers, and criminals, he charts how this industry based on anonymity works.
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A Colonial Book Market

Agnes Gehbald

Cambridge University Press , 2023 • 403 pages

A social history of books in Spanish America which traces the reach of reading material in late colonial Peru.
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The Gods of the Sea

Fynn Holm

Cambridge University Press , 2023 • 235 pages

Japan is often imagined as a nation with a long history of whaling In this innovative new study, Fynn Holm argues that for centuries some regions in early modern Japan did not engage in whaling In fact, they were actively opposed to it, even resorting to violence when whales were killed Resistance against whaling was widespread especially in the Northeast among the Japanese fishermen who worshiped whales as the incarnation of Ebisu, the god of the sea

Holm argues that human interactions with whales were much more diverse than the basic hunter-prey relationship, as cetaceans played a pivotal role in proto-industrial fisheries The advent of industrial whaling in the early twentieth century, however, destroyed this centuries-long equilibrium between humans and whales In its place, communities in Northeast Japan invented a new whaling tradition, which has almost completely eclipsed older forms of human-whale interactions This title is also available as Open Access.
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1950s Canada

Nelson Wiseman

2023 • 256 pages

1950s Canada chronicles the social, economic, and cultural developments of Canadian politics and public affairs in the 1950s.
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Imperial Engineers

Richard Hornsey

University of Toronto Press , 2022 • 378 pages

Established in 1871 on the outskirts of London, the Royal Indian Engineering College at Coopers Hill was arguably the first engineering school in Britain For thirty-five years the college helped staff the government institutions of British India responsible for the railways, irrigation systems, telegraph network, and forests Founded to meet the high demand for engineers in that country, it was closed thirty-five years later because its educational innovations had been surpassed by Britain’s universities – on both occasions against the wishes of the Government of India

Imperial Engineers offers a complete history of the Royal Indian Engineering College Drawing on the diaries of graduates working in India, the college magazine, student and alumni periodicals, and other archival documents, Richard Hornsey details why the college was established and how the students’ education prepared them for their work Illustrating the impact of the college and its graduates in India and beyond, Imperial Engineers illuminates the personal and professional experiences of British men in India as well as the transformation of engineering education at a time of social and technological change.
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A Century of Maritime Science

Jennifer M. Hubbard, David Wildish, Robert L. Stephenson

University of Toronto Press , 2016 • 488 pages

Located on the Bay of Fundy, the St. Andrews Biological Station is Canada’s oldest permanent marine research institution A Century of Maritime Science reviews the fisheries, environmental, oceanographic, and aquaculture research conducted over the last hundred years at St. Andrews from the perspective of the participating scientists Introductory essays by two leading historians of science situate the work at St. Andrews within their historical context With topics including the contributions of women to the early study of marine biology in Canada; the study of scallops, Atlantic salmon, and paralytic shellfish poisoning; and the development of underwater camera technology, A Century of Maritime Science offers a captivating mixture of first-hand reminiscences, scientific expertise, and historical analysis.
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24/7 Politics

Kathryn Cramer Brownell

Princeton University Press , 2023 • 424 pages

How cable television upended American political life in the pursuit of profits and influence As television began to overtake the political landscape in the 1960s, network broadcast companies, bolstered by powerful lobbying interests, dominated screens across the nation Yet over the next three decades, the expansion of a different technology, cable, changed all of this. 24/7 Politics tells the story of how the cable industry worked with political leaders to create an entirely new approach to television, one that tethered politics to profits and divided and distracted Americans by feeding their appetite for entertainment—frequently at the expense of fostering responsible citizenship

In this timely and provocative book, Kathryn Cramer Brownell argues that cable television itself is not to blame for today’s rampant polarization and scandal politics—the intentional restructuring of television as a political institution is She describes how cable innovations—from C-SPAN coverage of congressional debates in the 1980s to MTV’s foray into presidential politics in the 1990s—took on network broadcasting using market forces, giving rise to a more decentralized media world Brownell shows how cable became an unstoppable medium for political communication that prioritized cult followings and loyalty to individual brands, fundamentally reshaped party politics, and, in the process, sowed the seeds of democratic upheaval. 24/7 Politics reveals how cable TV created new possibilities for antiestablishment voices and opened a pathway to political prominence for seemingly unlikely figures like Donald Trump by playing to narrow audiences and cultivating division instead of common ground.
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Murder in a Mill Town

Bruce Dorsey

Oxford University Press , 2023 • 385 pages

A master storyteller presents a riveting drama of America's first "crime of the century"--from murder investigation to a church sex scandal to celebrity trial--and its aftermath In December 1832 a farmer found the body of a young, pregnant woman hanging near a haystack outside a New England mill town When news spread that Methodist preacher Ephraim Avery was accused of murdering Sarah Maria Cornell, a factory worker, the case gave the public everything they found irresistible: sexually charged violence, adultery, the hypocrisy of a church leader, secrecy and mystery, and suspicions of insanity

Murder in a Mill Town tells the story of how a local crime quickly turned into a national scandal that became America's first "trial of the century." After her death--after she became the country's most notorious "factory girl"--Cornell's choices about work, survival, and personal freedom became enmeshed in stories that Americans told themselves about their new world of industry and women's labor and the power of religion in the early republic Writers penned seduction tales, true-crime narratives, detective stories, political screeds, songs, poems, and melodramatic plays about the lurid scandal

As trial witnesses, ordinary people gave testimony that revealed rapidly changing times As the controversy of Cornell's murder spread beyond the courtroom, the public eagerly devoured narratives of moral deviance, abortion, suicide, mobs, "fake news," and conspiracy politics Long after the jury's verdict, the nation refused to let the scandal go A meticulously reconstructed historical whodunit, Murder in a Mill Town exposes the troublesome workings of criminal justice in the young democracy and the rise of a sensational popular culture.
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Silk

