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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
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
Award-winning journalist examines the twenty-first-century social landscape of America, reflects on its past, and ponders its future. Provides profiles of…
Americans he calls "unconventional thinkers and doers," including the wife of a seriously wounded soldier, an inner-city school principal, a major league baseball pitcher, and others. Bestseller. 2011
Back to work: why we need smart government for a strong economy
By Bill Clinton. 2011
In the wake of the 2010 elections, former U.S. president Clinton explains his views of what has happened to America…
in the past thirty years and why our political system has not met the challenges facing our nation. Provides forty-six specific proposals to restore economic growth. Bestseller. 2011
The wealth cure: putting money in its place
By Hill Harper. 2011
Actor and author of Letters to a Young Brother (DB 62749) and Letters to a Young Sister (DB 70387) describes…
his cancer diagnosis, which led him to examine the meaning of happiness. Uses anecdotes to illustrate advice on building a financial foundation while resisting materialism. 2011
Confidence men: Wall Street, Washington, and the education of a president
By Ron Suskind. 2011
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist explores President Obama's handling of the country's economic crisis. Covers Obama's 2008 election, his choice of advisers,…
the fight over a health-care plan, and the financial reforms his administration instituted. Portrays the Obama White House as often dysfunctional and in disarray. Some strong language. Bestseller. 2011
Reckles$ endangerment: how outsized ambition, greed, and corruption led to economic armageddon
By Gretchen Morgenson, Joshua Rosner. 2011
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times business journalist Morgenson and financial analyst Rosner investigate the 2008 financial meltdown. They assert that…
government regulators and public agencies were complicit in creating the circumstances for the economic crisis and name individuals they consider to be the key players. Bestseller. 2011
Mother of invention: How good ideas get ignored in an economy built for men
By Katrine Marçal. 2021
An illuminating and maddening examination of how gender bias has skewed innovation, technology, history and work.It all starts with a…
rolling suitcase. The wheel was invented some 5,000 years ago, and the modern suitcase in the mid-nineteenth century, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that someone successfully married the two. What was the hold up? For writer and journalist Katrine Marçal, the answer is both shocking and simple: because "real men" carried their bags, no matter how heavy. There were rolling suitcases before the '70s, but they were marketed as a niche product for (the presumably few) women travelling alone, and the wheeled suitcase wasn't "invented" until it was no longer threatening to masculinity. Mother of Invention draws on this example and many others, from electric cars to tech billionaires, to show how gender bias stifles the economy and holds us back. Our traditional notions about men and women have delayed innovations, sometimes by hundreds of years, and have distorted our understanding of our history. While we talk about the Iron Age and the Bronze Age, we might as well talk about the Ceramic Age or the Flax Age, since these technologies were just as important. But inventions associated with women are not considered to be technology in the same way. Katrine Marçal’s Mother of Invention is a fascinating examination of business, technology, and innovation through a feminist lens. Marçal takes us on a tour of the global economy, arguing that gendered assumptions dictate which businesses get funding, how we value work, and how we trace human progress. And it carries a powerful message: If we upend our biases, we can unleash our full potential, tackling climate change and wielding technology to become more human, rather than less.
Turning the tables: restaurants and the rise of the American middle class, 1880-1920
By Andrew P. Haley. 2011
Cultural historian examines connections between the development of American restaurants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the…
evolution of the middle class. Discusses menus, service to women, and the gradual acceptance of various ethnic foods. 2011
Why we write: 20 acclaimed authors on how and why they do what they do
By Meredith Maran. 2013
Twenty essays by popular authors on the reasons behind their pursuit of writing. Sue Grafton, author of A is for…
Alibi (DB 35069), ruminates on the source of "writer's block" and David Baldacci discusses his compulsion for writing. Also includes Isabel Allende, Jodi Picoult, and others. 2013
La condition québécoise: une histoire dépaysante
By Jocelyn Létourneau. 2020
À un Québec qui change, voici un récit d'histoire au scénario changé. Qui pense la condition québécoise en la sortant…
