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Commerce meets conquest in this swashbuckling story of the six merchant-adventurers who built the modern world, as told by 'Canada's Simon Winchester' (Globe and Mail). Through the Age of Heroic Commerce, from the 17th to the 19th centuries, a rogue's gallery of larger-than-life merchant kings ruled vast tracts of the globe and expanded their far-flung monopolies to generate revenue for their shareholders, feather their own nests and satisfy their...
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The 10th anniversary edition, with new chapters on the crash, Chimerica, and cryptocurrency
"[An] excellent, just in time guide to the history of finance and financial crisis." —The Washington Post
"Fascinating." —Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek
In this updated edition, Niall Ferguson brings his classic financial history of the world up to the present day, tackling...
"[An] excellent, just in time guide to the history of finance and financial crisis." —The Washington Post
"Fascinating." —Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek
In this updated edition, Niall Ferguson brings his classic financial history of the world up to the present day, tackling...
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Napoleon fenced. So did Shakespeare, Karl Marx, Grace Kelly, and President Truman, who as a schoolboy would practice fencing with Bess-his future wife-when the two of them returned home from school. Lincoln was a canny dueler. Ignatius Loyola challenged a man to a duel for denying Christ's divinity (and won). Less successful, but no less enthusiastic, was Mussolini, who would tell his wife he was "off to get spaghetti," their code to avoid alarming...
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"Most of us give little thought to the back of the book-it's just where you go to look things up. But as Dennis Duncan reveals in this delightful and witty history, hiding in plain sight is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. In the pages of the index, we might find Butchers, to be avoided, or Cows that sh-te Fire, or even catch Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne. Here, for the first time, is the...
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"History has tended to measure war's winners and losers in terms of its major engagements, battles in which the result was so clear-cut that they could be considered "decisive." Cannae, Konigsberg, Austerlitz, Midway, Agincourt-all resonate in the literature of war and in our imaginations as tide-turning. But these legendary battles may or may not have determined the final outcome of the wars in which they were fought. Nor has the "genius" of the...
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"Chilling initiations. Big banks and money manipulations. Possible links to the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Adamses, and Bushes. Reviewing the evidence, documents, and connections, The Illuminati: The Secret Society That Hijacked the World by award-winning journalist and author Jim Marrs shines a light on the history, workings, continuing influence, and pernicious and hidden power of this secret order. Surveying experts-from those who dismiss the Illuminati...
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"We all remember Oscar Wilde, but who speaks for Bosie? What about those 'bad gays' whose unexemplary lives reveal more than we might expect? Many popular histories seek to establish homosexual heroes, pioneers, and martyrs but, as Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller argue, the past is filled with queer people whose sexualities and dastardly deeds have been overlooked despite their being informative and instructive....With characters such as the Emperor Hadrian,...
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Many nations define themselves in terms of territory or people; China defines itself in terms of history. Taking into account the country's unrivaled, voluminous tradition of history writing, John Keay has composed a vital and illuminating overview of the nation's complex and vivid past. Keay's authoritative history examines 5,000 years in China, from the time of the Three Dynasties through Chairman Mao and the current economic transformation of the...
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The Wealth and Poverty of Nations is David S. Landes's acclaimed, bestselling exploration of one of the most contentious and hotly debated questions of our time: Why do some nations achieve economic success while others remain mired in poverty? The answer, as Landes definitively illustrates, is a complex interplay of cultural mores and historical circumstance. Rich with anecdotal evidence, piercing analysis, and a truly astonishing range of erudition,...
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The Silk Road is as iconic in world history as the Colossus of Rhodes or the Suez Canal. But what was it, exactly? It conjures up a hazy image of a caravan of camels laden with silk on a dusty desert track, reaching from China to Rome. The reality was different-and far more interesting-as revealed in this new history. In The Silk Road, Valerie Hansen describes the remarkable archeological finds that revolutionize our understanding of these trade routes....
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"A history of the class system in America from the colonial era to the present illuminates the crucial legacy of the underprivileged white demographic, citing the pivotal contributions of lower-class white workers in wartime, social policy, and the rise of the Republican Party,"--NoveList.
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The historian John Lukacs offers a concise history of the twentieth century-its two world wars and cold war, its nations and leaders. The great themes woven through this spirited narrative are inseparable from the author's own intellectual preoccupations: the fading of liberalism, the rise of populism and nationalism, the achievements and dangers of technology, and the continuing democratization of the globe. The historical twentieth century began...
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"A revelatory, entertaining account of the world's most indispensable mode of transportation Tom Zoellner loves trains with a ferocious passion. In his new book he chronicles the innovation and sociological impact of the railway technology that changed the world, and could very well change it again. From the frigid trans-Siberian railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the futuristic MagLev trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of man's relationship...
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From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower
“A dazzling history of Western ideas.” —The Economist
“Mr. Ferguson tells his story with characteristic verve and an eye for the felicitous phrase.” —Wall Street Journal
“[W]ritten with vitality and verve . . . a tour de force.” —Boston...
“A dazzling history of Western ideas.” —The Economist
“Mr. Ferguson tells his story with characteristic verve and an eye for the felicitous phrase.” —Wall Street Journal
“[W]ritten with vitality and verve . . . a tour de force.” —Boston...
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"From the lost empires of the Sahara to today's frenzied global gold rush, a blazing exploration of the human love affair with gold by the award-winning author of Diamond.Since the 2008 financial crisis, the price of gold has skyrocketed--in three years more than doubling from $800 an ounce to $1900. This massive spike kicked off an unprecedented global gold-mining and exploration boom, much bigger than the Gold Rush of the 1800s. In Gold, acclaimed...
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Who are the Europeans? Where did they come from? New research in the fields of archaeology and linguistics, a revolution in the study of genetics, and cutting-edge analysis of ancient DNA are dramatically changing our picture of prehistory, leading us to question what we thought we knew about these ancient peoples.
This paradigm-shifting book paints a spirited portrait of a restless people that challenges our established ways of looking at Europe's...
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The modern world was created through the combination and complex interactions of five grand transitions. First, the demographic transition changed the total numbers, dynamics, structure, and residential pattern of populations. The agricultural and dietary transition led to the emergence of highly productive cropping and animal husbandry (subsidized by fossil energies and electricity), which eliminated famines, reduced malnutrition, and improved the...
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In this updated version of the classic of popular Egyptology, Barbara Mertz combines a doctorate in Egyptology at the famed Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago with a life-long enthusiasm for ancient Egypt. Her love of the subject is contagious and makes her the perfect guide to ancient Egypt for the student, the layman, and those who plan to visit-or have visited-the Nile Valley.
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