Aarathi Prasad

HarperCollins , 2024 • 463 pages

A Next Big Idea Book Club Must-Read for April "Aarathi Prasad spins a masterpiece of a story, as luminous, supple, and surprising as the wondrous threads themselves." —Sy Montgomery, bestselling author of The Soul of an Octopus and Of Time and Turtles Throughout history, across cultures and countries, silk has reigned as the undeniable queen of fabrics, yet its origins and evolution remain a mystery In a gorgeous and sweeping narrative, Silk weaves together its intricate story and the indelible mark it has left on humanity

Some four thousand years ago, the cultivation of silkworms began, the practice spreading to the far reaches of civilization With it came a growing obsession with unlocking silk’s secrets to understand how the strongest biological material ever known could be harnessed Explorers and scientists, including groundbreaking women who pushed the boundaries of societal expectations, dedicated—even sacrificed—their lives to investigate the anatomy of silk-producing animals

They endured unbelievable hardships to discover and collect new specimens, leading them to the moths of China, Indonesia, and India; the spiders of Argentina, Paraguay, and Madagascar; and the mollusks of the Mediterranean Rich with the complex connections between human and nonhuman worlds, Silk not only peers into the past but also reveals the fiber’s impact today, inspiring new technologies across the fashion, military, and medical fields, and shows its untapped potential to pioneer a more sustainable future The culmination of author and biologist Aarathi Prasad’s own lifelong passion and grounded in years of research and writing, Silk is an intoxicating read that provides an essential illumination of nature’s most glamourous thread.
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The Globemakers

Peter Bellerby

Bloomsbury Publishing USA , 2023 • 324 pages

“Peter Bellerby's tale of learning how to fashion worlds-a journey through history, science, craft, and passion-spun me on my axis.”-Dava Sobel, New York Times bestselling author of Longitude The beautifully illustrated story of our globe and the globes it has inspired, told from inside the workshop of one of the world's last globemakers, with four-color photos throughout Many of us encounter a globe as children We find a grown-up and ask, “Where are we?” They spin the globe and point to a minuscule dot amidst a massive expanse of sea and land

Thousands of questions follow A profound convergence of art and science, a globe is the ultimate visualization of our place in our galaxy and universe To be a globemaker requires a knowledge of geography, skilled engineering, drawing, and painting, and only a few people in history have ever really mastered the craft

When Peter Bellerby set out to make a globe for his father's eightieth birthday, after failing to find a suitable one to purchase, he had no idea where the process would lead He went on to establish Bellerby & Co, one of the only artisan globemakers in the world The Globemakers brings us inside Bellerby's gorgeous studio to learn how he and his team of cartographers and artists bring these stunning celestial, terrestrial, and planetary objects to life

Along the way he tells stories of his adventure and the luck along the way that shaped the company A full-color photographic portrait of a lost art, The Globemakers is an enlightening exploration of globes, or “earth apples,” as they were first known, and their ability to show us ourselves and our place in an infinite universe.
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Frontier Science

Matthew S. Wiseman

University of Toronto Press , 2024 • 276 pages

Between 1945 and 1970, Canada’s Department of National Defence sponsored scientific research into the myriad challenges of military operations in cold regions To understand and overcome the impediments of the country’s cold climate, scientists studied cold-weather acclimatization, hypothermia, frostbite, and psychological morale for soldiers assigned to active duty in northern Canada Frontier Science investigates the history of military science in northern Canada during this period of the Cold War, highlighting the consequences of government-funded research for humans and nature alike

The book reveals how under the guise of “environmental protection” research, the Canadian military sprayed pesticides to clear bushed areas, used radioactive substances to investigate vector-borne diseases, pursued race-based theories of cold tolerance, and enabled wide-ranging tests of newly developed weapons and equipment In arguing that military research in northern Canada was a product of the Cold War, Matthew S Wiseman tackles questions of government power, scientific authority, and medical and environmental research ethics Based on a long and deep pursuit of declassified records, archival sources, and oral testimony, Frontier Science is a fascinating new history of military approaches to the human-nature relationship.
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Empire of the Scalpel

Ira Rutkow

Simon and Schuster , 2022 • 416 pages

From a renowned surgeon and historian with five decades of experience comes a remarkable history of surgery's development--spanning the Stone Age to the present day--blending meticulous medical studies with lively and skillful storytelling There are not many events in life that can be as simultaneously life-frightening and life-saving as a surgical operation Yet, in America, tens-of-millions of major surgical procedures are performed annually but few of us pause to consider the magnitude of these figures because we have such inherent confidence in surgeons

And, despite passionate debates about healthcare and the endless fascination with surgical procedures, most of us have no idea how surgeons came to be because the story of surgery has never been fully told Now, Empire of the Scalpel elegantly reveals the fascinating history of surgery's evolution from its earliest roots in Europe through its rise to scientific and social dominance in the United States From the 16th-century saga of Andreas Vesalius and his crusade to accurately describe human anatomy while appeasing the conservative clergy who clamored for his burning at the stake, to the hard-to-believe story of late-19th century surgeons' apathy to Joseph Lister's innovation of antisepsis and how this indifference led to thousands of unnecessary surgical deaths, Empire of the Scalpel is both a global history and a uniquely American tale

You'll discover how in the 20th century the US achieved surgical world supremacy heralded by the Nobel Prize-winning, seemingly impossible feat of transplanting a kidney and how the heart-lung machine was developed, along with much more Today, the list of possible operations is almost infinite--from knee and hip replacement to heart bypass and transplants to fat reduction and rhinoplasty--and Rutkow draws on his five-decade career to show us how we got here Authoritative, captivating, and comprehensive, Empire of the Scalpel portrays the evolution of surgery in all its dramatic and life-enhancing complexity and shows that its history is truly one awe-inspiring triumph after another.
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Children of Ash and Elm

Neil Price

Basic Books , 2020 • 629 pages

The definitive history of the Vikings -- from arts and culture to politics and cosmology -- by a distinguished archaeologist with decades of expertise The Viking Age -- from 750 to 1050 -- saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe But for centuries, the Vikings have been seen through the eyes of others, distorted to suit the tastes of medieval clerics and Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more

