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Plutocrats: The rise of the new global super-rich and the fall of everyone else
By Chrystia Freeland. 2012
There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but in the last few decades what…
it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Alarmingly, the greatest income gap is not between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, but within the wealthiest 1 percent of our nation-as the merely wealthy are left behind by the rapidly expanding fortunes of the new global super-rich. Forget the 1 percent; Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at break-neck speed.What's changed is more than numbers. Today, most colossal fortunes are new, not inherited-amassed by perceptive businessmen who see themselves as deserving victors in a cut-throat international competition. As a transglobal class of successful professionals, today's self-made oligarchs often feel they have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home. Bringing together the economics and psychology of these new super-rich, Plutocrats puts us inside a league very much of its own, with its own rules.The closest mirror to our own time is the late nineteenth century Gilded Age-the era of powerful 'robber barons' like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Then as now, emerging markets and innovative technologies collided to produce unprecedented wealth for more people than ever in human history. Yet those at the very top benefited far more than others-and from this pinnacle they exercised immense and unchecked power in their countries. Today's closest analogue to these robber barons can be found in the turbulent economies of India, Brazil, and China, all home to ferocious market competition and political turmoil. But wealth, corruption, and populism are no longer constrained by national borders, so this new Gilded Age is already transforming the economics of the West as well. Plutocrats demonstrates how social upheavals generated by the first Gilded Age may pale in comparison to what is in store for us, as the wealth of the entire globalized world is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.Cracking open the tight-knit world of the new global super-rich is Chrystia Freeland, an acclaimed business journalist who has spent nearly two decades reporting on the new transglobal elite. She parses an internal Citigroup memo that urges clients to design portfolios around the international "Plutonomy" and not the national "rest"; follows Russian, Mexican, and Indian oligarchs during the privatization boom as they manipulate the levers of power to commandeer their local economies; breaks down the gender divide between the vast female-managed 'middle class' and the world's one thousand billionaires; shows how, by controlling both the economic and political institutions of their nation, the richest members of China's National People's Congress have amassed more wealth than every branch of American government combined-the president, his cabinet, the justices of the Supreme Court, and both houses of Congress.Though the results can be shocking, Freeland dissects the lives of the world's wealthiest individuals with empathy, intelligence, and deep insight. Intelligently written, powerfully researched, and propelled by fascinating original interviews with the plutocrats themselves, Plutocrats is a tour-de-force of social and economic history, and the definitive examination of inequality in our time
From legendary investor Ray Dalio, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Principles , who has spent half a…
century studying global economies and markets, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order examines history's most turbulent economic and political periods to reveal why the times ahead will likely be radically different from those we've experienced in our lifetimes—but similar to those that have happened many times before. A few years ago, Ray Dalio noticed a confluence of political and economic conditions he hadn't encountered before. They included huge debts and zero or near-zero interest rates that led to massive printing of money in the world's three major reserve currencies; big political and social conflicts within countries, especially the US, due to the largest wealth, political, and values disparities in more than 100 years; and the rising of a world power (China) to challenge the existing world power (US) and the existing world order. The last time that this confluence occurred was between 1930 and 1945. This realization sent Dalio on a search for the repeating patterns and cause/effect relationships underlying all major changes in wealth and power over the last 500 years. In this remarkable and timely addition to his Principles series, Dalio brings readers along for his study of the major empires—including the Dutch, the British, and the American—putting into perspective the "Big Cycle" that has driven the successes and failures of all the world's major countries throughout history. He reveals the timeless and universal forces behind these shifts and uses them to look into the future, offering practical principles for positioning oneself for what's ahead
Flying blind: The 737 max tragedy and the fall of boeing
By Peter Robison. 2021
From the award-winning reporter for Bloomberg, a suspenseful behind-the-scenes look at the dysfunction and mismanagement that contributed to one of…
