Trade History

Historian Jonathan W. White tells the riveting story of Appleton Oaksmith, a swashbuckling sea captain whose life intersected with some of the most important moments, movements, and individuals of the mid-nineteenth century, from the California Gold Rush, filibustering schemes in Nicaragua, Cuban liberation, and the Civil War and Reconstruction. Most importantly, the book depicts the extraordinary lengths the Lincoln Administration went to destroy the illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade.

During one crazy week in January 2021, a motley crew of retail traders on Reddit’s r/wallstreetbets forum had seemingly done the impossible—they had brought some of the biggest, richest players on Wall Street to their knees. Their weapon was GameStop, a failing retailer whose shares briefly became the most-traded security on the planet and the subject of intense media coverage. The Revolution That Wasn’t is the riveting story of how the meme stock squeeze unfolded, and of the real architects (and winners) of the GameStop rally.

THERE was a lot of adventure to be had in Alaska in the early twentieth century, and Hardy Trefzger tasted it all . . . hunting, fishing, prospecting, guiding, trading, trapping ... He even had a blue-fox farm for a while. Hardy Trefzger was born in the Black Forest of Germany to Swiss parents and received much of his education in Switzerland. While still in his youth, he migrated to the United States, where he established a small interior-decorating business. After two years in New York City, he headed west to Seattle, where all the talk was of the fabulous gold strikes in the North. He ...

After the Englishman Henry Hudson, under the aegis of the Dutch East India Company, sailed by Manhattan in 1609, he returned home with good news and bad news. Like the other explorers before him, he hadn't been able to find a water route to the Orient. He had, however, returned with maps and beaver pelts. With that, it became clear that the region around the bay was a promising new territory for trade and settlement, which would become a bone of contention between the Dutch and the English for the rest of the century.

As we stand on the cusp of a new political reality, the contours of personal freedom and autonomy are becoming increasingly well-defined. The future holds the possibility of an existence where the barriers to living life on one’s own terms are ever-diminishing, where the power of voluntarily connected individuals challenges and reshapes the statist quo. Even though the journey toward this new reality is fraught with trade-offs and challenges, it has the potential for unprecedented freedom and philosophical fulfillment.

It is no exaggeration to say that venture capital has been central to the greatest legal creation of wealth anywhere and has enabled much of the world we live in, yet we know surprisingly little about this strange tribe of financiers. In The Power Law, Sebastian Mallaby turns his unprecedented access to the industry's central players into a riveting, character-driven account of venture capital and the world it has made.

After the economic meltdown of 2008, Warren Buffett famously warned, "beware of geeks bearing formulas." But as James Weatherall demonstrates, not all geeks are created equal. While many of the mathematicians and software engineers on Wall Street failed when their abstractions turned ugly in practice, a special breed of physicists has a much deeper history of revolutionizing finance.

In The Futures, Emily Lambert, senior writer at Forbes magazine, tells us the rich and dramatic history of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, which together comprised the original, most bustling futures market in the world. She details the emergence of the futures business as a kind of meeting place for gamblers and farmers and its subsequent transformation into a sophisticated electronic market where contracts are traded at lightning-fast speeds.

Burning Country explores the complicated reality of life in present-day Syria with unprecedented detail and sophistication, drawing on new first-hand testimonies from opposition fighters, exiles lost in an archipelago of refugee camps, and courageous human rights activists. Yassin-Kassab and Al-Shami expertly interweave these stories with an incisive analysis of the militarization of the uprising, the rise of the Islamists and sectarian warfare, and the role of Syria’s government in exacerbating the brutalization of the conflict.

Abolitionism was the movement that strove to end slavery in the United States. The abolitionists saw slavery as a stain and an affliction on the United States and made it their goal to eradicate slave ownership. Abolitionists produced anti-slavery literature, sent petitions to Congress, and ran for political office.

Financial economist George G. Szpiro here tells the fascinating stories of the pioneers of mathematical finance who conducted the search for the elusive options pricing formula. From the broker's assistant who published the first mathematical explanation of financial markets to Albert Einstein and other scientists, Pricing the Future retraces the historical and intellectual developments that ultimately led to the widespread use of mathematical models to drive investment strategies on Wall Street.

The Cell provides the first complete treatment to piece together what led to the events of 9/11, ultimately delivering the disturbing answer to the question: why, with all the information the intelligence community had, was no one able to stop the September 11 attacks? It also includes a first-person account of John Miller's face-to-face meeting with Osama bin Laden.

In a work that fundamentally recasts the history of colonial America, Wendy Warren shows how the institution of slavery was inexorably linked with the first century of English colonization of New England. While most histories of slavery in early America confine themselves to the Southern colonies and the Caribbean, New England Bound forcefully widens the historical aperture to include the entirety of English North America.

Though the importance of hats is easy to overlook, it was deadly serious in more ways than one, impacting the beavers and birds used to make fashionable hats, the environment of the region, and the people fighting over the resources. Beaver hats put the Dutch, British, and French in conflict, and later the Americans and Canadians.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the price of gold has skyrocketed - in three years, it has more than doubled from $800 an ounce to $1,900. This massive spike kicked off an unprecedented global gold-mining and exploration boom, much bigger than the Gold Rush of the 1800s. In Gold, acclaimed author Matthew Hart takes you on an unforgettable journey around the world and through history to tell the incredible story of how gold became the world's most precious commodity.

After the 2008 financial crisis, investment banks and other professional investors had the edge when it came to bailouts and stock trading. The crisis also ushered in a wave of new small-scale retail investors who were hell-bent on crushing the big guys by using social media channels to connect, share ideas, promote stocks, and reap the rewards—Robin Hood-style. But did the meme short squeeze stand a chance in a rigged playing field? This concise, definitive account of a daring Wall Street heist exposes a fight to the death against a fraudulent system.

Few things affect the day-to-day lives of everyone more than the economy. Economics is a subject everyone should know at least a little about. How your country’s economy is doing directly affects you, even though you may not be able to see it. Understanding the basic terms and definitions, so when the financial news comes on you won’t have to skip it because you don’t understand it. In this practical glossary, you'll learn about economics, including some of its foundational topics and concepts.

Today’s major technology companies - Google, Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, and others - wield more power than national governments. In this comprehensive, engaging, and prescriptive audiobook, Alexis Wichowski considers their growing and unavoidable influence in our lives, showing in eye-opening detail how these net states are conquering countries, disrupting reality, and jeopardizing our future - and what we can do to regulate and reform the industry before it does irreparable harm to the way we think, how we act, and how we’re governed.

Over the past four decades, China's remarkable transformation has garnered admiration but also sparked concern. George Magnus draws on his intimate knowledge of this dynamic nation to uncover the origins of its ascent and show why the economic traps it faces at home and the political challenges it faces abroad pose a serious threat to its continued rise.

As the global economic landscape shifts at an increasing rate, it's more important than ever that citizens understand the building blocks of the new world economy. In this lively guide, Randy Charles Epping cuts through the jargon to explain the fundamentals. In 36 engaging chapters, Epping lays bare everything from NGOs and nonprofits to AI and data mining. With a comprehensive glossary and absolutely no graphs, The New World Economy: A Beginner's Guide is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand what is going on in the world around them.