Business & economics / Economic History

Bought and Paid For: The Hidden Relationship Between Wall Street and Washington

by Charles Gasparino

A top reporter exposes the deep ties between the Obama administration and the big banks that are bankrupting our country.

As the recession continues, President Obama has chastised the "fat cats" who feast...

Reckless Endangerment

by Gretchen Morgenson & Joshua Rosner

A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book for 2011

One of The Economist’s 2011 Books of the Year

The New York Times's Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist reveals how the financial meltdown emerged from the toxic...

The Price of Liberty

by Robert D. Hormats

In a bracing work of history, a leading international finance expert reveals how our national security depends on our financial security

More than two centuries ago, America's first secretary of the treasury,...

Milton Friedman

by Lanny Ebenstein

Born the son of immigrant parents, Milton Friedman went on to become a major figure during the resurgence of American conservatism. As an adviser to the Reagan administration and a widely read columnist, he...

The Great Delusion

by Steven Stoll

Endless economic growth rests on a belief in the limitless abundance of the natural world. But when did people begin to believe that societies should—even that they must—expand in wealth indefinitely? In...

A Treatise on Political Economy

by Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy

A Treatise on Political Economy by Antonie Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836) is a foundational text of nineteenth-century, free-market economic thought and remains one of the classics of nineteenth-century...

On The Wealth of Nations: Books That Changed the World

by P. J. O'Rourke

In On The Wealth of Nations, America’s most provocative satirist, P. J. O’Rourke, reads Adam Smith’s revolutionary The Wealth of Nations so you don’t have to. Recognized almost instantly on its publication...

The Lost Bank: The Story of Washington Mutual-The Biggest Bank Failure in American History

by Kirsten Grind

During the most dizzying days of the financial crisis, Washington Mutual, a bank with hundreds of billions of dollars in its coffers, suffered a crippling bank run. The story of its final, brutal collapse in...

Who's in Charge Here?: How Governments Are Failing the World Economy (an eSpecial from Riverhead Books)

by Alan Beattie

From a bestselling economist and journalist, a short, witty, and highly readable narrative of the global economic crisis together with the role of governments in causing it—and their often hapless attempts...

The Coming Corporate State

by Alexander Raven Thomson

In his most important book 'The Coming Corporate State' Alexander Raven Thomson sets out in clear and precise terms the economic and political infrastructure that would be put in place once the British Union...

Fearful Symmetry - the Fall and Rise of Canada's Founding Values

by Brian Lee Crowley

In the 1960s, Canada began a seismic shift away from the core policies and values upon which the country had been built. A nation of "makers" transformed itself into a nation of "takers". Crowley argues that...

The Age of Abundance

by Brink Lindsey

Until the 1950s, the struggle to feed, clothe, and employ the nation drove most of American political life. From slavery to the New Deal, political parties organized around economic interests and engaged in...

Confidence Men

by Ron Suskind

The hidden history of Wall Street and the White House comes down to a single, powerful, quintessentially American concept: confidence. Both centers of power, tapping brazen innovations over the past three decades,...

What Goes Up: The Uncensored History of Modern Wall Street as Told by the Bankers, Brokers, CEOs, and Scoundrels Who Made It Happen

by Eric J. Weiner

The ups and downs, the schemes and scams, the IPOs and hostile takeovers, the egos, the brilliance, the greed, and the glory--this is the story of Wall Street told by the men and women who made it happen. For...