A Farewell To Alms

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A Farewell to Alms

Author : Gregory Clark
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400827817
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis A Farewell to Alms by : Gregory Clark

Download or read book A Farewell to Alms written by Gregory Clark and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2008-12-29 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are some parts of the world so rich and others so poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution--and the unprecedented economic growth that came with it--occur in eighteenth-century England, and not at some other time, or in some other place? Why didn't industrialization make the whole world rich--and why did it make large parts of the world even poorer? In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark tackles these profound questions and suggests a new and provocative way in which culture--not exploitation, geography, or resources--explains the wealth, and the poverty, of nations. Countering the prevailing theory that the Industrial Revolution was sparked by the sudden development of stable political, legal, and economic institutions in seventeenth-century Europe, Clark shows that such institutions existed long before industrialization. He argues instead that these institutions gradually led to deep cultural changes by encouraging people to abandon hunter-gatherer instincts-violence, impatience, and economy of effort-and adopt economic habits-hard work, rationality, and education. The problem, Clark says, is that only societies that have long histories of settlement and security seem to develop the cultural characteristics and effective workforces that enable economic growth. For the many societies that have not enjoyed long periods of stability, industrialization has not been a blessing. Clark also dissects the notion, championed by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel, that natural endowments such as geography account for differences in the wealth of nations. A brilliant and sobering challenge to the idea that poor societies can be economically developed through outside intervention, A Farewell to Alms may change the way global economic history is understood.

The Son Also Rises

Author : Gregory Clark
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691168377
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Son Also Rises by : Gregory Clark

Download or read book The Son Also Rises written by Gregory Clark and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "How much of our fate is tied to the status of our parents and grandparents? How much does this influence our children? More than we wish to believe! While it has been argued that rigid class structures have eroded in favor of greater social equality, The Son Also Rises proves that movement on the social ladder has changed little over eight centuries. Using a novel technique -- tracking family names over generations to measure social mobility across countries and periods -- renowned economic historian Gregory Clark reveals that mobility rates are lower than conventionally estimated, do not vary across societies, and are resistant to social policies. The good news is that these patterns are driven by strong inheritance of abilities and lineage does not beget unwarranted advantage. The bad news is that much of our fate is predictable from lineage. Clark argues that since a greater part of our place in the world is predetermined, we must avoid creating winner-take-all societies."--Jacket.

Prometheus Shackled

Author : Peter Temin
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199311528
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (993 download)

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Book Synopsis Prometheus Shackled by : Peter Temin

Download or read book Prometheus Shackled written by Peter Temin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After 1688, Britain underwent a revolution in public finance, and the cost of borrowing declined sharply. Leading scholars have argued that easier credit for the government, made possible by better property-rights protection, lead to a rapid expansion of private credit. The Industrial Revolution, according to this view, is the result of the preceding revolution in public finance. In Prometheus Shackled, prominent economic historians Peter Temin and Hans-Joachim Voth examine this hypothesis using new, detailed archival data from 18th century banks. They conclude the opposite: the financial revolution led to an explosion of public debt, but it stifled private credit. This led to markedly slower growth in the English economy. Temin and Voth collected detailed data from several goldsmith banks: Child's, Gosling's, Freame and Gould, Hoare's, and Duncombe and Kent. The excellent records from Hoare's, founded by Sir Richard Hoare in 1672, offer particular insight. Numerous entrants into the banking business tried their hand at deposit-taking and lending in the early 17th century; few survived and fewer thrived. Hoare's and a small group of competitors did both. Temin and Voth chart the growth of the successful banks in the face of frequent wars and heavy-handed regulations. Their new data allows insights into the interaction between financial and economic development. Government regulations such as (a sharply lower) maximum interest rate caused severe misallocation of credit, and a misguided attempt to lighten the nation's debt burden led directly to the South Sea Bubble in 1720. Frequent wars caused banks to call in loans, resulting in a sharply slower economic growth rate. Based on detailed micro-data, the authors present conclusive evidence that wartime borrowing crowded out investment. Far from fostering economic development, England's financial revolution after 1688 did much to stifle it -- the Hanoverian "warfare state" was a key reason for slow growth during Britain's Industrial Revolution. Prometheus Shackled is a revealing new take on one of the most important periods of economic and financial development.

