Business History

History is full of sensational financial frauds and scams. Enron was forced to declare bankruptcy after allegations of massive accounting fraud, wiping out $78 billion in stock market value. Bernie Madoff, the largest individual fraudster in history, built a $65 billion Ponzi scheme that ultimately resulted in his being sentenced to 150 years in prison. People from all walks of life have been scammed out of their money.

The early 1970s saw the birth of the modern comic book shop. Its rise was due in large part to a dynamic entrepreneur, Phil Seuling. His direct market model allowed shops to get comics straight from the publishers, bypassing middlemen. Stores could better customize their offerings and independent publishers could now access national distribution. In this way, shops opened up a space for quirky ideas to gain an audience and helped transform small-press series, from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Bone, into media giants.

An innovation expert illuminates why your power to make a difference is no longer bound by your status. In The Power of Onlyness, Nilofer Merchant, one of the world's top-ranked business thinkers, reveals that we have now reached an unprecedented moment of opportunity for your ideas to "make a dent" on the world.

This exciting series opens with “the Desert Fox”, the most famous German field marshal in World War II, Erwin Rommel. A hero of the people of the Third Reich and widely respected by his opponents, Rommel proved himself highly adept at blitzkrieg warfare. He displayed an outstanding ability to seize the initiative and retain it, and here, Charles Messenger draws on the skills behind this ability for the benefit of modern-day leaders.

Discover a cutting-edge guide to maximizing the potential of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) with the exciting eBook, "ATM Advantage." This comprehensive guide delves deep into the world of ATMs, offering invaluable insights, tips, and strategies to navigate and benefit from their ever-evolving features. The initial chapters provide a fascinating look at the history and integral features of ATMs, before leading readers along the diverse paths of ATM usage. The eBook also presents robust security tips, equipping readers to spot skimming devices and avoid fraud, thereby encouraging confident...

This myth shattering book reveals the methods Nouriel Roubini used to foretell the current crisis before other economists saw it coming and shows how those methods can help us make sense of the present and prepare for the future. Renowned economist Nouriel Roubini electrified his profession and the larger financial community by predicting the current crisis well in advance of anyone else.

A century ago, if one were to come across a manual laborer from the early 20th century or the Roaring Twenties and relayed to them the possibility of one day sticking it to the man, one would probably be laughed out of the century. However, this was exactly what one man with solid-gold aspirations and audacity set out to achieve. Jimmy Hoffa, once described by Bobby Kennedy as the second most powerful man in America, was a union boss who evoked both respect and fear.

Mad Women is a tell-all account of life in the New York advertising world of the 1960s and '70s from Jane Maas, a female copywriter who succeeded in the primarily male environment portrayed by the hit TV show Mad Men. Fans of the show are dying to know how accurate it is: did people really have that much sex in the office? Were there really three-martini lunches? Were women really second-class citizens? Jane Maas says the answer to all three questions is unequivocally yes....

Roger Lowenstein explains how corporations and governments ran up ruinous pension and health-care promises to workers - promises that are now coming due and that will hit America like a tsunami if nothing is done.

Negotiating high benefits means gambling with future finances - and when the farm gets sold out from underneath major corporations or public institutions, it affects all of us, and in ways we might not imagine. With his trademark narrative panache, Lowenstein unravels the truth about how pensions work in America and illuminates the impending crisis.

With The Firm, financial journalist Duff McDonald pulled back the curtain on consulting giant McKinsey & Company. In The Golden Passport, he reveals the inner workings of a singular nexus of power, ambition, and influence: Harvard Business School. Harvard University occupies a unique place in the public's imagination, but HBS has arguably eclipsed its parent in terms of its influence on modern society.

Medieval people are often portrayed as having poor hygiene and table manners—licking their knives or throwing chicken bones on the floor. In the Middle Ages, however, such behavior was not tolerated. Medieval society cherished order in nearly every facet of life, from regular hand-washing to daily prayer. There were consequences if you didn’t adhere to the rules of good behavior: you wouldn’t be invited to the lord’s next dinner, you wouldn’t win the battle, and you wouldn’t win the lady.

Molly McClain tells the remarkable story of Ellen Browning Scripps (1836-1932), an American newspaperwoman, feminist, suffragist, abolitionist, and social reformer who used her fortune to support women’s education, the labor movement, and public access to science, the arts, and education.

For some of the world's most powerful people, the Empire State Building is the ultimate prize. In a riveting chronicle of betrayal, revenge, family rivalry, and raw greed, Wall Street Journal columnist Pacelle tells the compelling tale of the Empire State Building ownership battle of the 1980s and '90s, bringing to life a colorful cast of characters that includes Donald Trump, Leona Helmsley, and the eccentric Japanese billionaire Hideki Yokoi.

What makes the dream of self-employment so alluring, so pervasive in today's world? Benjamin C. Waterhouse offers a provocative argument: the modern cult of the hustle is a direct consequence of economic failures—bad jobs, stagnant wages, and inequality—since the 1970s. With original research, Waterhouse traces a new narrative history of business in America, populated with vivid characters—from the activists, academics, and work-from-home gurus who hailed business ownership as our economic salvation to the upstarts who took the plunge. Some flourish; some squeak by. Some fail.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, digital technologies had become deeply embedded in children’s lives, despite a growing body of research detailing the harms of excessive immersion in the unregulated, powerfully seductive, profit-driven world of the “kid-tech” industry. In Who’s Raising the Kids? Linn—one of the world’s leading experts on the impact of Big Tech and big business on children—explores the roots and consequences of this monumental shift toward a digitized, commercialized childhood, focusing on kids’ values, relationships, and learning.

It was the ultimate test for CEOs, and almost none of them saw it coming. In early March 2020, with the Dow Jones flirting with 30,000, the world’s biggest companies were riding an eleven-year economic high. By the end of the month, millions would be out of work, iconic firms were begging for bailouts, and countless small businesses were in freefall.

The Soul of Capitalism examines how the greatest wealth-creation engine in the history of the world is failing most of us, why it must be changed, and how intrepid pioneers are beginning to transform it. Best-selling author William Greider analyzes how our relentless pursuit of unprecedented affluence has eroded family life, eaten away at our sense of personal and professional security, corroded our communities, impoverished our spiritual lives, and devastated our natural environment.

Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon, a dynamic advocate for women in STEM, insists that technology is not an unchangeable and unquestionable force. It is not the preserve of the elite. It is in our homes and in our hands. Rather than feeling powerless to make changes to the way tech works and fails, she argues that it's time to get into the room where the decisions are made. Or, better yet, create our own tech rooms.

Dynasties of the Sea is the first audiobook to examine one of the most powerful forces in global trade and economic development: world shipping and the magnates who drive the industry. Operating from Monaco to Hong Kong, London to Athens, Singapore to Oslo, shipowners and their financiers have changed the world in every way.

Here is a bold new history of economics, the dramatic story of how the great economic thinkers built a rigorous social science without peer.