"Vance, a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, provides an account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SELECTED BY THE ECONOMIST AS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
“A rambunctious book that is itself alive with the animal spirits of the marketplace.”—The Wall Street Journal
Freedom’s Forge reveals how two extraordinary American businessmen—General Motors automobile magnate  William “Big Bill” Knudsen and shipbuilder...

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) was one of the most influential economists of the twentieth century. He was professor of economics at Harvard University and served as U.S. ambassador to India during the Kennedy administration. He wrote more than fifty books, including American Capitalism, The Affluent Society, and The New Industrial State (Princeton). In Economics in Perspective, renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith presents a compelling...

"From the author of 1491--the best-selling study of the pre-Columbian Americas--a deeply engaging new history that explores the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs. More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed totally different suites of plants and animals. Columbus's voyages brought them back together--and marked the beginning...

"How did a single manhunt spark the modern era of multinational capitalism? Henry Avery was the seventeenth century's most notorious pirate. The press published wildly popular--and wildly inaccurate--reports of his nefarious adventures. The British government offered enormous bounties for his capture, alive or (preferably) dead. But Steven Johnson argues that Avery's most lasting legacy was his inadvertent triggering of a new model for the global...

"This book explains Hamilton's radical ideas in the context of his revolutionary times and in contrast to other revolutionaries, such as Thomas Jefferson, who emerges as the epitome of rural, slave-owning, anti-statist thinkers. This is a book of scholarship, with hundreds of notes and explanations of early American economics and history, but written in a stylish, accessible, narrative style befitting a leading, longtime journalist"--

In this richly detailed and eye-opening book, Rick Wartzman chronicles the erosion of the relationship between American companies and their workers. Through the stories of four major employers--General Motors, General Electric, Kodak, and Coca-Cola--he shows how big businesses once took responsibility for providing their workers and retirees with an array of social benefits. At the height of the post-World War II economy, these companies also believed...

Veblen's landmark study of affluent American society exposes the 'pecuniary culture' and 'conspicuous consumption' that results when unessential goods are exploited at the expense of production of true value. This text examines Veblen's still pertinent arguments.