A Troublesome Inheritance

Author : Nicholas Wade
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698163796
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (981 download)

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Book Synopsis A Troublesome Inheritance by : Nicholas Wade

Download or read book A Troublesome Inheritance written by Nicholas Wade and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on startling new evidence from the mapping of the genome, an explosive new account of the genetic basis of race and its role in the human story Fewer ideas have been more toxic or harmful than the idea of the biological reality of race, and with it the idea that humans of different races are biologically different from one another. For this understandable reason, the idea has been banished from polite academic conversation. Arguing that race is more than just a social construct can get a scholar run out of town, or at least off campus, on a rail. Human evolution, the consensus view insists, ended in prehistory. Inconveniently, as Nicholas Wade argues in A Troublesome Inheritance, the consensus view cannot be right. And in fact, we know that populations have changed in the past few thousand years—to be lactose tolerant, for example, and to survive at high altitudes. Race is not a bright-line distinction; by definition it means that the more human populations are kept apart, the more they evolve their own distinct traits under the selective pressure known as Darwinian evolution. For many thousands of years, most human populations stayed where they were and grew distinct, not just in outward appearance but in deeper senses as well. Wade, the longtime journalist covering genetic advances for The New York Times, draws widely on the work of scientists who have made crucial breakthroughs in establishing the reality of recent human evolution. The most provocative claims in this book involve the genetic basis of human social habits. What we might call middle-class social traits—thrift, docility, nonviolence—have been slowly but surely inculcated genetically within agrarian societies, Wade argues. These “values” obviously had a strong cultural component, but Wade points to evidence that agrarian societies evolved away from hunter-gatherer societies in some crucial respects. Also controversial are his findings regarding the genetic basis of traits we associate with intelligence, such as literacy and numeracy, in certain ethnic populations, including the Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews. Wade believes deeply in the fundamental equality of all human peoples. He also believes that science is best served by pursuing the truth without fear, and if his mission to arrive at a coherent summa of what the new genetic science does and does not tell us about race and human history leads straight into a minefield, then so be it. This will not be the last word on the subject, but it will begin a powerful and overdue conversation.

Why Nations Fail

Author : Daron Acemoglu
Publisher : Currency
ISBN 13 : 0307719227
Total Pages : 546 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis Why Nations Fail by : Daron Acemoglu

Download or read book Why Nations Fail written by Daron Acemoglu and published by Currency. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.

The Roman Market Economy

Author : Peter Temin
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691177945
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Roman Market Economy by : Peter Temin

Download or read book The Roman Market Economy written by Peter Temin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What modern economics can tell us about ancient Rome The quality of life for ordinary Roman citizens at the height of the Roman Empire probably was better than that of any other large group of people living before the Industrial Revolution. The Roman Market Economy uses the tools of modern economics to show how trade, markets, and the Pax Romana were critical to ancient Rome's prosperity. Peter Temin, one of the world's foremost economic historians, argues that markets dominated the Roman economy. He traces how the Pax Romana encouraged trade around the Mediterranean, and how Roman law promoted commerce and banking. Temin shows that a reasonably vibrant market for wheat extended throughout the empire, and suggests that the Antonine Plague may have been responsible for turning the stable prices of the early empire into the persistent inflation of the late. He vividly describes how various markets operated in Roman times, from commodities and slaves to the buying and selling of land. Applying modern methods for evaluating economic growth to data culled from historical sources, Temin argues that Roman Italy in the second century was as prosperous as the Dutch Republic in its golden age of the seventeenth century. The Roman Market Economy reveals how economics can help us understand how the Roman Empire could have ruled seventy million people and endured for centuries.

Wealth And Poverty Of Nations

Author : David S. Landes
Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 0349141444
Total Pages : 672 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (491 download)

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Book Synopsis Wealth And Poverty Of Nations by : David S. Landes

Download or read book Wealth And Poverty Of Nations written by David S. Landes and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2015-04-20 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of nations is a history of haves and have-nots, and as we approach the millennium, the gap between rich and poor countries is widening. In this engrossing and important new work, eminent historian David Landes explores the complex, fascinating and often startling causes of the wealth and poverty of nations. The answers are found not only in the large forces at work in economies: geography, religion, the broad swings of politics, but also in the small surprising details. In Europe, the invention of spectacles doubled the working life of skilled craftsmen, and played a prominent role in the creation of articulated machines, and in China, the failure to adopt the clock fundamentally hindered economic development. The relief of poverty is vital to the survival of us all. As David Landes brilliantly shows, the key to future success lies in understanding the lessons the past has to teach us - lessons uniquely imparted in this groundbreaking and vital book which exemplifies narrative history at its best.

A Farewell to Arms

Author : Ernest Hemingway
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1476764522
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (767 download)

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Book Synopsis A Farewell to Arms by : Ernest Hemingway

Download or read book A Farewell to Arms written by Ernest Hemingway and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-07-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unforgettable World War I story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his love for an English nurse.

ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism

Author : Yves Smith
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 9780230105737
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (57 download)

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Book Synopsis ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism by : Yves Smith

Download or read book ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism written by Yves Smith and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are we in such a financial mess today? There are lots of proximate causes: over-leverage, global imbalances, bad financial technology that lead to widespread underestimation of risk. But these are all symptoms. Until we isolate and tackle fundamental causes, we will fail to extirpate the disease. ECONned is the first book to examine the unquestioned role of economists as policy-makers, and how they helped create an unmitigated economic disaster. Here, Yves Smith looks at how economists in key policy positions put doctrine before hard evidence, ignoring the deteriorating conditions and rising dangers that eventually led them, and us, off the cliff and into financial meltdown. Intelligently written for the layman, Smith takes us on a terrifying investigation of the financial realm over the last twenty-five years of misrepresentations, naive interpretations of economic conditions, rationalizations of bad outcomes, and rejection of clear signs of growing instability. In eConned, author Yves Smith reveals: --why the measures taken by the Obama Administration are mere palliatives and are unlikely to pave the way for a solid recovery --how economists have come to play a profoundly anti-democratic role in policy --how financial models and concepts that were discredited more than thirty years ago are still widely used by banks, regulators, and investors --how management and employees of major financial firms looted them, enriching themselves and leaving the mess to taxpayers --how financial regulation enabled predatory behavior by Wall Street towards investors --how economics has no theory of financial systems, yet economists fearlessly prescribe how to manage them

The Handbook of Historical Economics

Author : Alberto Bisin
Publisher : Academic Press
ISBN 13 : 0128162686
Total Pages : 1002 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (281 download)

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Book Synopsis The Handbook of Historical Economics by : Alberto Bisin

Download or read book The Handbook of Historical Economics written by Alberto Bisin and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2021-04-21 with total page 1002 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Historical Economics guides students and researchers through a quantitative economic history that uses fully up-to-date econometric methods. The book's coverage of statistics applied to the social sciences makes it invaluable to a broad readership. As new sources and applications of data in every economic field are enabling economists to ask and answer new fundamental questions, this book presents an up-to-date reference on the topics at hand. Provides an historical outline of the two cliometric revolutions, highlighting the similarities and the differences between the two Surveys the issues and principal results of the "second cliometric revolution" Explores innovations in formulating hypotheses and statistical testing, relating them to wider trends in data-driven, empirical economics

A Farewell to Alms

Author : Gregory Clark
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780691121352
Total Pages : 420 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (213 download)

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Book Synopsis A Farewell to Alms by : Gregory Clark

Download or read book A Farewell to Alms written by Gregory Clark and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What caused the Industrial Revolution? Gregory Clark has a brilliant and fascinating explanation for this event which permanently changed the life of humankind after 100,000 years of stagnation."--George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate in Economics and Koshland Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley "This is a very important book. Gregory Clark argues that the Industrial Revolution was the gradual but inevitable result of a kind of natural selection during the harsh struggle for existence in the pre-industrial era, in which economically successful families were also more reproductively successful. They transmitted to their descendants, culturally and perhaps genetically, such productive attitudes as foresight, thrift, and devotion to hard work. This audacious thesis, which dismisses rival explanations in terms of prior ideological, technological, or institutional revolutions, will be debated by historians for many years to come."--Paul Seabright, author of "The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life" "Challenging the prevailing wisdom that institutions explain why some societies become rich, Gregory Clark's "A Farewell to Alms" will appeal to a broad audience. I can think of nothing else like it."--Philip T. Hoffman, author of "Growth in a Traditional Society" "You may not always agree with Gregory Clark, but he will capture your attention, make you think, and make you reconsider. He is a provocative and imaginative scholar and a true original. As an economic historian, he engages with economists in general; as an economist, he is parsimonious with high-tech algebra and unnecessarily complex models. Occam would approve."--Cormac Grda, author of "Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce" "This should rapidly become a standard work on the history of economic development. It should start whole industries trying to test, refine, and refute its explanations. And Gregory Clark's views on the economic merits of imperialism and the fact that labor gained the most from industrialization will infuriate all the right people."--Eric L. Jones, author of "Cultures Merging" and "The European Miracle" "While many books on the Industrial Revolution tend to focus narrowly either on the event itself, or on one explanation for it, Gregory Clark does neither. He takes an extremely long-run view, covering significant periods before and after the Industrial Revolution, without getting bogged down in long or detailed exposition. This is an extremely important contribution to the subject."--Clifford Bekar, Lewis and Clark College

Why Did Europe Conquer the World?

