Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Joseph Henrich

'A landmark in social thought. Henrich may go down as the most influential social scientist of the first half of the twenty-first century' MATTHEW SYED 
 
Do you identify yourself by your profession or achievements, rather than your family network? Do you cultivate your unique attributes and goals? If so, perhaps you are WEIRD: raised in a society that is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. 
 
Unlike most who have ever lived, WEIRD people are highly individualistic, nonconformist, analytical and control-oriented. How did WEIRD populations become so psychologically peculiar? What part did these differences play in our history, and what do they mean for our collective identity? 
 
Joseph Henrich, who developed the game-changing concept of WEIRD, uses leading-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics and evolutionary biology to explore how changing family structures, marriage practices and religious beliefs in the Middle Ages shaped the Western mind, laying the foundations for the world we know today. Brilliant, provocative, engaging and surprising, this landmark study will revolutionize your understanding of who - and how - we are now. 
 
'Phenomenal ... The only theory I am aware of that attempts to explain broad patterns of human psychology on a global scale' Washington Post 
 
'You will never look again in the same way at your own seemingly universal values' Uta Frith, Professor of Cognitive Development, University College London

The Weirdest People in the World

How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous

Joseph E. Stiglitz

Why has inequality increased in the Western world - and what can we do about it? In The Great Divide, Joseph E. Stiglitz expands on the diagnosis he offered in his best-selling book The Price of Inequality and suggests ways to counter this growing problem. With his characteristic blend of clarity and passion, Stiglitz argues that inequality is a choice - the cumulative result of unjust policies and misguided priorities. 
 
In these essays, articles and reflections, Stiglitz fully exposes the inequality - from its dimensions and its causes to its consequences for the world - that is afflicting America and other Western countries in thrall to neoliberalism. From Reagan-era policies to the Great Recession and its long aftermath, Stiglitz delves into the processes and irresponsible policies - deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, the corruption of the political process - that are leaving many people further and further behind and turning the dream of a socially mobile society into an ever more unachievable myth. With formidable yet accessible economic insight, he urges us to embrace real solutions: increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthy; investing in education, science, and infrastructure; helping homeowners instead of banks; and, most importantly, doing more to restore the economy to full employment. Stiglitz's analysis reaches beyond America - the inequality leader of the developed world - to draw lessons from Scandinavia, Singapore, and Japan, and he argues against the tide of unnecessary, destructive austerity that is sweeping across Europe. 
 
Ultimately, Stiglitz believes our choice is not between growth and fairness; with the right policies, we can choose both.

The Great Divide

Can the Euro be saved? Should it be? 
 
Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz dismantles the prevailing consensus around what ails Europe - arguing that economic stagnation is a direct result of the Euro's flawed birth, demolishing the champions of austerity and offering solutions that can rescue the continent from further devastation. 
 
'Stiglitz could hardly have timed The Euro better ... one of those economists with a rare ability to help readers understand complex ideas' Philip Aldrick, The Times 
 
'Original, hard-hitting ... Much more than a demolition job. These chapters are full of constructive proposals' Martin Sandbu, Financial Times 
 
'Terrific and clarifying' Peter Goodman, The New York Times 
 
'Coolly analytical ... he is surely right: without a radical overhaul of its workings, the Euro seems all but certain to fail' Economist

The Euro

And its Threat to the Future of Europe

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz explains why we are experiencing such destructively high levels of inequality - and why this is not inevitable 
 
 The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn't seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn - too late. 
 
 In this timely book, Joseph Stiglitz identifies three major causes of our predicament: that markets don't work the way they are supposed to (being neither efficient nor stable); how political systems fail to correct the shortcomings of the market; and how our current economic and political systems are fundamentally unfair. He focuses chiefly on the gross inequality to which these systems give rise, but also explains how inextricably interlinked they are. Providing evidence that investment - not austerity - is vital for productivity, and offering realistic solutions for levelling the playing field and increasing social mobility, Stiglitz argues that reform of our economic and political systems is not just fairer, but is the only way to make markets work as they really should. 
 
 Joseph Stiglitz was Chief Economist at the World Bank until January 2000. He is currently University Professor of the Columbia Business School and Chair of the Management Board and Director of Graduate Summer Programs, Brooks World Poverty Institute, University of Manchester. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001 and is the best-selling author of Globalization and Its Discontents, The Roaring Nineties, Making Globalization Work and Freefall, all published by Penguin.

The Price of Inequality

Joseph Sassoon

The Sassoons were one of the great business dynasties of the nineteenth century, as eminent as traders as the Rothschilds were bankers. This book reveals the secrets behind the family's phenomenal success: how a handful of Jewish exiles from Ottoman Baghdad forged a mercantile juggernaut from their new home in colonial Bombay, the vast network of agents, informants and politicians they built, and the way they came to bridge East and West, culturally as well as commercially. 
 
Through the lives these ambitious figures built for themselves, the reader is drawn into a captivating world of politics and power, innovation and intrigue, high society and empire. The Global Merchants is thus at once a portrait of a single family and a panorama of the hundred and thirty years of their prominence: from the Opium Wars to the American Civil War, the establishment of the British Raj to India's independence. Together these give a fresh perspective on one of the defining forces of their age and the present: globalization. The Sassoons were variously its agents, advocates and casualties, and watching them moving through the world, we perceive the making of our own.