the worst tragedies in modern aviation: the 2018 and 2019 crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX. Boeing is a century-old titan of industry. It played a major role in the early days of commercial flight, World War II bombing missions, and moon landings. The planemaker remains a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, as well as a linchpin in the awesome routine of modern air travel. But in 2018 and 2019, two crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 killed 346 people. The crashes exposed a shocking pattern of malfeasance, leading to the biggest crisis in the company&’s history—and one of the costliest corporate scandals ever. How did things go so horribly wrong at Boeing? Flying Blind is the definitive exposé of the disasters that transfixed the world. Drawing from exclusive interviews with current and former employees of Boeing and the FAA; industry executives and analysts; and family members of the victims, it reveals how a broken corporate culture paved the way for catastrophe. It shows how in the race to beat the competition and reward top executives, Boeing skimped on testing, pressured employees to meet unrealistic deadlines, and convinced regulators to put planes into service without properly equipping them or their pilots for flight. It examines how the company, once a treasured American innovator, became obsessed with the bottom line, putting shareholders over customers, employees, and communities. By Bloomberg investigative journalist Peter Robison, who covered Boeing as a beat reporter during the company&’s fateful merger with McDonnell Douglas in the late &‘90s, this is the story of a business gone wildly off course. At once riveting and disturbing, it shows how an iconic company fell prey to a win-at-all-costs mentality, threatening an industry and endangering countless lives
Tinderbox: Hbo's ruthless pursuit of new frontiers
By James Andrew Miller. 2021
From the New York Times bestselling author of Those Guys Have All the Fun comes the unvarnished, comprehensive, and astonishing…
history of HBO, told for the first time through the disruptors who led its epic rise to prestige and changed the way we watch television forever. The exclusive story of HBO's key creators, executives, actors, and directors gives listeners an unprecedented peek behind the curtain at the founding and triumph of the first "pay-channel" that brought America The Sopranos , Sex and the City , The Wire , Succession , and countless, groundbreaking, culture-shifting shows. James Andrew Miller collects insider accounts of the humble beginnings, devastating missteps, controversial business decisions, and, of course, backstage drama and celebrity gossip from the set. Since televisions entered Americans' living rooms, the question of whether programming should be "free"—paid for with advertising—has loomed, to the extent that some broadcasters, lobbyists and fearmongers warned someone would come along and disrupt their Madison Avenue–championed business model. But who would pay for something that had always been free? Home Box Office dared to ask that question in 1972, opening the doors for other pay-channels and ultimately the streaming platforms that are now the norm. They created different, better content—or at least they convinced viewers that different was better. HBO gave us violent scenes with blood and guts, shows like Tales from the Crypt that were actually scary, romcoms with sex instead of suggestion. We take their big-budget, "prestige" TV for granted now, but their success was far from assured at the outset. HBO's audacity built the viewing culture we have today and permanently transformed the television landscape. A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company
The next supper: The end of restaurants as we knew them, and what comes after
By Corey Mintz. 2021
A searing expose of the restaurant industry, and a path to a better, safer, happier meal. In 2019, the restaurant…
business was booming. Americans spent more than half of their annual food budgets dining out. In a generation, chefs had gone from behind-the-scenes laborers to TV stars. The arrival of Seamless, DoorDash, and other meal delivery apps was overtaking home cooking. Beneath all that growth lurked serious problems. Many of the best restaurants in the world employed unpaid cooks. Meal delivery apps were putting many restaurants out of business. And all that dining out meant dramatically less healthy diets. The industry may have been booming, but it also desperately needed to change. And, then, along came COVID-19. From the farm to the curbside pickup parking spot, everything about the restaurant business is changing, for better or worse. The Next Supper tells this story, and offers clear and essential advice for what and how to eat to ensure the well-being of cooks and waitstaff, not to mention our bodies and the environment. The Next Supper reminds us that breaking bread is an essential human activity, and charts a path to preserving the joy of food in a turbulent era
Love in the blitz
By Eileen Alexander. 2020
Rescued from oblivion by an impulse eBay purchase, the letters of Eileen Alexander are one of the great literary discoveries…
of the 21st century: an extraordinary woman writing to show what it meant to be a woman, and in love, during the Second World War. In summer 1939, Eileen was an exceptionally bright young graduate leaving Cambridge with a First. She was tentatively in love, and war was brewing. She would spend the next years of her life in London, writing the most intimate, brilliant love letters of the Second World War. Eileen's letters to Gershon Ellenbogen tell an incredible story. Her writing gives dazzling displays of intelligence and devotion, by turn generous, erudite, angry, scurrilous, and very, very funny. Eileen can find a biting or ironic quotation for every eventuality. She can skewer a pompous colleague in two lines of airmail. She writes frankly about sex, about ambition as an intelligent woman, about the terrible things that happened to her fiercest friends, and about the painful uncertainty of loving a man away at war. Told by an unknown master letter writer of the twentieth century, this is a unique story of war as it was lived by women – and an unforgettable account of ardent, real love as it unfolds