de sa mémoire tragique et de sa culture de la séparation. Qui met l'emphase sur les adaptations et actualisations d'une société plutôt que sur ses détournements et empêchements. Qui voit les oscillations québécoises non pas à l'origine d'une succession d'inhibitions nationales, mais comme un mode d'évolution par lequel une collectivité n'a cessé de passer à l'avenir. On lira cet ouvrage comme une tentative de cadrer le parcours historique du Québec en dehors des mythistoires et du schéma narratif qui accueillent et charpentent habituellement son déroulement. On le considérera aussi comme un essai visant à poser les bases d'une nouvelle référence historiale, si ce n'est mémorielle, pour les Québécois d'aujourd'hui, vecteurs de leur revitalisation identitaire en cours
Wit and wisdom from Poor Richard's almanack (Modern Library humor and wit)
By Benjamin Franklin. 2000
Selections from Benjamin Franklin's almanacs, which were published for a quarter-century beginning in 1732 and included agricultural predictions, meteorological data,…
and maxims. This edition focuses on observations and aphorisms such as "eat to live, not live to eat." Introduction by humorist Dave Barry. 2000
Sortir du bocal: dialogue sur le roman québécois (Liberté grande)
By David Bélanger, Michel Biron. 2021
Une réflexion vivante sur le roman québécois d'hier et d'aujourd'hui qui étonne par l'éventail des auteurs et des oeuvres convoqués.…
Une correspondance aussi sérieuse qu'amicale entre deux enseignants, critiques et penseurs québécois issus de générations distinctes. Une nouvelle vision de l'évolution du roman québécois à travers le prisme de l'ironie
Le collectif "L'état nomade" rassemble les textes de 16 autrices et auteurs, dont les réflexions portent sur ce moment indescriptible…
qui s'ouvre au moment où surgit l'inconnu. Si les participant·e·s s'intéressent surtout aux liens qui unissent voyage et création (écriture, mais également fabrication du pain, œuvres picturales, matériel pédagogique, musique, danse, etc.), ils n'en permettent pas moins une réflexion sur tous ces moments du quotidien où, l'espace dun instant, l'univers des possibles est ébranlé. Cet état de suspension, cet "état nomade", nous le connaissons tous, et c'est une des grandes qualités de ce livre que de nous aider à l'apprécier, le nommer, voire le rechercher. Sur les routes de l'Asie et d'Amérique, dans l'arrière-pays français ou l'Inde contemporaine, les voyageurs de "L'état nomade" nous entraînent dans le sillon avec intelligence et générosité, sous la direction d'Isabelle Miron
Prendre pays (Collection Fiction)
By Vanessa Bell, Virginie Blanchette-Doucet, Hélène Frédérick, Rosalie Roy-Boucher, Marie-Andrée Gill, Lorrie Jean-Louis, Alexandre Fednel, Mélodie Rheault, Gabrielle Demers, Gabrielle Izaguirré-Falardeau, Catherine Perreault. 2021
Onze écrivain.es nous convient sur les terres qu’ielles ont choisi de fouler à cœur nu. Onze lettres pour défier la…
distance inhérente à l’exil, pour sentir la présence, bien que muette, de l’autre à qui l’on adresse un dernier mot d’amour, une déclaration d’ennui ou la promesse d’un retour au pays. Onze lettres pour habiter son territoire. Y cohabitent les thèmes de l’exil, de la rupture amoureuse, de la colonisation du corps, du sentiment d’étrangeté au monde, de la maternité, de la mort.
Citizen: An american lyric
By Claudia Rankine. 2015
Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media.…
Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship
A collection of previously published essays covering a wide variety of topics. Discusses Vladimir Nabokov, the Republican party, Iris Murdoch,…
the Windsor family, journalism, the porn industry, A Clockwork Orange (DB 15213), terrorism, Philip Roth, Christopher Hitchens, and more. Strong language and some explicit descriptions of sex. 2017
The new york times book review: 125 years of literary history
By The New York Times. 2021
From the longest-running, most influential book review in America, here is its best, funniest, strangest, and most memorable coverage over…
the past 125 years. Since its first issue on October 10, 1896, The New York Times Book Review has brought the world of ideas to the reading public. It is the publication where authors have been made, and where readers first encountered the classics that have enriched their lives. Now the editors have curated the Book Review &’s dynamic 125-year history, which is essentially the story of modern American letters. Brimming with remarkable reportage, this book collects interesting reviews, never-before-heard anecdotes about famous writers, and spicy letter exchanges. Here are the first takes on novels we now consider masterpieces, including a long-forgotten pan of Anne of Green Gables and a rave of Mrs. Dalloway , along with reviews and essays by Langston Hughes, Eudora Welty, James Baldwin, Nora Ephron, and more. Listeners will discover how literary tastes have shifted through the years—and how the Book Review &’s coverage has shaped so much of what we read today
Invisible women: data bias in a world designed for men
By Caroline Criado Perez. 2019
Examination of a root cause of gender inequality--the exclusion of women or preferential bias toward men in research data sets.…
Discusses the ways these biases play out in daily life, the workplace, product design, the doctor's office, and public life, and what happens when things go wrong. 2019