Making merchants

the cultural construction of a merchant class in early modern Germany

Using a rare collection of personal narratives written by successful merchants in early modern German-speaking Europe, this study examines how such men understood their role in commerce and in society more generally. As they told it, their honor was based not just on riches won ...

Las puertas del mundo

Europa y la globalización medieval

Las puertas del mundo de Paolo Grillo ofrecen una fascinante mirada a la «globalización» medieval. A través de mercaderes, misioneros y aventureros, el autor nos lleva a explorar las vastas llanuras mongolas, la India y África, revelando cómo Europa, lejos de ser el centro, se ...

The Nobel family

Swedish geniuses in Tsarist Russia

This absorbing collective biography of the genius Nobel family reveals how the Nobels' business and personal lives were fundamentally intertwined with the histories of Sweden and Russia, as well as the economic and entrepreneurial development of Europe in the long 19th century. The name Nobel ...

Biomass, capitalism, and hegemony

a rich and powerful history

How did Europeans achieve global dominance and continue to satisfy their ever-growing needs? How do we explain the effects this has on the rest of the world? In his magnum opus, published here in English for the first time as an open access book, world-renowned ...

Sangre en las máquinas

Los orígenes de la rebelión contra las grandes tecnológicas

La historia más urgente de la tecnología moderna no comienza en Silicon Valley, sino hace doscientos años en la Inglaterra rural, cuando los trabajadores conocidos como los luditas se rebelaron para no morir de hambre a manos de los dueños de las fábricas que usaban ...

Unbroken chains

a 5,000-year history of African enslavement

A new, full history of slavery in Africa, from the Pharaohs to the present. Slavery has ravaged African societies since at least 2,500 BCE, from Egypt to the Cape; from Mauritania to Somalia. Most writing covers just one fraction of this history: the horrors ...

Earth shapers

how humans mastered geography and remade the world

Mountains, meridians, rivers and borders; these are some of the features that carve up the world on our maps and in our minds. But geography is far less set in stone than we might believe and, over time, we have become experts at reshaping our ...

The secret history of gold

myth, money, politics and power

The Secret History of Gold tells the epic tale of the world’s oldest, and most treasured, currency. From its origins in the formation of the solar system to its pivotal role in both ancient myth and modern finance, Dominic Frisby explores, with wit and ...

Breve historia de la Economía

Este pequeño libro cuenta una gran historia. Desde la Antigüedad hasta el mundo moderno, Breve historia de la economía deja al descubierto las fuerzas económicas ocultas tras las guerras, las innovaciones y las transformaciones sociales. Nos cuenta cómo surgieron el capitalismo y el sistema de ...

El agente suizo

Fuga de capitales en la España de Franco

Barcelona, 1958. La Policía detiene a la puerta de un hotel a Georges Laurent Rivara, agente de la banca suiza, que lleva años entrando al país sin que hasta entonces haya ocurrido nada. Pero esta vez es distinto. Su caída precipitará el mayor escándalo financiero ...

El Estado pesebre

Una historia de las élites españolas

Un impresionante y actual repaso histórico, desde la Edad Media hasta nuestros días, de cómo las oligarquías han parasitado el dinero público en España. Un título de referencia para la historia de las élites económicas en España y para la historia de la corrupción política ...

La riqueza de la deuda pública

(siglos XII-XXI)

La riqueza de la deuda pública (siglo XII-XXI) ofrece un análisis histórico de la deuda pública en Europa, desde la Edad Media hasta el siglo XXI, revelando cómo ha impulsado el progreso de los Estados. A través del endeudamiento se financiaron infraestructuras, se sostuvieron conflictos ...

Dinero

La fuerza que mueve el mundo

Un fascinante ensayo que explica cómo funciona un elemento tan esencial como desconocido en nuestras vidas«Tan entretenido como esclarecedor.» Yanis Varoufakis «Un relato enormemente ambicioso, perspicaz y ameno sobre nuestra relación con el dinero.» Financial Times «Tanto lectores no especializados como economistas disfrutarán de ...

La bisabuelita

Género, esclavitud y finanzas entre La Habana y Barcelona

En la primavera de 1891, Mercedes Llopart Xiqués redactó en el monasterio de Montserrat un manuscrito que narraba la vida de su abuela, Manuela Xiqués Romagosa, nacida en La Habana en 1807 y fallecida en Barcelona ese mismo año. Aquel testimonio íntimo, titulado La bisabuelita ...

The wolves of K Street

the secret history of how big money took over big government

A dazzling and infuriating portrait of fifty years of corporate influence in Washington, The Wolves of K Street is a "not-so-guilty pleasure" (The New York Times): irresistibly dramatic, spectacularly timely, explosive in its revelations, and impossible to put down. In the 1970s, Washington's center ...

An economic history of the Iberian Peninsula, 700-2000

This is a comprehensive long-run history of economic and political change in the Iberian Peninsula. Beginning with the development of the old medieval kingdoms, it goes on to explore two countries, Portugal and Spain, which during the early modern period possessed vast empires and played ...

Freedom for capital, not people

the Mont Pèlerin Society and the origins of the neoliberal monetary order

Based on new archival sources, Freedom for Capital, Not People tells the story of how the Mont Pèlerin Society transformed the world economy. Founded in 1947 by economist Friedrich von Hayek, by the turn of the 1970s the society commanded influence at the highest levels ...

The national debt

a short history

While it is central to today's politics, few people fully understand the National Debt and its role in shaping the course of British history. Without it, Britain would not have gained--and lost--two empires, nor won its wars against France and Germany. But Britain has ...

A modern economic history of Japan

sho ga nai (It is what it is)

Japan rose over the course of a hundred and twenty years from outright backwardness to the elite tier of the advanced economies. This was a great achievement, and one realised despite the nation succumbing to a damaging interlude of totalitarianism and subsequently suffering the most ...

Blood & treasure

the economics of conflict from the Vikings to Ukraine

Wars are expensive, both in human terms and monetary ones. Since at least the 1640s, in the aftermath of the British Civil Wars, the phrase 'blood and treasure' has sought to encapsulate these costs. Two economic notions, in particular, feature in this book: incentives and ...