"In his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, economist Thomas Piketty argued that the contemporary phenomenon of rising inequality across the globe is a function of the inheritance of capital, which, over generations, accrues in the hands of a concentrated patrimonial elite. It was an elegant, simple idea that also posed a clear antagonist: the super rich and the policy-makers, who would keep the wealth in their hands. The reality is more complicated....

Examines history's most turbulent economic and political periods to reveal why the times ahead will likely be radically different from those in recent memory.

"The untold story of how one of America's most invincible institutions--the Treasury--has used the U.S. dollar to define America's role in the world, and our economic future"--

A quarter century after Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane present a bold, sweeping account of why powerful nations and civilizations break down under the heavy burden of economic imbalance. Introducing a profound new measure of economic power, Balance traces the triumphs and mistakes of imperial Britain, the paradox of superstate California, the long collapse of Rome, and the limits of the Japanese model...

Nicholas Kristof grew up, in rural Yamhill, Oregon, an area that prospered for much of the twentieth century but has been devastated in the last few decades as blue-collar jobs disappeared. About one-quarter of the children on Kristof's old school bus died in adulthood from drugs, alcohol, suicide, or reckless accidents. And while these particular stories unfolded in one corner of the country, they are representative of many places the authors write...

Offers a valuable primer for anyone interested in the past, present, and future of our neighbor to the South.

In On The Wealth of Nations, America's most provocative satirist, P. J. O'Rourke, reads Adam Smith's revolutionary The Wealth of Nations so you don't have to. Recognized almost instantly on its publication in 1776 as the fundamental work of economics, The Wealth of Nations was also recognized as really long: the original edition totaled over nine hundred pages in two volumes-including the blockbuster sixty-seven-page "digression concerning the variations...

"The master geopolitical forecaster and New York Times bestselling author of The Next 100 Years focuses on the United States, predicting how the 2020s will bring dramatic upheaval and reshaping of American government, foreign policy, economics, and culture"--

Before Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee and other historians of cultural rise and fall, there was Brooks Adams. And while today there are ever more historians adding their theories as to why civilizations collapse through such factors as military invasion, over-taxation, or ecological shifts, most of these theories do not get to the cause of how civilizations, if not stunted and killed in youth or middle age, die of old age. Our Western Civilization...

Steven Brint is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Riverside. He is the coauthor, with Jerome Karabel, of the award-winning study The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985. Since the 1960s the number of highly educated professionals in America has grown dramatically. During this time scholars and journalists have described the group as exercising increasing influence...