To help avoid future financial mistakes, such as those in 1929 and 2008 that brought down the world’s economy, the Library of Mistakes was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland. It features a collection of more than two thousand books that can help educate the next generation of economists. And it serves as a perfect example of how, according to the library’s curators, “smart people keep doing stupid things.” The curators believe that the only way to build a strong economy is to learn from prior mistakes.
2.
This
unexpurgated bible of the business world explodes the myth that profits are
governed by a set of common principles and guidelines, showing how companies
manipulate their reported results. Illustrated here with some of the most
recent examples of corporate creativity are all the very latest schemes for
tampering with taxation, flattering the fixed assets, pilfering the pension
fund and many other ways of cooking the books, yet staying inside the law.
3.
Power . . .
Personality . . . Paradox When Alan Greenspan talks, Wall Street listens-as do
bankers, investors, politicians, and economists throughout the world. He is the
number one arbiter of U.S. monetary policy-credited, as Chairman of the Federal
Reserve, with having simultaneously held inflation down and kept the economy
growing throughout the longest and largest economic expansion in U.S. history.
Yet, this Atlas of number crunchers, who owned and operated a highly successful
Wall Street consulting firm, never amassed a personal fortune, was a member of
the cultlike inner circle surrounding one of America's most controversial
authors, and began his career as a professional jazz musician. Clearly, there
is even more to Alan Greenspan than meets the eye. In Alan Shrugged, you'll
meet Greenspan the public figure and Alan the private man in the most detailed,
revealing, and entertaining account of Greenspan's life and career ever
published. Filled with surprises, amusing anecdotes from the likes of Henry Kissinger
and Barbara Walters, and thoughtful insights from bestselling biographer Jerome
Tuccille, Alan Shrugged offers an informative and engaging portrait of one of
the most powerful, capable, and complex figures on the American political
scene.
4.
One of the major figures in American history, Andrew Carnegie was a ruthless businessman who made his fortune in the steel industry and ultimately gave most of it away. He used his wealth to ascend the world's political stage, influencing the presidencies of Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt. In retirement, Carnegie became an avid promoter of world peace, only to be crushed emotionally by World War I. In this compelling biography, Peter Krass reconstructs the complicated life of this titan who came to power in America's Gilded Age. He transports the reader to Carnegie's Pittsburgh, where hundreds of smoking furnaces belched smoke into the sky and the air was filled with acrid fumes . . . and mill workers worked seven-day weeks while Carnegie spent months traveling across Europe. Carnegie explores the contradictions in the life of the man who rose from lowly bobbin boy to build the largest and most profitable steel company in the world. Krass examines how Carnegie became one of the greatest philanthropists ever known-and earned a notorious reputation that history has yet to fully reconcile with his remarkable accomplishments.
5.
The
captivating, inside story of the woman who helmed the Washington Post during
one of the most turbulent periods in the history of American media. Winner of
the Pulitzer Prize for Biography In this bestselling and widely acclaimed
memoir, Katharine Graham, the woman who piloted the Washington Post through the
scandals of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, tells her story--one that is
extraordinary both for the events it encompasses and for the courage, candor,
and dignity of its telling. Here is the
awkward child who grew up amid material wealth and emotional isolation; the
young bride who watched her brilliant, charismatic husband--a confidant to John
F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson--plunge into the mental illness that would
culminate in his suicide. And here is the widow who shook off her grief and
insecurity to take on a president and a pressman's union as she entered the
profane boys' club of the newspaper business.
As timely now as ever, Personal History is an exemplary record of our
history and of the woman who played such a shaping role within them,
discovering her own strength and sense of self as she confronted--and
mastered--the personal and professional crises of her fascinating life.
Listed in
Bloomberg''s TOP 50 BUSINESS BOOKS OF 2010 and shortlisted for Spear''s
FINANCIAL HISTORY OF THE YEAR AWARD "Robert Sloan works in the hedge-fund
industry. As he shows in this readable polemic, dislike of shorting has a long
history. . . . Someone has to point out when the emperor has no clothes. The
shorts were among the biggest skeptics of the subprime-mortgage boom and of the
banks that financed it. And when they were proved right, their activities were
banned. (Financial Times) "In this knowing book about the business of
short-selling stocks, financier Robert Sloan gives a modern day lesson on why
we shouldn''t shoot the messenger. . . Rather than blast short sellers, we
should praise them for exposing management methane. . . .
This is just
the latest bitter expression of the constant tension between a moneyed east
coast financial elite, and the manufacturers, mom-and-pop shops and the scrappy
entrepreneurs who bitterly resent the power of Wall Street--but don''t want the
cash taps to be turned off." The Observer "Timely, concise,
accessible to the lay reader and with a decorously polemical edge, it is both
revealing and entertaining. No matter what the politicians do, the markets will
find a way to challenge the finaglers and the optimists who sustain them. Like
the poor, the shorts will always be with us." Spear''s "Post-crisis
reading . . . best books on the financial crisis and its aftermath. . . .
While other
authors point accusing fingers, in his book, Don''t Blame the Shorts, Robert
Sloan leaps to the defense of short sellers who, as he describes, have been
long scapegoated for market crashes and are once again in the wake of the
recent crisis. Sloan reintroduces us to the likes of Ferdinand Pecora, the federal
prosecutor whose investigations in the early 1930s revealed a wide range of
abusive practices of banks, and led to the creation of vital legislation,
including the Glass-Steagall Act. Don''t Blame the Shorts is an eye-opening
account that overturns conventional wisdom about short selling, and the vital
systemic (and symbolic) role it plays in making financial markets less opaque,
more accountable, and, therefore, stronger.