None of these appropriations capture the real Vikings, or the richness and sophistication of their culture Based on the latest archaeological and textual evidence, Children of Ash and Elm tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology and religion, their material world Known today for a stereotype of maritime violence, the Vikings exported new ideas, technologies, beliefs, and practices to the lands they discovered and the peoples they encountered, and in the process were themselves changed From Eirík Bloodaxe, who fought his way to a kingdom, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, the most traveled woman in the world, Children of Ash and Elm is the definitive history of the Vikings and their time.
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Betting on the Civil Service Examinations

En Li

Harvard East Asian Monographs , 2023

In Betting on the Civil Service Examinations, En Li places the history of Chinese weixing, or "surname guessing," for civil service examinations in a larger context Li traces institutional revenue innovations surrounding lottery regulation and depicts an expansive community stretching among Guangdong, Southeast Asia, and North America.
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Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance

Jane Gleeson-White

W. W. Norton & Company , 2012 • 304 pages

“Lively history. . . Show[s] double entry’s role in the creation of the accounting profession, and even of capitalism itself.”—The New Yorker Filled with colorful characters and history, Double Entry takes us from the ancient origins of accounting in Mesopotamia to the frontiers of modern finance At the heart of the story is double-entry bookkeeping: the first system that allowed merchants to actually measure the worth of their businesses

Luca Pacioli—monk, mathematician, alchemist, and friend of Leonardo da Vinci—incorporated Arabic mathematics to formulate a system that could work across all trades and nations As Jane Gleeson-White reveals, double-entry accounting was nothing short of revolutionary: it fueled the Renaissance, enabled capitalism to flourish, and created the global economy John Maynard Keynes would use it to calculate GDP, the measure of a nation’s wealth

Yet double-entry accounting has had its failures With the costs of sudden corporate collapses such as Enron and Lehman Brothers, and its disregard of environmental and human costs, the time may have come to re-create it for the future.
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A Technological History of Cold-War India, 1947–⁠1969

William A.T. Logan

Springer Nature , 2021 • 297 pages

This book provides a technological history of modern India, in particular the Nehruvian development in the context of the Cold War Through a series of case studies about military modernization, transportation infrastructure, and electric power, it examines how the ideals of autarky and technological indigenization conflicted with the economic and political realities of the Cold War world Where other studies tend to focus on the political leaders and economists who oversaw development, this book demonstrates how the perspective of the engineers, government bureaucrats, and aid workers informed and ultimately implemented development.
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Fiscal Regimes and the Political Economy of Premodern States

Andrew Monson, Walter Scheidel

Cambridge University Press , 2015 • 603 pages

This book represents the first global survey of taxation in the premodern world What emerges is a rich variety of institutions, including experiments with sophisticated instruments such as sovereign debt and fiduciary money, challenging the notion of atypical premodern stage of fiscal development"--
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Behind the Urals

John Scott, Stephen Kotkin

1989 • 360 pages

John Scott's classic account of his five years as a worker in the new industrial city of Magnitogorsk in the 1930s, first published in 1942, is enhanced in this edition by Stephen Kotkin's introduction, which places the book in context for today's readers; by the texts of three debriefings of Scott conducted at the U.S. embassy in Moscow in 1938 and published here for the first time; and by a selection of photographs showing life in Magnitogorsk in the 1930s No other book provides such a graphic description of the life of workers under the First Five-Year Plan.
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China Market; America's Quest for Informal Empire, 1893-1901

Thomas J. McCormick

Chicago : Quadrangle Books , 1967 • 256 pages

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An Economic History of Imperial Madagascar, 1750-1895

Gwyn Campbell

Cambridge University Press , 2005 • 444 pages

The first comprehensive economic history of pre-colonial Madagascar, this study examines the island's role from 1750 to 1895 in the context of a burgeoning international economy and the rise of modern European imperialism This study reveals that the Merina of the Central Highlands attempted to found an island empire and through the exploitation of its human and natural resources build the economic and military might to challenge British and French pretensions in the region Ultimately, the Merina failed due to imperial forced labour policies and natural disasters, the nefarious consequences of which (disease; depopulation; ethnic enmity) have in traditional histories been imputed external capitalist and French colonial policies.
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A Century of Development in Taiwan

Chow, Peter C.Y.

Edward Elgar Publishing , 2022 • 400 pages

Most colonies became independent countries after the end of World War II, while few of them became modernized even after decades of their independence Taiwan is one of the few to become a modern state with remarkable achievements in its economic, socio-cultural, and political development This book addresses the path and trajectory of the emergence of Taiwan from a colony to a modern state in the past century.
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The Last Turtlemen of the Caribbean

Sharika D. Crawford

UNC Press Books , 2020 • 217 pages

Illuminating the entangled histories of the people and commodities that circulated across the Atlantic, Sharika D Crawford assesses the Caribbean as a waterscape where imperial and national governments vied to control the profitability of the sea Crawford places the green and hawksbill sea turtles and the Caymanian turtlemen who hunted them at the center of this waterscape

The story of the humble turtle and its hunter, she argues, came to play a significant role in shaping the maritime boundaries of the modern Caribbean Crawford describes the colonial Caribbean as an Atlantic commons where all could compete to control the region's diverse peoples, lands, and waters and exploit the region's raw materials Focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Crawford traces and connects the expansion and decline of turtle hunting to matters of race, labor, political and economic change, and the natural environment

Like the turtles they chased, the boundary-flouting laborers exposed the limits of states' sovereignty for a time but ultimately they lost their livelihoods, having played a significant role in legislation delimiting maritime boundaries Still, former turtlemen have found their deep knowledge valued today in efforts to protect sea turtles and recover the region's ecological sustainability.
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Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. III

