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Globalization and its Discontents
In a world knitted ever tighter by the threads of commerce and capital, Globalization and Its Discontents pulls back the curtain on the uneven bargains and broken promises of the global economy. With piercing clarity and moral urgency, it chronicles how international institutions meant to uplift the poor instead deepen their despair, as policies crafted in distant boardrooms unravel the lives of millions. Can a system that claims universality serve justice when its power is so unequally distributed—and whose voice counts when nations rise or fall on decisions they did not choose? This is not merely a critique, but a plea—for accountability, for empathy, and for a new vision of global prosperity rooted in dignity rather than dominance. It is a story of ambition betrayed, and of the silent rebellions that ripple through the streets of the global South.
- Originally Published: 2002
- Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company, 2003
- Pages: 304
- Genre: Non-Fiction
- Book Type: Hardcopy
- ISBN-13: 978-0393324396
- Access: Members
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The Truth About Markets: Why Some Nations are Rich But Most Remain Poor
Why do some markets hum with prosperity while others falter and fracture under pressure? The Truth About Markets is a sharp, thought-provoking journey through the beating heart of economic systems—from the corridors of Wall Street to the bazaars of emerging economies—exposing the myths, contradictions, and unexpected virtues of market behavior. With wit and precision, it dismantles the illusion of perfect rationality, revealing instead a world where culture, institutions, and human folly shape the destinies of nations. Is efficiency always the endgame—or might the most successful markets be those that are messier, more human, and less driven by cold equations? This book is both an intellectual provocation and a call to reimagine the values we assign to wealth, success, and collective good.
- Originally Published: 2003
- Publisher : Penguin, 2004
- Genre: Non-fiction
- Pages: 496
- Book Type: Hardcopy
- ISBN-13: 9780140296723
- Access: Members
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Fooled By Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
In a world desperate for patterns, Fooled by Randomness delivers a sobering truth: much of what we call success is luck masquerading as skill. With sharp wit and intellectual daring, the book peels back the layers of financial markets, human behavior, and belief systems to reveal how easily we are deceived by noise dressed as signal. How many of our convictions rest not on reason, but on stories we tell ourselves after the fact? This is a mind-bending journey through uncertainty, where arrogance meets probability, and where humility may be the only reliable compass. It is a mirror held up to our illusions—inviting us not just to see the world differently, but to think more wisely within it.
- Originally Published: 2001
- Publisher: Penguin Books, 2007
- Pages: 368
- Genre: Self-help
- Book Type: Hardcopy
- ISBN-13: 978-0141031484
- Access: Members
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Hot Pick
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
Why do some nations flourish while others are trapped in cycles of poverty and decay? Why Nations Fail cuts through geography, culture, and chance to expose the raw machinery of power—where inclusive institutions build prosperity and extractive ones hollow it out. With the force of a grand detective story, it reveals how empires collapse not from outside threats, but from within, when the few prey upon the many. Can a society rewrite its destiny, or are its failures hardwired into the very rules it lives by? This is a journey into the heart of inequality—and a blueprint for those bold enough to change it.
- Originally Published: 2012
- Publisher : Crown Currency, 2013
- Pages: 544
- Book Type: Hardcopy
- ISBN-13: 978-0307719225
- Access: Members
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Hot Pick
Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy
Basic Economics is a lucid, unsentimental journey through the invisible architecture that shapes every choice, every price, every life. With clarity and force, it strips away jargon and ideology to reveal how the simplest human actions—buying, selling, saving—echo across cities, nations, and generations. In a world pulsing with wants and limited means, what happens when good intentions collide with hard realities? This book invites readers to see the marketplace not as cold arithmetic, but as the ongoing story of human trade-offs, incentives, and unintended consequences. It is both a guidebook and a mirror for anyone seeking to understand how societies thrive—or unravel.
- Originally Published: 2000
- Publisher : Basic Books, 2014
- Genre: Economics
- Pages: 704
- Book Type: Hardcover
- ISBN-13: 978-0465060733
- Access: Prime Membership
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The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
Can we end poverty—not in theory, but in our lifetime? The End of Poverty charts a daring and data-driven journey through the heart of global suffering, revealing how economic despair is not an inevitable fate but a solvable problem. With clarity and urgency, it exposes the hidden mechanics that trap nations in extreme deprivation and unveils a roadmap of practical solutions that challenge apathy and resignation. This is not just an economic treatise—it is a call to moral action, a testament to the possibility that with enough resolve, compassion, and precision, humanity can lift its most vulnerable beyond survival into dignity. What does it say about us if we can rescue the poor—and choose not to?
- Originally Published: December 2005
- Publisher: Penguin Books, 2006
- Genre: Economics, Politics
- Pages: 464
- Book Type: Hardcopy
- ISBN: 978-0143036586
- Access: Members
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The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa’s Wealth
The Looting Machine exposes a brutal paradox at the heart of Africa’s richest resource states: how nations teeming with oil, diamonds, and minerals can remain shackled by poverty, violence, and decay. With the urgency of investigative reportage and the gravity of a political thriller, the book maps a continent-wide system where global corporations, corrupt elites, and shadowy networks turn natural wealth into a curse. Can a land so rich be so poor by accident—or is the suffering by design? As veins of gold and crude are drained from beneath the soil, this powerful account compels readers to question who truly profits and who is left to bleed. It is a story of power without accountability and prosperity built on the silence of the exploited.
