"Before there was money, there was debt. Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems--to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There's not a shred of evidence to support it. Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the...

In this absorbing, smart, and accessible blend of economic and cultural history, Scott Nations, a longtime trader, financial engineer, and CNBC contributor, takes us on a journey through the five significant stock market crashes in the past century to reveal how they defined the United States today

The Panic of 1907: When the Knickerbocker Trust Company failed, after a brazen attempt to manipulate the stock market led to a disastrous

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A riveting, true-life legal thriller about the government’s pursuit of billionaire hedge fund manager Steven Cohen and his employees at SAC Capital—a revelatory look at the power and wealth of Wall Street
 
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—The New York Times and The Economist • “An essential exposé of our times—a work that reveals...

The rural residents of the county of Tipperary deal in their own ways with the financial collapse of the Irish economy.

"The 21st century has produced two major financial crises and many smaller ones in between. The fallout created chaos and disruption for people at all levels of the global economy. Nomi Prins examines the consequences of the unstable economy that caused what she calls the state of Permanent Distortion; a wedge between a funhouse financial realm that thrives even in times of social and political disorder, and a struggling economic one that does not...

"The international monetary system has collapsed three times in the past hundred years, in 1914, 1939, and 1971. Each collapse was followed by a period of tumult: war, civil unrest, or significant damage to the stability of the global economy. Now James Rickards, the acclaimed author of Currency Wars, shows why another collapse is rapidly approaching--and why this time, nothing less than the institution of money itself is at risk. The American dollar...

In a near-future postapocalyptic world, a full-scale socioeconomic breakdown has eliminated all legal and technological infrastructure and subjected the world's survivors to constant violence and chaos.

"Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of government spending,...

"With debt-burdened governments and businesses worldwide about to go bust, a cabal of Wall Street big shots plot to destroy the globe's stock exchanges. To provide that one thing that goes wrong. In 24 hours, a powerful computer worm will smash the exchanges and spark an international panic, pushing a debt-laden world into the abyss. The Wall Street gang's investment bank will be the last one standing, able to make a killing amid the ruins. But one...