Fernand Braudel

Univ of California Press , 1992 • 704 pages

By examining in detail the material life of pre-industrial peoples around the world, Fernand Braudel significantly changed the way historians view their subject Originally published in the early 1980s, Civilization traces the social and economic history of the world from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, although his primary focus is Europe Braudel skims over politics, wars, etc., in favor of examining life at the grass roots: food, drink, clothing, housing, town markets, money, credit, technology, the growth of towns and cities, and more Volume I describes food and drink, dress and housing, demography and family structure, energy and technology, money and credit, and the growth of towns.
Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. II cover

Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. II

Fernand Braudel

Univ of California Press , 1992 • 678 pages

By examining in detail the material life of pre-industrial peoples around the world, Fernand Braudel significantly changed the way historians view their subject Originally published in the early 1980s, Civilization traces the social and economic history of the world from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, although his primary focus is Europe Braudel skims over politics, wars, etc., in favor of examining life at the grass roots: food, drink, clothing, housing, town markets, money, credit, technology, the growth of towns and cities, and more Volume I describes food and drink, dress and housing, demography and family structure, energy and technology, money and credit, and the growth of towns.
Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. I cover

Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. I

Fernand Braudel

Univ of California Press , 1992 • 626 pages

This social and economic history of Europe from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution organizes a multitude of details to paint a rich picture of everyday life.
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Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution

Rebecca L. Spang

Harvard University Press , 2015 • 361 pages

Rebecca L Spang, who revolutionized our understanding of the restaurant, has written a new history of money It is also a new history of the French Revolution, with economics at its heart In her telling, radicalization was driven by an ever-widening gap between political ideals—including “freedom of money”—and the harsh realities of daily life.
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A Velvet Empire

David Todd

Princeton University Press , 2023 • 368 pages

How France's elites used soft power to pursue their imperial ambitions in the nineteenth century After Napoleon's downfall in 1815, France embraced a mostly informal style of empire, one that emphasized economic and cultural influence rather than military conquest A Velvet Empire is a global history of French imperialism in the nineteenth century, providing new insights into the mechanisms of imperial collaboration that extended France's power from the Middle East to Latin America and ushered in the modern age of globalization

David Todd shows how French elites pursued a cunning strategy of imperial expansion in which conspicuous commodities such as champagne and silk textiles, together with loans to client states, contributed to a global campaign of seduction French imperialism was no less brutal than that of the British But while Britain widened its imperial reach through settler colonialism and the acquisition of far-flung territories, France built a "velvet" empire backed by frequent military interventions and a broadening extraterritorial jurisdiction

Todd demonstrates how France drew vast benefits from these asymmetric, imperial-like relations until a succession of setbacks around the world brought about their unravelling in the 1870s A Velvet Empire sheds light on France's neglected contribution to the conservative reinvention of modernity and offers a new interpretation of the resurgence of French colonialism on a global scale after 1880 This panoramic book also highlights the crucial role of collaboration among European empires during this period—including archrivals Britain and France—and cooperation with indigenous elites in facilitating imperial expansion and the globalization of capitalism.
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Nathaniel's Nutmeg (25th Anniversary Edition)

Giles Milton

Picador USA , 2024

The 25th anniversary edition of the much-beloved true adventure tale of Nathaniel Courthope; “A magnificent piece of popular history” (The Independent on Sunday) The tiny island of Run is an insignificant speck in the Indonesian archipelago Just two miles long and half a mile wide, it is remote, tranquil, and largely ignored

Yet 370 years ago, Run’s bountiful harvest of a then-priceless spice, nutmeg, turned it into the most lucrative of the Spice Islands, precipitating a battle between the all-powerful Dutch East India Company and the British Crown Out of the fighting came one of the most spectacular deals in history: Britain ceded Run to Holland, and in return was given Manhattan This led not only to the birth of New York, but also to the beginning of the British Empire

The man who made it all possible Nathaniel Courthope and his small band of adventurers, who were sent to Run in 1616 and for four years held off the massive Dutch navy Nathaniel’s Nutmeg centers on the remarkable showdown between Courthope and the Dutch Governor General Jan Coen, and the brutal fate of the mariners racing to Run to reap the limitless profits of the spice trade Written with the flair of a historical sea novel but based on rigorous research, Giles Milton’s Nathaniel’s Nutmeg is a brilliant, true tale of high adventure in the South Seas.
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Holy Food

Christina Ward

Process , 2021 • 240 pages

Holy Food explores the influence of newer and unorthodox beliefs on modern American food Beginning with the infamous strawberry shortcake that sated visitors to the Oneida Community in the late 1800s to the celebratory cakes of the Unarius practitioners in present-day California, Ward shows us a range of feasting and fasting Religious beliefs have been the source of food "rules" since Pythagoras told his followers not to eat beans (they contain souls), Kosher and Halal rules forbade the shrimp cocktail (shellfish are scavengers, or maybe G-d just said "no"), and a long-ago Pope forbade Catholics to eat meat on Fridays (one should fast to atone for committed sins)

In America, where the freedom to believe whatever you want and worship the god of not only of your own choice but of your own making embraced old traditions and invented new ones Holy Food looks at how the explosion of new religious movements since the Great Awakening birthed a cottage industry of food fads that gained mainstream acceptance And at the obscure sects and non-religious communities of the 20th Century that dabbled in vague spirituality that used food to both entice and control followers

Ward skillfully navigates between her vast cookbook collection, academic texts, and interviews to make sharp observations and new insights in this highly readable journey through the American kitchen Included are examples of rare cookbooks, interviews, and updated versions of holyrecipes, and a lively narrative that weaves it all together.
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A Book of Waves

Stefan Helmreich

Duke University Press , 2023 • 270 pages

In A Book of Waves Stefan Helmreich examines ocean waves as forms of media that carry ecological, geopolitical, and climatological news about our planet Drawing on ethnographic work with oceanographers and coastal engineers in the Netherlands, the United States, Australia, Japan, and Bangladesh, Helmreich details how scientists at sea and in the lab apprehend waves’ materiality through abstractions, seeking to capture in technical language these avatars of nature at once periodic and irreversible, wild and pacific, ephemeral and eternal