Worn: A people's history of clothing
By Sofi Thanhauser. 2022
A sweeping and captivatingly told history of clothing and the stuff it is made of—an unparalleled deep-dive into how everyday…
garments have transformed our lives, our societies, and our planet &“Thanhauser … examines the effect of clothes on our environment, politics and even our ethics … admirable, meticulously researched … [and] makes us pay attention.&” — The Wall Street Journal In this panoramic social history, Sofi Thanhauser brilliantly tells five stories—Linen, Cotton, Silk, Synthetics, Wool—about the clothes we wear and where they come from, illuminating our world in unexpected ways. She takes us from the opulent court of Louis Quatorze to the labor camps in modern-day Chinese-occupied Xinjiang. We see how textiles were once dyed with lichen, shells, bark, saffron, and beetles, displaying distinctive regional weaves and knits, and how the modern Western garment industry has refashioned our attire into the homogenous and disposable uniforms popularized by fast fashion brands. Thanhauser makes clear how the clothing industry has become one of the planet's worst polluters, and how it relies on chronically underpaid and exploited laborers. But she also shows us how micro-communities, textile companies, and clothing makers in every corner of the world are rediscovering ancestral and ethical methods for making what we wear. Drawn from years of intensive research and reporting from around the world, and brimming with fascinating stories, Worn reveals to us that our clothing comes not just from the countries listed on the tags or ready-made from our factories. It comes, as well, from deep in our histories
The new corporation: How "good" corporations are bad for democracy
By Joel Bakan. 2020
A deeply informed and unflinching look at the way corporations have slyly rebranded themselves as socially conscious entities ready to…
tackle society's problems, while CEO compensation soars, income inequality is at all-time highs, and democracy sits in a precarious situation. &“A very important book, an arresting study directed to a central issue of the times&” (Noam Chomsky), from the author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power . Over the last decade and a half, business leaders have been calling for a new kind of capitalism. With income inequality soaring, wages stagnating, and a climate crisis escalating, they realized that they had to make social and environmental values the very core of their messaging. The problem is corporations are still, first and foremost, concerned with their bottom line. In lucid and engaging prose, Joel Bakan documents how increasing corporate freedom encroaches on individual liberty and democracy. Through deep research and interviews with both top executives and their sharpest critics, he exposes the inhumanity and destructive force of the current order—profit-driven privatization subverting the public good, governments neglecting duties to protect the environment, the increasing alienation we experience as every aspect of life is economized, and how the Covid-19 pandemic lays bare the unjust fault lines of our corporate-led society. Beyond diagnosing major problems, in The New Corporation Bakan narrates a hopeful path forward. He reveals how citizens around the world are fighting back and making gains in ways that bolster democracy and benefit ordinary citizens rather than the corporate elite
No one wins alone
By Mark Messier, Jimmy Roberts. 2021
For the first time, the legendary Hall of Fame hockey player and six-time Stanley Cup champion tells the impressive story…
of his life and career, and shares the lessons he's learned about leadership. Mark Messier is one of the most accomplished athletes and dynamic leaders in the history of professional sports. He won the Stanley Cup five times with the Edmonton Oilers during their dynasty years, and once more with the New York Rangers, ending the team's fifty-four-year championship drought. He is second on the all-time career lists for playoff points, and third for regular season games played and for regular season points. Notably, he is the only player to have captained two different NHL franchises to championships. The amazing records are there for anyone to see, but few people know the real Mark Messier. This is his story. Messier reveals the astonishing journey he took to making NHL history, and the leadership philosophy he learned along the way. He recounts never-before-told tales from his childhood as the son of a hockey player, coach, and special education teacher; his years as a teammate and friend of Wayne Gretzky; and his evolution from a brash eighteen-year-old rookie to a distinctive captain and champion. Though bruising on the ice, he led teams with a deep understanding of what inspires and motivates people. He shares the advice he got from the inspirational leaders who had the greatest influence on him, and the lessons he gleaned from the pivotal successes—and sometimes failures—of his career. More than a book about hockey, No One Wins Alone demonstrates what it means to build a life, achieve dreams, and support the people around you. "My real wish," Messier says, "is to inspire people to reach their full potential."
