Why the West Rules--for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

Why the West Rules--for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future Review

Why the West Rules--for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future Overview

Sometime around 1750, English entrepreneurs unleashed the astounding energies of steam and coal, and the world was forever changed. The emergence of factories, railroads, and gunboats propelled the West's rise to power in the nineteenth century, and the development of computers and nuclear weapons in the twentieth century secured its global supremacy. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, many worry that the emerging economic power of China and India spells the end of the West as a superpower. In order to understand this possibility, we need to look back in time. Why has the West dominated the globe for the past two hundred years, and will its power last?

Describing the patterns of human history, the archaeologist and historian Ian Morris offers surprising new answers to both questions. It is not, he reveals, differences of race or culture, or even the strivings of great individuals, that explain Western dominance. It is the effects of geography on the everyday efforts of ordinary people as they deal with crises of resources, disease, migration, and climate. As geography and human ingenuity continue to interact, the world will change in astonishing ways, transforming Western rule in the process.

Deeply researched and brilliantly argued, Why the West Rules--for Now spans fifty thousand years of history and offers fresh insights on nearly every page. The book brings together the latest findings across disciplines--from ancient history to neuroscience--not only to explain why the West came to rule the world but also to predict what the future will bring in the next hundred years.

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The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History

The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History Review

The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History Feature

• ISBN13: 9780385529945
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History Overview

In 2006, hedge fund manager John Paulson realized something few others suspected--that the housing market and the value of subprime mortgages were grossly inflated and headed for a major fall.  Paulson's background was in mergers and acquisitions, however, and he knew little about real estate or how to wager against housing.  He had spent a career as an also-ran on Wall Street. But Paulson was convinced this was his chance to make his mark. He just wasn't sure how to do it.  Colleagues at investment banks scoffed at him and investors dismissed him.  Even pros skeptical about housing shied away from the complicated derivative investments that Paulson was just learning about.  But Paulson and a handful of renegade investors such as Jeffrey Greene and Michael Burry began to bet heavily against risky mortgages and precarious financial companies. Timing is everything, though. Initially, Paulson and the others lost tens of millions of dollars as real estate and stocks continued to soar. Rather than back down, however, Paulson redoubled his bets, putting his hedge fund and his reputation on the line.
     In the summer of 2007, the markets began to implode, bringing Paulson early profits, but also sparking efforts to rescue real estate and derail him. By year's end, though, John Paulson had pulled off the greatest trade in financial history, earning more than billion for his firm--a figure that dwarfed George Soros's billion-dollar currency trade in 1992.  Paulson made billions more in 2008 by transforming his gutsy move.  Some of the underdog investors who attempted the daring trade also reaped fortunes. But others who got the timing wrong met devastating failure, discovering that being early and right wasn't nearly enough.
     Written by the prizewinning reporter who broke the story in The Wall Street Journal, The Greatest Trade Ever is a superbly written, fast-paced, behind-the-scenes narrative of how a contrarian foresaw an escalating financial crisis--that outwitted Chuck Prince, Stanley O'Neal, Richard Fuld, and Wall Street's titans--to make financial history.


From the Hardcover edition.

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The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World

The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World Review

The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World Feature

• ISBN13: 9781591397823
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World Overview

Imagine, if you can, the world of business - without corporate strategy.

Remarkably, fifty years ago that's the way it was. Businesses made plans, certainly, but without understanding the underlying dynamics of competition, costs, and customers. It was like trying to design a large-scale engineering project without knowing the laws of physics.

But in the 1960s, four mavericks and their posses instigated a profound shift in thinking that turbocharged business as never before, with implications far beyond what even they imagined. In The Lords of Strategy, renowned business journalist and editor Walter Kiechel tells, for the first time, the story of the four men who invented corporate strategy as we know it and set in motion the modern, multibillion-dollar consulting industry:

- Bruce Henderson, founder of Boston Consulting Group
- Bill Bain, creator of Bain & Company
- Fred Gluck, longtime Managing Director of McKinsey & Company
-Michael Porter, Harvard Business School professor

Providing a window into how to think about strategy today, Kiechel tells their story with novelistic flair. At times inspiring, at times nearly terrifying, this book is a revealing account of how these iconoclasts and the organizations they led revolutionized the way we think about business, changed the very soul of the corporation, and transformed the way we work.

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The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World Review

A number of years ago, I fell in love with the three volumes of "History of Commerce" written by Fernand Braudel. The French historian's sweeping narrative of the rise and evolution of the many elements that became the foundation of the modern global economy overflowed with the details that can bring a dry story to life. While Niall Ferguson may or may not relish his name and his writing being linked to Fernand Braudel, but I often recalled that earlier work as I read the British historian's new single volume "The Ascent of Money, A Financial History of the World."

With a more modest ambition, Ferguson is able in just six chapters to recount the story of the adoption and evolution of money in its various forms, drawing on history, economic theory, political science, and behavioral psychology among other fields, to present his story of our world financial system. Beginning with the creation and evolution of money itself, both currency and coinage, he proceeds to discuss bonds, investment bubbles, risk management, real estate (especially domestic residential real estate), and the place and future role of the U.S. dollar in the world financial system.

With his book hitting the stores just as we entered the latest economic recession, Ferguson attempted perhaps unwisely to reframe his work without rewriting it and emphasize those aspects that related to the suspected root causes of this still ongoing crisis. His effort was not a failure but to a degree distracts the reader from the book's more general, fundamental relevance and value.

Compared to Braudel's delightful though admittedly encyclopedic approach, Ferguson's is a speed skater's version of the story and I believe both deserve a place in your library.

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World Overview

A richly original look at the origins of money and how it makes the world go 'round

Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of our financial system, from its genesis in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance. What's more, Ferguson reveals financial history as the essential backstory behind all history, arguing that the evolution of credit and debt was as important as any technological innovation in the rise of civilization. As Ferguson traces the crisis from ancient Egypt's Memphis to today's Chongqing, he offers bold and compelling new insights into the rise- and fall-of not just money but Western power as well.

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