For researchers and their publics, the meanings of waves also reflect visions of the ocean as an environmental infrastructure fundamental to trade, travel, warfare, humanitarian rescue, recreation, and managing sea level rise Interleaving ethnographic chapters with reflections on waves in mythology, surf culture, feminist theory, film, Indigenous Pacific activisms, Black Atlantic history, cosmology, and more, Helmreich demonstrates how waves mark out the wakes and breaks of social histories and futures.
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The Dean of Shandong

Daniel A. Bell

Princeton University Press , 2023 • 208 pages

An inside view of Chinese academia and what it reveals about China’s political system On January 1, 2017, Daniel Bell was appointed dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University—the first foreign dean of a political science faculty in mainland China’s history In The Dean of Shandong, Bell chronicles his experiences as what he calls “a minor bureaucrat,” offering an inside account of the workings of Chinese academia and what they reveal about China’s political system

It wasn’t all smooth sailing—Bell wryly recounts sporadic bungles and misunderstandings—but Bell’s post as dean provides a unique vantage point on China today Bell, neither a Chinese citizen nor a member of the Chinese Communist Party, was appointed as dean because of his scholarly work on Confucianism—but soon found himself coping with a variety of issues having little to do with scholarship or Confucius These include the importance of hair color and the prevalence of hair-dyeing among university administrators, both male and female; Shandong’s drinking culture, with endless toasts at every shared meal; and some unintended consequences of an intensely competitive academic meritocracy

As dean, he also confronts weightier matters: the role at the university of the Party secretary, the national anticorruption campaign and its effect on academia (Bell asks provocatively, “What’s wrong with corruption?”), and formal and informal modes of censorship Considering both the revival of Confucianism in China over the last three decades and what he calls “the Communist comeback” since 2008, Bell predicts that China’s political future is likely to be determined by both Confucianism and Communism.
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Cybernetic Revolutionaries

Eden Medina

MIT Press , 2014 • 343 pages

A historical study of Chile's twin experiments with cybernetics and socialism, and what they tell us about the relationship of technology and politics In Cybernetic Revolutionaries, Eden Medina tells the history of two intersecting utopian visions, one political and one technological The first was Chile's experiment with peaceful socialist change under Salvador Allende; the second was the simultaneous attempt to build a computer system that would manage Chile's economy

Neither vision was fully realized—Allende's government ended with a violent military coup; the system, known as Project Cybersyn, was never completely implemented—but they hold lessons for today about the relationship between technology and politics Drawing on extensive archival material and interviews, Medina examines the cybernetic system envisioned by the Chilean government—which was to feature holistic system design, decentralized management, human-computer interaction, a national telex network, near real-time control of the growing industrial sector, and modeling the behavior of dynamic systems

She also describes, and documents with photographs, the network's Star Trek-like operations room, which featured swivel chairs with armrest control panels, a wall of screens displaying data, and flashing red lights to indicate economic emergencies Studying project Cybersyn today helps us understand not only the technological ambitions of a government in the midst of political change but also the limitations of the Chilean revolution This history further shows how human attempts to combine the political and the technological with the goal of creating a more just society can open new technological, intellectual, and political possibilities Technologies, Medina writes, are historical texts; when we read them we are reading history.
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Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups

Ryan Manucha

McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP , 2022 • 282 pages

Gerard Comeau, a retiree living in rural New Brunswick, never thought his booze run would turn him into a Canadian hero In 2012, after Comeau had driven to Quebec to purchase cheaper beer and crossed back into his home province, police officers participating in a low-stakes sting operation tailed and detained him, confiscated his haul, and levied a fine of less than $300 Countries routinely engage in trade wars and erect barriers to protect domestic industries from foreign competition

Comeau, however, was detained by the full force of the law for engaging in commerce with a Canadian business on the other side of a domestic border With Comeau’s story as its starting point, Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups tells the fascinating tale of Canadian interprovincial trade Ryan Manucha examines the historical, political, and legal forces that gave rise to the regulation of interprovincial commerce in Canada, the trade-offs that come with liberalized domestic free trade, and Canada’s enduring pursuit of economic union

The pandemic laid bare the vulnerability of global supply chains, the fickleness of foreign trading partners, and the surprising slipperiness of domestic trade In a global climate of increasingly isolationist geopolitics, the history and possibility of Canada’s economic union, quirks and all, deserve careful attention.
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The Biomedical Empire

Barbara Katz Rothman

Stanford University Press , 2021 • 115 pages

We are all citizens of the Biomedical Empire, though few of us know it, and even fewer understand the extent of its power In this book, Barbara Katz Rothman clarifies that critiques of biopower and the "medical industrial complex" have not gone far enough, and asserts that the medical industry is nothing short of an imperial power Factors as fundamental as one's citizenship and sex identity—drivers of our access to basic goods and services—rely on approval and legitimation by biomedicine

Moreover, a vast and powerful global market has risen up around the empire, making it one of the largest economic forces in the world Katz Rothman shows that biomedicine has the key elements of an imperial power: economic leverage, the faith of its citizens, and governmental rule She investigates the Western colonial underpinnings of the empire and its rapid intrusion into everyday life, focusing on the realms of birth and death This provides her with a powerful vantage point from which to critically examine the current moment, when the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the power structures of the empire in unprecedented ways while sparking the most visible resistance it has ever seen.
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The Cactus Hunters

Jared D. Margulies

U of Minnesota Press , 2023 • 317 pages

An exploration of the explosive illegal trade in succulents and the passion that drives it Cacti and succulents are phenomenally popular worldwide among plant enthusiasts, despite being among the world’s most threatened species The fervor driving the illegal trade in succulents might also be driving some species to extinction Delving into the strange world of succulent collecting, The Cactus Hunters takes us to the heart of this conundrum: the mystery of how and why ardent lovers of these plants engage in their illicit trade