The hard sell: Crime and punishment at an opioid startup
By Evan Hughes. 2022
The inside story of a band of entrepreneurial upstarts who made millions selling painkillers—until their scheme unraveled, putting them at…
the center of a landmark criminal trial. &“A fast-paced and maddening account.... Until I read The Hard Sell , about the outrageous behavior of an obscure drug company, I hadn&’t appreciated the full extent of the filth or the dark stain the opioid sector has left on the entire industry.... What&’s most surprising and powerful about The Hard Sell is not one company&’s criminality—we&’ve grown inured to corporations behaving badly—as much as how institutionalized these practices were across the modern drug industry.&” — New York Times Book Review John Kapoor had already amassed a small fortune in pharmaceuticals when he founded Insys Therapeutics. It was the early 2000s, a boom time for painkillers, and he developed a novel formulation of fentanyl, the most potent opioid on the market. Kapoor, a brilliant immigrant scientist with relentless business instincts, was eager to make the most of his innovation. He gathered around him an ambitious group of young lieutenants. His head of sales—an unstable and unmanageable leader, but a genius of persuasion—built a team willing to pull every lever to close a sale, going so far as to recruit an exotic dancer ready to scrape her way up. They zeroed in on the eccentric and suspect doctors receptive to their methods. Employees at headquarters did their part by deceiving insurance companies. The drug was a niche product, approved only for cancer patients in dire condition, but the company&’s leadership pushed it more widely, and together they turned Insys into a Wall Street sensation. But several insiders reached their breaking point and blew the whistle. They sparked a sprawling investigation that would lead to a dramatic courtroom battle, breaking new ground in the government&’s fight to hold the drug industry accountable in the spread of addictive opioids. In The Hard Sell , National Magazine Award–finalist Evan Hughes lays bare the pharma playbook. He draws on unprecedented access to insiders of the Insys saga, from top executives to foot soldiers, from the patients and staff of far-flung clinics to the Boston investigators who treated the case as a drug-trafficking conspiracy, flipping cooperators and closing in on the key players. With colorful characters and true suspense, The Hard Sell offers a bracing look not just at Insys, but at how opioids are sold at the point they first enter the national bloodstream—in the doctor&’s office
The quest: energy, security and the remaking of the modern world
By Daniel Yergin. 2011
The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (DB 32424) examines…
the worldwide energy crisis. Investigates increasing energy demands, environmental concerns, and the development of alternative and renewable resources. Bestseller. 2011
The book in the Renaissance
By Andrew Pettegree. 2010
Chronicles the first one hundred fifty years of the printed word. Details the origins and evolution of print, culminating in…
Gutenberg's innovation and its momentous consequences for humankind. Examines the religious, economic, and cultural concerns that influenced the production of books. 2010
Chasing history: A kid in the newsroom
By Carl Bernstein. 2022
The digital version of this audiobook contains an introduction read by Carl Bernstein. The Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of All the…
President ' s Men —the chronicle of the investigative report about the Watergate break-in and resultant political scandal which led to President Richard Nixon's resignation—recalls his formative years as a teenage newspaper reporter in JFK ' s Washington—a tale of adventures, scrapes, clever escapes, and the opportunity of a lifetime. "Carl Bernstein, Washington Star ." With these words, the sixteen-year-old senior at Montgomery Blair High School set himself apart from the high school crowd and set himself on a track that would define his life. Carl Bernstein was far from the best student in his class—in fact, he was in danger of not graduating at all—but he had a talent for writing, a burning desire to know things that other people didn't, and a flair for being in the right place at the right time. Those qualities got him inside the newsroom at the Washington Star , the afternoon paper in the nation's capital, in the summer of 1960, a pivotal time for America, for Washington, D.C., and for a young man in a hurry on the cusp of adulthood. Chasing History opens up the world of the early 1960s as Bernstein experienced it, chasing after grisly crimes with the paper's police reporter, gathering colorful details at a John F. Kennedy campaign rally, running afoul of union rules, and confronting racial tensions as the civil rights movement gained strength. We learn alongside him as he comes to understand the life of a newspaperman, and we share his pride as he hunts down information, gets his first byline, and discovers that he has a talent for the job after all. By turns exhilarating, funny, tense, and poignant, Chasing History shows us a country coming into its own maturity along with young Carl Bernstein, and when he strikes out on his own after five years at the Star , his hard-won knowledge and experience feels like ours as well. A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company "Narrator Robert Petkoff, with an occasional assist from the author, takes listeners back to the beginning. Sounding like an indulgent grandfather telling his life story to his grandchildren, Petkoff recounts how a scrappy high schooler managed to worm his way into the WASHINGTON STAR newsroom at age 16.... This audiobook will provide hope to any would-be journalist." — AudioFile
It only took five years for two brothers-in-law to create a billion-dollar, award-winning, take-no-prisoners cannabis company called HEXO. How did…