Author : Philip T. Hoffman
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691175845
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Why Did Europe Conquer the World? by : Philip T. Hoffman

Download or read book Why Did Europe Conquer the World? written by Philip T. Hoffman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The startling economic and political answers behind Europe's historical dominance Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe. But why did Europe establish global dominance, when for centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans, and South Asians were far more advanced? In Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, Philip Hoffman demonstrates that conventional explanations—such as geography, epidemic disease, and the Industrial Revolution—fail to provide answers. Arguing instead for the pivotal role of economic and political history, Hoffman shows that if certain variables had been different, Europe would have been eclipsed, and another power could have become master of the world. Hoffman sheds light on the two millennia of economic, political, and historical changes that set European states on a distinctive path of development, military rivalry, and war. This resulted in astonishingly rapid growth in Europe's military sector, and produced an insurmountable lead in gunpowder technology. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize. Debunking traditional arguments, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? reveals the startling reasons behind Europe's historic global supremacy.

General Economic History

Author : Max Weber
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000967301
Total Pages : 295 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis General Economic History by : Max Weber

Download or read book General Economic History written by Max Weber and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-28 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sociologist, historian and political economist, Max Weber is one of the most important thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His astonishing range and penetrating insights resulted in many influential books spanning religion, society, politics, and economics, permanently affecting the direction of the social sciences. General Economic History, published in 1923 (three years after Weber's death) and compiled from meticulous notes taken by his students, ranks as one of his most important books. It is a landmark work in economic history. From early forms of exchange in pre-capitalist households and villages, through industry and the beginnings of commerce, to the evolution of trade and money, Weber tells the epic story of the development of Western capitalism. At its heart, he argues, capitalism is driven by two immensely powerful forces: the basic, material needs that human beings seek to fulfil; and the fundamental but intangible spirit that sets capitalism in motion. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Introduction and, for the first time in English, a translation of Weber’s original "Conceptual Preface" to the German edition, both by Keith Tribe. Also included are some corrections to the main text.

Bourgeois Dignity

Author : Deirdre N. McCloskey
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226556743
Total Pages : 588 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (265 download)

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Book Synopsis Bourgeois Dignity by : Deirdre N. McCloskey

Download or read book Bourgeois Dignity written by Deirdre N. McCloskey and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguing that the biggest economic story of our times is how China & India have embraced neoliberalism, Deirdre McCloskey suggests that economic change depends less on foreign trade, investment or material causes, & a whole lot more on ideas & what people believe.

A Little History of Economics

Author : Niall Kishtainy
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300226314
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis A Little History of Economics by : Niall Kishtainy

Download or read book A Little History of Economics written by Niall Kishtainy and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively, inviting account of the history of economics, told through events from ancient to modern times and the ideas of great thinkers in the field What causes poverty? Are economic crises inevitable under capitalism? Is government intervention in an economy a helpful approach or a disastrous idea? The answers to such basic economic questions matter to everyone, yet the unfamiliar jargon and math of economics can seem daunting. This clear, accessible, and even humorous book is ideal for young readers new to economics and for all readers who seek a better understanding of the full sweep of economic history and ideas. Economic historian Niall Kishtainy organizes short, chronological chapters that center on big ideas and events. He recounts the contributions of key thinkers including Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and others, while examining topics ranging from the invention of money and the rise of agrarianism to the Great Depression, entrepreneurship, environmental destruction, inequality, and behavioral economics. The result is a uniquely enjoyable volume that succeeds in illuminating the economic ideas and forces that shape our world.

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

Author : Mervyn King
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393247031
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy by : Mervyn King

Download or read book The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy written by Mervyn King and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-03-21 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “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.

Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not

Author : Prasannan Parthasarathi
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139498894
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (394 download)

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Book Synopsis Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not by : Prasannan Parthasarathi

Download or read book Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not written by Prasannan Parthasarathi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-11 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not provides a striking new answer to the classic question of why Europe industrialised from the late eighteenth century and Asia did not. Drawing significantly from the case of India, Prasannan Parthasarathi shows that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the advanced regions of Europe and Asia were more alike than different, both characterized by sophisticated and growing economies. Their subsequent divergence can be attributed to different competitive and ecological pressures that in turn produced varied state policies and economic outcomes. This account breaks with conventional views, which hold that divergence occurred because Europe possessed superior markets, rationality, science or institutions. It offers instead a groundbreaking rereading of global economic development that ranges from India, Japan and China to Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire and from the textile and coal industries to the roles of science, technology and the state.