7.
In 1630s Holland thousands of people from the wealthiest merchants to the lowest street traders were caught up in a literal frenzy of buying and selling. The object of the speculation was not oil or gold, but the tulip, a delicate and exotic bloom which had just arrived from the east (where it had been the talisman of generations of Ottoman sultans). Over three years, rare tulip bulbs changed hands for sums that would have bought a house in Amsterdam: a single bulb sold for more than £300, 000 at today’s prices. Fortunes were made overnight, but then lost when, within a year, the market collapsed ¿ with disastrous consequences. Mike Dash recreates this bizarre episode in European history, separating myth from reality. He traces the hysterical boom and devastating bust, bringing to life a colorful cast of characters, and beautifully evoking Holland’s Golden Age. A highly readable blend of history, horticulture and economics.
8.
Spices and aromatics--the powerful, pleasurable, sensual ingredients used in foods, drinks, scented oils, perfumes, cosmetics, and drugs--have long been some of the most sought-after substances in the course of human history. In various forms, spices have served as appetizers, digestives, antiseptics, therapeutics, tonics, and aphrodisiacs. Dangerous Tastes explores the captivating history of spices and aromatics: the fascination that they have aroused in us, and the roads and seaways by which trade in spices has gradually grown. Andrew Dalby, who has gathered information from sources in many languages, explores each spice, interweaving its general history with the story of its discovery and various uses. Dalby concentrates on traditional spices that are still part of world trade: cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, saffron, and chili. He also discusses aromatics that are now little used in food but still belong to the spice trade and to traditional medicine: frankincense, myrrh, aloes-wood, balsam of Mecca.
In addition,
Dalby considers spices that were once important but that now are almost
forgotten: long pepper, cubebs, grains of Paradise. Dangerous Tastes relates
how the Aztecs, who enjoyed drinking hot chocolate flavored with chili and
vanilla, sometimes added annatto (a red dye) to the drink. This not only
contributed to the flavor but colored the drinker's mouth red, a reminder that
drinking cacao was, in Aztec thought, parallel with drinking blood. In the
section on ambergris, Dalby tells how different cultures explained the origin
of this substance: Arabs and Persians variously thought of it as solidified sea
spray, a resin that sprung from the depths of the sea, or a fungus that grows
on the sea bed as truffles grow on the roots of trees. Some Chinese believed it
was the spittle of sleeping dragons. Dalby has assembled a wealth of absorbing
information into a fertile human history that spreads outward with the
expansion of human knowledge of spices worldwide.
9.
A longtime industry insider and acclaimed Hollywood historian goes behind the scenes to tell the stories of 15 of the most spectacular movie megaflops of the past 50 years, such as Cleopatra, The Cotton Club, and Waterworld. He recounts, in every gory detail, how enormous hubris, unbridled ambition, artistic hauteur, and bad business sense on the parts of Tinsel Town wheeler-dealers and superstars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Clint Eastwood, and Francis Ford Coppola, conspired to engender some of the worst films ever.
10.
This text addresses, from a clinical perspective, the particular problems and situations which arise in family businesses. It aims to provide a body of knowledge that will contribute to a better understanding of the psychodynamics of the family firm.
11.
Wal-Mart is not just the world's largest company--it is the largest company in the history of the world. It is estimated that the company's low prices save American consumers $10 billion a year--but the #1 employer in 37 states has never let a union in the door. Though 70% of Americans now live within a 15-minute drive of a Wal-Mart, we have not even begun to understand the true power of the company. We know about the lawsuits and the labour protests, but what we don't know is how profoundly the "Wal-Mart effect" is changing our America's economy, our workforce, our communities, and our environment. Journalist Fishman takes us on a behind-the-scenes investigative expedition, interviewing 25 high-level ex-executives and a host of Wal-Mart's suppliers, and journeying to the ports and factories where Wal-Mart's power is warping the very structure of the world's market.--From publisher description. Includes information on Chile, China, economic effects, factory workers, food production, global factories, global outsourcing, lawn mowers, price/pricing, quality of products, salmon farming, shopping, Snapper, supplier/Wal-Mart relationship, Target, Sam Walton, etc.
12.
"David S. Landes tells the long, fascinating story of wealth and power throughout the world: the creation of wealth, the paths of winners and losers, the rise and fall of nations. He studies history as a process, attempting to understand how the world's cultures lead to - or retard - economic and military success and material achievement." "Countries of the West, Landes asserts, prospered early through the interplay of a vital, open society focused on work and knowledge, which led to increased productivity, the creation of new technologies, and the pursuit of change. Europe's key advantage lay in invention and know-how, as applied in war, transportation, generation of power, and skill in metalwork. Even such now banal inventions as eyeglasses and the clock were, in their day, powerful levers that tipped the balance of world economic power. Today's new economic winners are following much the same roads to power, while the laggards have somehow failed to duplicate this crucial formula for success." "The key to relieving much of the world's poverty lies in understanding the lessons history has to teach us - lessons uniquely imparted in this towering work of history."
