Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System

Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom

Bob Woodward · 279 pages

Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics

Nicholas Wapshott · 400 pages

As the stock market crash of 1929 plunged the world into turmoil, two men emerged with competing claims on how to restore balance to economies gone awry. John Maynard Keynes, the mercurial Cambridge economist, believed that government had a duty to spend when others would not. He met his opposite in a little-known Austrian economics professor, Friedrich Hayek, who considered attempts to intervene

Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea

Mark Blyth · 288 pages

A history of austerity, an explanation of austerity-based economic policies, an examination of the results of applying austerity-based economic policies, and a determination why those policies failed.

Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country

William Greider · 798 pages

The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy

Daniel Yergin, Joseph Stanislaw · 476 pages

After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead

Alan S. Blinder · 476 pages

Many fine books on the financial crisis were first drafts of history--books written quickly to fill the need for immediate understanding. Alan S. Blinder, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, held off, taking the time to understand the crisis and create a truly comprehensive and coherent narrative of how the worst economic crisis in postwar American history happened, what the governm

How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region

Joe Studwell · 360 pages

A provocative look at what has worked - and what hasn't - in East Asian economics. It explores how policies ridiculed by economists created titans in Japan Korea and Taiwan, and are now behind the rise of China, while the best advice the West could offer sold its allies in south-east Asia down the economic river.

Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism

Yanis Varoufakis · 224 pages

In Talking to My Daughter About the Economy, activist Yanis Varoufakis, Greece's former finance minister and the author of the international bestseller Adults in the Room, pens a series of letters to his young daughter, educating her about the business, politics, and corruption of world economics. Yanis Varoufakis has appeared before heads of nations, assemblies of experts, and countless students

Economix: How and Why Our Economy Works (and Doesn't Work), in Words and Pictures

Michael Goodwin, David Bach, Joel Bakan · 304 pages

A guide to the economy in graphic novel format traces the history of Western economic thought from its beginnings to the world economy in the twenty-first century.

The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America

David A. Stockman · 743 pages

The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism

David Harvey · 256 pages

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000

Paul Kennedy · 677 pages

El eminente historiador Paul Kennedy analiza y describe el auge y la caída de las grandes potencias a lo largo de los últimos cinco siglos. La nación proyecta su poder militar según sus recursos económicos, pero el alto coste de mantener la supremacía militar la precipita a la decadencia. las grandes potencias en crisis reaccionan gastando más en defensa y se debilitan desviando recursos productiv

The Economic Consequences of the Peace

John Maynard Keynes

Debt: The First 5,000 Years

David Graeber · 542 pages

The author shows that before there was money, there was debt. For 5,000 years humans have lived in societies divided into debtors and creditors. For 5,000 years debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates, laws and religions. The words “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption” come from ancient debates about debt. These terms and the ideas of debt shape our most basic ideas of r

Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Thomas Piketty · 816 pages

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piket

Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis

James Rickards · 288 pages

In 1971, President Nixon imposed national price controls and took the United States off the gold standard, an extreme measure intended to end an ongoing currency war that had destroyed faith in the U.S. dollar. Today we are engaged in a new currency war, and this time the consequences will be far worse than those that confronted Nixon. Currency wars are one of the most destructive and fear

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Naomi Klein · 619 pages

**The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism** is a 2007 book by the Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein. In the book, Klein argues that neoliberal free market policies (as advocated by the economist Milton Friedman) have risen to prominence in some developed countries because of a deliberate strategy of "shock therapy". This centers on the exploitation of national crises (dis

Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises

Timothy F. Geithner · 592 pages

From the former Treasury Secretary, the definitive account of the unprecedented effort to save the U.S. economy from collapse in the wake of the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression.

India Unbound

Gurcharan Das · 420 pages

"India today is a vibrant free-market democracy and has begun to flex its muscles in the global information economy and on the world stage. Now, acclaimed columnist Gurcharan Das traces India's recent social and economic transformations in an eminently readable, impassioned narrative.". "Das tells the stories of the major players in a period of rapid and profound change - from schoolchildren insp

The Housing Boom and Bust

Thomas Sowell · 184 pages

This is a plain-English explanation of how we got into the current economic disaster that developed out of the economics and politics of the housing boom and bust. The “creative” financing of home mortgages and the even more “creative” marketing of financial securities based on American mortgages to countries around the world, are part of the story of how a financial house of cards was built up—an

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson · 496 pages

Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, or geography that determines prosperity or poverty? As *Why Nations Fail* shows, none of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Drawing on fifteen years of original research, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is our man-mad

Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

Ha-Joon Chang · 288 pages

A radical look by a leading economist at the issues surrounding globalization...It's rare that a book appears with a fresh perspective on world affairs, but renowned economist Ha-Joon Chang has some startlingly original things to say about the future of globalization. In theory, he argues, the world's wealthiest countries and supra-national institutions like the IMF, World Bank and WTO want to see

Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and the Government Bailout Will Make Things Worse

Thomas E. Woods Jr. · 194 pages

Historian Woods, writing as a libertarian, argues that government intervention in the economy actually caused the housing bubble.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Max Weber, Michael D. Coe · 292 pages

The Protestant ethic -- a moral code stressing hard work, rigorous self-discipline, and the organization of one's life in the service of God -- was made famous by sociologist and political economist Max Weber. In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of oppos