- Originally Published: May 2015
- Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2016
- Genre: Economics, History
- Pages: 368
- Book Type: Hardcopy
- ISBN: 978-1610397117
- Access: Members
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Dead Aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa
Dead Aid delivers a fierce and fearless indictment of the foreign aid system, arguing that what was meant to heal Africa may, in fact, be helping to hold it down. With unflinching logic and moral urgency, it dismantles the comfortable myth that money alone can fix poverty, revealing instead a cycle of dependency, corruption, and arrested growth. This is not a rejection of compassion—it is a challenge to rethink what true empowerment looks like. What if generosity, poorly aimed, becomes a weapon disguised as a gift? In the ruins of well-meant intentions, Dead Aid dares to ask what Africa truly needs to rise.
- Originally Published: 2009
- Publisher: Penguin, 2010
- Genre: Politics, Economics
- Pages: 188
- Book Type: Hardcopy
- ISBN: 978-0141031187
- Access: Members
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Hot Pick
How the World Works
Pulling back the curtain on empire, propaganda, and profit, How the World Works is a bracing excavation of the hidden engines driving global power. With scalpel-sharp clarity, it exposes the elegant lies and quiet violence beneath foreign policy, media narratives, and the illusion of democratic choice. This is a world where the loudest ideals mask the deepest betrayals—and where truth itself is a casualty of convenience. Can justice survive in a system built to obscure it?
- Originally Published: 2010
- Publisher: Hamish Hamilton, 2022
- Genre: Non-fiction
- Pages: 336
- Book Type: Hardcopy
- ISBN: 9780241145388
- Access: Members
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The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy
In The Commanding Heights, the battlefield is the global economy, and the stakes are the soul of nations. Charting the dramatic struggle between government control and free-market forces, this sweeping narrative traces how ideas, ideologies, and institutions have clashed and converged to shape the fate of billions. From boardrooms to ministries, from crisis to reform, the book captures a world in flux—where power shifts not only across continents but between competing visions of freedom and order. As markets rise and empires fade, one question echoes through the corridors of influence: who should hold the reins of prosperity—the invisible hand or the guiding state? This is the story of the modern world’s economic conscience, laid bare in riveting detail.
- Originally Published: 1998
- Publisher: Free Press, 2002
- Genre: Non-fiction
- Pages: 496
- Book Type: Hardcopy
- ISBN: 9780684835693
- Access: Members
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Irrational Exuberance 3rd Edition
Irrational Exuberance peers into the fevered mind of the market, where logic falters and illusions drive fortunes skyward—until they collapse. With calm precision and mounting urgency, it dissects the psychology behind bubbles, revealing how stories, sentiments, and collective delusions inflate prices far beyond reason. This is not just an analysis of numbers, but a meditation on hope, fear, and the frailty of human judgment in the face of uncertainty. Can a society built on speculation ever truly see itself clearly—or will it always chase shadows mistaken for light? Beneath the charts lies a warning: what we believe can be as dangerous as what we ignore.
- Originally published: 2000
- Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2016
- Genre: Non-fiction
- Pages: 392
- Book Type: Hardcopy
- ISBN: 9780691173122
- Access: Members!
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Bad Samaritans: The Guilty Secrets of Rich Nations and the Threat to Global Prosperity
What if those who claim to rescue the global poor are the very ones tightening their chains? Bad Samaritans rips away the moral façade of free-market evangelism, revealing a world where rich nations preach openness while guarding their own prosperity behind walls of hypocrisy. With sharp wit and unforgiving logic, it exposes the quiet sabotage embedded in economic advice—how development is stifled not by corruption or incompetence alone, but by the deliberate policies of those who “help.” Is the path to progress paved by imitation, or rebellion? This book dares readers to question the fairness of the global order—and to see who truly benefits when the powerful cry reform.
- Originally Published: 2007
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008
- Genre: Non-fiction
- Pages: 288
- Book Type: Hardcopy
- ISBN: 9781905211371
- Access: Members
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Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich
Behind the polished gates of global finance and industry, Plutocrats peels back the gilded curtain on a new ruling class—one whose influence stretches beyond borders and whose wealth multiplies as inequality deepens. With unsettling clarity and a journalist’s eye for paradox, the book charts how meritocracy mutates into oligarchy, and how ambition, once a ladder for the many, becomes a fortress for the few. Are today’s ultra-rich the architects of progress, or the harbingers of social fracture? As the fortunes of the elite soar ever higher, the real question emerges: can a world tilted so steeply still hold together?
- Originally Published: 2012
- Publisher: The Penguin Press, 2013
- Genre: Non-fiction
- Pages: 352
- Book Type: Hardcopy
- ISBN: 9780141043425
- Access: Members