This is a world of alluring desires, where collectors and conservationists alike are animated by passions that at times exceed the limits of law What inspires the desire for a plant What kind of satisfaction does it promise The answer, Jared D

Margulies suspects, might be traced through the roots and workings of the illegal succulent trade—an exploration that traverses the fields of botany and criminology, political ecology and human geography, and psychoanalysis His globe-spanning inquiry leads Margulies from a spectacular series of succulent heists on a small island off the coast of Mexico to California law enforcement agents infiltrating a smuggling ring in South Korea, from scientists racing to discover new and rare species before poachers find them to a notorious Czech “cacto-explorer” who helped turn a landlocked European country into the epicenter of the illegal succulent trade

A heady blend of international intrigue, social theory, botanical lore, and ecological study, The Cactus Hunters offers complex insight into species extinction, conservation, and more-than-human care Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.
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Imperial Wine

Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre

Univ of California Press , 2024 • 341 pages

A fascinating and approachable deep dive into the colonial roots of the global wine industry Imperial Wine is a bold, rigorous history of Britain's surprising role in creating the wine industries of Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand Here, historian Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre bridges the genres of global commodity history and imperial history, presenting provocative new research in an accessible narrative

This is the first book to argue that today's global wine industry exists as a result of settler colonialism and that imperialism was central, not incidental, to viticulture in the British colonies Wineries were established almost immediately after the colonization of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand as part of a civilizing mission: tidy vines, heavy with fruit, were symbolic of Britain's subordination of foreign lands Economically and culturally, nineteenth-century settler winemakers saw the British market as paramount

However, British drinkers were apathetic towards what they pejoratively called "colonial wine." The tables only began to turn after the First World War, when colonial wines were marketed as cheap and patriotic and started to find their niche among middle- and working-class British drinkers This trend, combined with social and cultural shifts after the Second World War, laid the foundation for the New World revolution in the 1980s, making Britain into a confirmed country of wine-drinkers and a massive market for New World wines

These New World producers may have only received critical acclaim in the late twentieth century, but Imperial Wine shows that they had spent centuries wooing, and indeed manufacturing, a British market for inexpensive colonial wines This book is sure to satisfy any curious reader who savors the complex stories behind this commodity chain.
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American Gun

Cameron McWhirter, Zusha Elinson

Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2023 • 287 pages

“A magisterial work of narrative history and original reportage . . You can feel the tension building one cold, catastrophic fact at a time . . A virtually unprecedented achievement.” —Mike Spies, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) A Washington Post top 50 nonfiction book of 2023 | Short-listed for the Zócalo Book Prize One of The New York Times’ 33 nonfiction books to read this fall | One of Esquire’s best books of fall | A Kirkus Reviews best nonfiction book of 2023 Named a most anticipated book of the fall by The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Bloomberg American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15 presents the epic history of America’s most controversial weapon

In the 1950s, an obsessive firearms designer named Eugene Stoner invented the AR-15 rifle in a California garage High-minded and patriotic, Stoner sought to devise a lightweight, easy-to-use weapon that could replace the M1s touted by soldiers in World War II What he did create was a lethal handheld icon of the American century

In American Gun, the veteran Wall Street Journal reporters Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson track the AR-15 from inception to ubiquity How did the same gun represent the essence of freedom to millions of Americans and the essence of evil to millions more To answer this question, McWhirter and Elinson follow Stoner—the American Kalashnikov—as he struggled mightily to win support for his invention, which under the name M16 would become standard equipment in Vietnam

Shunned by gun owners at first, the rifle’s popularity would take off thanks to a renegade band of small-time gun makers And in the 2000s, it would become the weapon of choice for mass shooters, prompting widespread calls for proscription even as the gun industry embraced it as a financial savior Writing with fairness and compassion, McWhirter and Elinson explore America’s gun culture, revealing the deep appeal of the AR-15, the awful havoc it wreaks, and the politics of reducing its toll

The result is a moral history of contemporary America’s love affair with technology, freedom, and weaponry Includes 8 pages of black-and-white images.
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Big Business and the Crisis of German Democracy

Adam Bisno

Cambridge University Press , 2023 • 235 pages

Explains why an industrial and financial elite decided that authoritarianism, and Hitler, would be better for business than democracy.
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A Ritual Geology

Robyn d'Avignon

Duke University Press , 2022 • 225 pages

Set against the ongoing corporate enclosure of West Africa’s goldfields, A Ritual Geology tells the untold history of one of the world’s oldest indigenous gold mining industries: Francophone West Africa’s orpaillage Establishing African miners as producers of subterranean knowledge, Robyn d’Avignon uncovers a dynamic “ritual geology” of techniques and cosmological engagements with the earth developed by agrarian residents of gold-bearing rocks in savanna West Africa

Colonial and corporate exploration geology in the region was built upon the ritual knowledge, gold discoveries, and skilled labor of African miners even as states racialized African mining as archaic, criminal, and pagan Spanning the medieval and imperial past to the postcolonial present, d’Avignon weaves together long-term ethnographic and oral historical work in southeastern Senegal with archival and archeological evidence from Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Mali A Ritual Geology introduces transnational geological formations as a new regional framework for African studies, environmental history, and anthropology.
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F-35

Tom Burbage, Betsy Clark, Adrian Pitman, David Poyer

Simon and Schuster , 2023 • 366 pages

The inside story of the most expensive and controversial military program in history, as told by those who lived it The F-35 has changed allied combat warfare But by the time it’s completed, it will cost more than the Manhattan Project and the B-2 Stealth Bomber It has been subject to the most aggressive cyberattacks in history from China, Russia, North Korea, and others

Its stealth technology required nearly 9 million lines of code; NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover required 2.5 million And it was this close to failure F-35 is the only inside look at the most advanced aircraft in the world and the historic project that built it, as told by those who were intimately involved in its design, testing, and production