they do it? That's the story. From early roadblocks and devastating personal and financial setbacks to explosive growth and some of the biggest cannabis deals in global history, Billion Dollar Start-Up not only recounts the HEXO story but the history of Canada's momentous road to legalization. In this part fast-paced memoir, part high-octane business book, writer and journalist Julie Beun gives us an intimate look at the life of a start-up and the ferocious entrepreneurial drive it takes to succeed ? written in real-time, as the story unfolded. Throughout history, there have been fewer than 100 Canadians who have started a company and lived to see it become worth one billion dollars. Adam Miron and Sébastien St-Louis are two of them. This is their story
The true story of the extraordinary life and brutal death of Mildred Harnack, the American leader of one of the…
largest underground resistance groups in Germany, who was executed on Hitler's direct order—uncovered by her great-great-niece in this riveting, deeply researched account. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a PhD program in Germany and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment—a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin. She recruited working-class Germans into the resistance, helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage, and collaborated in writing leaflets that denounced Hitler's regime and called for revolution. Her coconspirators circulated through Berlin under the cover of night, slipping the leaflets into mailboxes, public restrooms, phone booths. When the first shots of the Second World War were fired she became a spy, couriering top-secret intelligence to the Allies. On the eve of her escape to Sweden, she was ambushed by the Gestapo. At a Nazi military court, a panel of five judges sentenced her to six years at a prison camp, but Hitler overruled the decision and ordered her execution. On February 16, 1943, she was strapped to a guillotine and beheaded.Historians identify Mildred Harnack as the only American in the leadership of the German resistance, yet her remarkable story has remained almost unknown until now.Fusing elements of biography, political thriller, and scholarly detective story, Harnack's great-great-niece Rebecca Donner brilliantly interweaves letters, diary entries, notes smuggled out of a Berlin prison, testimony of survivors, and a trove of declassified intelligence documents into a powerful, enthralling story, reconstructing the moral courage of an enigmatic woman nearly erased by history
Neptune's inferno: the U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
By James D. Hornfischer. 2011
Author of Ship of Ghosts (DB 63121) chronicles the seven sea battles to secure the South Pacific island of Guadalcanal…
that began in August 1942. Official documents and day-by-day accounts drawn from survivors portray an underfunded campaign, nascent use of radar, tremendous losses, and a determined Japanese opponent. 2011
Canadian digital-marketing expert offers advice for integrating social media and personal branding into a new business model with the potential…
of reaching a larger consumer base. Offers examples of people who used Facebook, blogs, smartphones, and netbooks to successfully expand their businesses. 2009
Anne Frank: the book, the life, the afterlife
By Francine Prose. 2009
Analyzes The Diary of a Young Girl (DB 57022) as a literary work, a Holocaust narrative, and a cultural artifact.…
Examines the evidence that Anne rewrote her memoir to increase its appeal. Discusses the published book's use in classroom instruction and its adaptation for stage and film. 2009
Jump: My secret journey from the streets to the boardroom
By Larry Miller. 2022
One of the most successful Black businessmen in the country, who has led Nike's Jordan Brand from a $200M sneaker…
company to a $4B global apparel juggernaut, tells the remarkable story of his rise from gangland violence to the pinnacles of international business. Jump tells Larry Miller's journey from the violent streets of West Philly in the 1960s to the highest echelons of American sports and industry. Miller wound up in jail more than once, especially as a teenager. But he immersed himself in the educational opportunities, eventually took advantage of a Pennsylvania state education-release program offered to incarcerated people, and was able to graduate with honors from Temple University. When revealing his gangland past caused him to lose his first major job opportunity, Miller vowed to keep it a secret. He climbed the corporate ladder with a number of companies such as Kraft Foods, Campbell's Soup, and Jantzen, until Nike hired him to run its domestic apparel operations. Around the time of Michael Jordan's basketball retirement, Nike Chairman Phil Knight made Larry Miller president of the newly formed Jordan Brand. In 2007 Paul Allen convinced Miller to jump to the NBA to become president of the Portland Trailblazers, one of the first African-Americans to lead a professional sports team, before returning to Jordan Brand in 2012. All along, Miller lived two lives: the secret of his violent past haunted him, invading his days with migraines and his sleep with nightmares of getting hauled back to jail. More than a rags-to-riches story, Jump is also a passionate appeal for criminal justice reform and expanded educational opportunities for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people across the United States. Drawing on his powerful personal story, as well as his vast and well-connected network, Miller plans to use Jump as a launching point to help expand such opportunities and to provide an aspirational journey for those who need hope
Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking
By Susan Cain. 2012
Author explores introversion from a cultural point of view. Posits that as many as half of Americans are introverts, even…
as society promotes what she calls the "extrovert ideal." Examines the differences between the two personality types. Suggests ways to nurture "quiet" children. Bestseller. 2012