Based on the authors' personal experience and over 100+ interviews, F-35 pulls back the curtain on one of the most heavily criticized government programs in history from start to finish: the dramatic flights that won Lockheed Martin the contract over Boeing; the debates and decisions over capabilities; feats of software, hardware, and aeronautical engineering that made it possible; how the project survived the Nunn-McCurdy breach; the conflicts among all three branches of the U.S. military, between the eight other allied nation partners, and against spy elements from enemies For readers of Skunk Works by Ben Rich and The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes, F-35 will pique the interest of airplane enthusiasts, defense industry insiders, military history aficionados, political junkies, and general nonfiction readers.
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American Technological Sublime

David E. Nye

MIT Press , 1996 • 388 pages

American Technological Sublime continues the exploration of the social construction of technology that David Nye began in his award-winning book Electrifying America Here Nye examines the continuing appeal of the "technological sublime" (a term coined by Perry Miller) as a key to the nation's history, using as examples the natural sites, architectural forms, and technological achievements that ordinary people have valued intensely Technology has long played a central role in the formation of Americans' sense of selfhood

From the first canal systems through the moon landing, Americans have, for better or worse, derived unity from the common feeling of awe inspired by large-scale applications of technological prowess American Technological Sublime continues the exploration of the social construction of technology that David Nye began in his award-winning book Electrifying America Here Nye examines the continuing appeal of the "technological sublime" (a term coined by Perry Miller) as a key to the nation's history, using as examples the natural sites, architectural forms, and technological achievements that ordinary people have valued intensely

American Technological Sublime is a study of the politics of perception in industrial society Arranged chronologically, it suggests that the sublime itself has a history - that sublime experiences are emotional configurations that emerge from new social and technological conditions, and that each new configuration to some extent undermines and displaces the older versions

After giving a short history of the sublime as an aesthetic category, Nye describes the reemergence and democratization of the concept in the early nineteenth century as an expression of the American sense of specialness What has filled the American public with wonder, awe, even terror David Nye selects the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the Erie Canal, the first transcontinental railroad, Eads Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, the major international expositions, the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909, the Empire State Building, and Boulder Dam

He then looks at the atom bomb tests and the Apollo mission as examples of the increasing ambivalence of the technological sublime in the postwar world The festivities surrounding the rededication of the Statue of Liberty in 1986 become a touchstone reflecting the transformation of the American experience of the sublime over two centuries Nye concludes with a vision of the modern-day "consumer sublime" as manifested in the fantasy world of Las Vegas.
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From Samarkhand to Sardis

Susan M. Sherwin-White, Amélie Kuhrt

Univ of California Press , 1993 • 292 pages

Persian empire and earlier Middle Eastern states They investigate the economies, social structures, political systems and cultures of the many peoples making up the empire, and analyse, in the context of colonialism and imperialism, such evidence as exists for cultural changes, including Hellenisation

The book makes accessible the great variety of new and important documents, Greek and non-Greek, that have been recently discovered It will be of interest to students,
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A Workshop for Peace

George A. Dudley

MIT Press (MA) , 1994 • 440 pages

In this book he unfolds the first eyewitness account of the creation of a landmark building that was functionally and symbolically important in its time, marking the emergence of modern architecture as the dominant language of postwar institutions and cities.
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Darfur Peacekeepers

Janos Besenyo

Harmattan Hongrie , 2021 • 230 pages

« Dr Besenyo has written a troubling, first-hand account of the remarkably complex and difficult operation the AU/UN peacekeeping effort was in Darfur It should be read by policymakers who contemplate these operations in the future. » Andrex Natsios, Director at the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs and Executive Professor
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1493

Charles C. Mann

Vintage , 2012 • 722 pages

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A deeply engaging history of how European settlements in the post-Colombian Americas shaped the world—from the highly acclaimed author of 1491. • "Fascinating...Lively...A convincing explanation of why our world is the way it is." —The New York Times Book Review Presenting the latest research by biologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians, Mann shows how the post-Columbian network of ecological and economic exchange fostered the rise of Europe, devastated imperial China, convulsed Africa, and for two centuries made Mexico City—where Asia, Europe, and the new frontier of the Americas dynamically interacted—the center of the world In this history, Mann uncovers the germ of today's fiercest political disputes, from immigration to trade policy to culture wars In 1493, Mann has again given readers an eye-opening scientific interpretation of our past, unequaled in its authority and fascination.
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BART

Michael C. Healy

Heyday.ORIM , 2013 • 426 pages

An insider’s “indispensible” behind-the-scenes history of the transit system of San Francisco and surrounding counties (Houston Chronicle) In the first-ever history book about BART, longtime agency spokesman Michael C Healy gives an insider’s account of the rapid transit system’s inception, hard-won approval, construction, and operations, warts and all

With a master storyteller’s wit and sharp attention to detail, Healy recreates the politically fraught venture to bring a new kind of public transit to the West Coast What emerges is a sense of the individuals who made (and make) BART happen From tales of staying up until 3:00 a.m. with BART pioneers Bill Stokes and Jack Everson to hear the election results for the rapid transit vote to stories of weathering scandals, strikes, and growing pains, this look behind the scenes of an iconic, seemingly monolithic structure reveals people at their most human—and determined to change the status quo. “The Metro

The T The Tube The world's most famous subway systems are known by simple monikers, and San Francisco's BART belongs in that class Michael C Healy delivers a tour-de-force telling of its roots, hard-fought approval, and challenging construction that will delight fans of American urban history.”—Doug Most, author of The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway
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A Theory of Militant Democracy

Alexander S. Kirshner

Yale University Press , 2014 • 221 pages

How should pro-democratic forces safeguard representative government from anti-democratic forces By granting rights of participation to groups that do not share democratic values, democracies may endanger the very rights they have granted; but denying these rights may also undermine democratic values Alexander Kirshner offers a set of principles for determining when one may reasonably refuse rights of participation, and he defends this theory through real-world examples, ranging from the far-right British Nationalist Party to Turkey’s Islamist Welfare Party to America’s Democratic Party during Reconstruction.
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Everyday Lives in China's Cold War Military-Industrial Complex

Youwei Xu, Y. Yvon Wang

Springer Nature , 2022 • 393 pages

This book translates and contextualizes the recollections of men and women who built, lived, and worked in some of the factory compounds relocated from China’s most cosmopolitan city—Shanghai Small Third Line factories became oases of relatively prosperous urban life among more impoverished agricultural communities These accounts, plus the guiding questions, contextual notes, and further readings accompanying them, show how everyday lives fit into the sweeping geopolitical changes in China and the world during the Cold War era

Furthermore, they reveal how the Chinese Communist Party’s military-industrial strategies have shaped China’s economy and society in the post-Mao era The approachable translations and insight into areas of life rarely covered by political or diplomatic histories like sexuality and popular culture make this book highly accessible for classroom use and the general-interest reader.
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The American Steppes

David Moon

Cambridge University Press , 2020 • 473 pages

Explores the transnational movements of people, plants, agricultural sciences, and techniques from Russia's steppes to North America's Great Plains.
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Governing the Market

Robert Wade

Princeton University Press , 2018 • 495 pages

Published originally in 1990 to critical acclaim, Robert Wade's Governing the Market quickly established itself as a standard in contemporary political economy In it, Wade challenged claims both of those who saw the East Asian story as a vindication of free market principles and of those who attributed the success of Taiwan and other countries to government intervention Instead, Wade turned attention to the way allocation decisions were divided between markets and public administration and the synergy between them

Now, in a new introduction to this paperback edition, Wade reviews the debate about industrial policy in East and Southeast Asia and chronicles the changing fortunes of these economies over the 1990s He extends the original argument to explain the boom of the first half of the decade and the crash of the second, stressing the links between corporations, banks, governments, international capital markets, and the International Monetary Fund From this, Wade goes on to outline a new agenda for national and international development policy.
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The Crescent and the Compass

Angel Millar

2017 • 218 pages

A timely survey of radical spirituality and political activism in Islam and the West over the last century and a half, The Crescent And The Compass uncovers numerous previously unknown and unexplored connections between European, American, and Middle Eastern movements, organizations, secret societies, and thinkers Subjects covered include Sufism and Islamic Gnosticism; Muslim revolutionaries and Freemasons; Rene Guenon, fringe Masonry, Traditionalism, and Islam; the early history of the Shriners; the Ancient Order of Zuzimites; Charles, Prince of Wales and Islamic spirituality; and militant anti-Freemasonry.
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Engineering in Plain Sight

Grady Hillhouse

No Starch Press , 2022 • 265 pages

Engineering in Plain Sight is a beautifully illustrated field guide with accessible explanations to nearly every part of the constructed world around us Author Grady Hillhouse is the creator behind the popular YouTube channel Practical Engineering (over 3 million subscribers!) and this book is essentially 50 new episodes crammed between two covers Engineering in Plain Sight extends the field guide genre from natural phenomena to human-made structures, making them approachable and understandable to non-engineers

It transforms readers' perspectives of the built environment, converting the act of looking at infrastructure from a mundane inevitability into an everyday diversion and joy Each section of this accessible, informative book features colorful illustrations revealing the fascinating details of how the human-made world works An ideal road trip companion, this book offers a fresh perspective on the parts of the environment that often blend into the background

Readers will learn to identify characteristics of the electrical grid, roadways, railways, bridges, tunnels, waterways, and more Engineering in Plain Sight inspires curiosity, interest, and engagement in how the infrastructure around us is designed and constructed.
Democracy and Capitalism in Turkey cover

Democracy and Capitalism in Turkey

Devrim Adam Yavuz

Bloomsbury Publishing , 2023 • 281 pages

While a positive correlation between capitalism and democracy has existed in Western Europe and North America, the example of late-industrializing nations such as Turkey has demonstrated that the two need not always go hand in hand, and sometimes the interests of business coincide more firmly with anti-democratic forces This book explores the factors that compelled capitalists in Turkey to adopt a more pro-democratic ideology by examining a leading Turkish business lobby (TÜSIAD) which has been pushing for democratic reform since the 1990s, despite representing some of the largest corporation owners in Turkey and having supported the state's authoritarian tendencies in the past such as the military coup of 1980

Drawing on roughly 70 interviews with influential members of TÜSIAD and individuals close to them, the book reveals that business leaders were willing to break away from the state due to the conflict between their evolving economic needs and power with a political elite and state that were unwilling to cater to their demands In so doing, the book provides a rich account of business-state relations in Turkey as well as providing a case study for the wider study of democracy and capitalism in developing nations.
Empire of Cotton cover

Empire of Cotton

Sven Beckert

Vintage , 2015 • 642 pages

WINNER OF THE BANCROFT PRIZE • A Pulitzer Prize finalist that's as unsettling as it is enlightening: a book that brilliantly weaves together the story of cotton with how the present global world came to exist. “Masterly … An astonishing achievement.” —The New York Times The empire of cotton was, from the beginning, a fulcrum of constant global struggle between slaves and planters, merchants and statesmen, workers and factory owners Sven Beckert makes clear how these forces ushered in the world of modern capitalism, including the vast wealth and disturbing inequalities that are with us today In a remarkably brief period, European entrepreneurs and powerful politicians recast the world’s most significant manufacturing industry, combining imperial expansion and slave labor with new machines and wage workers to make and remake global capitalism.
A History of Control Engineering, 1800-1930 cover

A History of Control Engineering, 1800-1930

Stuart Bennett

IET , 1986 • 232 pages

Dr. Bennett traces the growing awareness of the importance and significance of the concept of feedback in engineering and details the technical developments that contributed to this awareness There follows an account of the development of steam and hydraulic servomechanisms and their application to the control of ships and aircraft.