The Global Merchants

The Enterprise and Extravagance of the Sassoon Dynasty

Niall Ferguson

This second volume of Niall Ferguson&rsquo;s acclaimed, landmark history of the legendary Rothschild banking dynasty concludes his myth-breaking portrait of one of the most powerful and fascinating families of modern times. With all the depth, clarity and drama with which he traced the Rothschild&rsquo;s ascent, Ferguson shows how their power waned as conflicts from Crimea to the Second World War repeatedly threatened the stability of their worldwide empire, and how their failure to establish themselves successfully in the United States would prove fateful. At once a classic family saga and a major work of economic, social and political history, this is the definitive biography of some of the most powerful financiers of recent times.

The House of Rothschild

The World's Banker 1849-1998

We all have the sense that our economy tilts toward big business, but, as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains in People, Power, and Profits, a few corporations now dominate entire sectors, contributing to skyrocketing inequality and slow growth. This is how the financial industry has managed to write its own regulations, tech companies have accumulated reams of personal data without oversight, and the government has negotiated trade deals that fail to represent the interests of workers. Too many have made their wealth through exploitation of others rather than through wealth creation. New technologies may make matters worse, increasing inequality and unemployment. 
 
Stiglitz identifies the true sources of wealth and of increases in standards of living, based on learning, advances in science and technology, and the rule of law. He shows that the assault on the judiciary, universities, and the media undermines the very institutions that have long been the foundation of economic prosperity and democracy. He sets out the economic solutions which will exploit the benefits of markets while taming their excesses, and how a decent middle-class life can once again be attainable for all.

People, Power, and Profits

Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent

Andrew Ross Sorkin

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BBC SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 2010 
 
 
They were masters of the financial universe, flying in private jets and raking in billions. They thought they were too big to fail. Yet they would bring the world to its knees. 
 
Andrew Ross Sorkin, the news-breaking New York Times journalist, delivers the first true in-the-room account of the most powerful men and women at the eye of the financial storm - from reviled Lehman Brothers CEO Dick 'the gorilla' Fuld, to banking whiz Jamie Dimon, from bullish Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to AIG's Joseph Cassano, dubbed 'The Man Who Crashed the World'. 
 
Through unprecedented access to the key players, Sorkin meticulously re-creates frantic phone calls, foul-mouthed rows and white-knuckle panic, as Wall Street fought to save itself.

Too Big to Fail

Inside the Battle to Save Wall Street

Ian Kehoe

Gavin Daly

A few years ago, Sean Quinn was ranked among the two hundred richest people in the world, with a personal fortune of some $6 billion. Today he is bust, and his businesses have been taken from him. His efforts to keep his assets from his creditors have seen him sent to jail for contempt of court. He and his family remain embroiled in one of the biggest and most dramatic legal battles in Irish history. 
 
How did it all happen? In Citizen Quinn, Ian Kehoe and Gavin Daly tell the most extraordinary single story of the Irish crash.

Citizen Quinn

Frank McDonald

Kathy Sheridan

In the past fifteen years, Ireland has gone from being one of the poorest countries in the EU to one of the richest in the world. Of all the factors in this extraordinary transformation, none has been more prominent than the astonishing boom in construction. In The Builders, Frank McDonald and Kathy Sheridan tell the stories of these men and of the changes - physical and psychological - they have brought about. The story of Ireland's property developers has been the great untold story of the boom - until now.

The Builders

How a Small Group of Property Developers Fuelled the Building Boom and Transformed Ireland

In his rich and nuanced portrait of the remarkable, elusive Rothschild family, Oxford scholar and bestselling author Niall Ferguson uncovers the secrets behind the family's phenomenal economic success. He reveals for the first time the details of the family's vast political network, which gave it access to and influence over many of the greatest statesmen of the age. And he tells a family saga, tracing the importance of unity and the profound role of Judaism in the lives of a dynasty that rose from the confines of the Frankfurt ghetto and later used its influence to assist oppressed Jews throughout Europe. A definitive work of impeccable scholarship with a thoroughly engaging narrative, &lsquo;The House of Rothschild&rsquo; is a biography of the rarest kind, in which mysterious and fascinating historical figures finally spring to life.

Money's Prophets 1798-1848

Why isn't globalization benefitting as many people as it should? Joe Stiglitz shows us that things can change and that an optimistic world can exist where globalization really does work. 
 
Stiglitz examines how change has occurred rapidly over the past four years, proposing solutions and looking to the future. He puts forward radical new ways of dealing with the crippling indebtedness of developing countries, a new system of global reserves to overcome international financial instability and a new framework, combining economic incentives and principles of equity, for dealing with the greatest threat to our planet, global warming &ndash; one which is more likely to be accepted both by the US and the developing world than previous proposals. He argues convincingly for the reform of global institutions such as the UN, the IMF and the World Bank to make them truly capable of responding to the problems of our age and shows why treating developing countries more fairly is not only morally right, but ultimately will be to the benefit of the developed countries as well.

Making Globalization Work

The Next Steps to Global Justice

Shane Ross

As recently as 2007, the Irish economy was still booming and the state coffers overflowing; by the end of 2008, the state faces an unprecedented crisis. The story of the Irish banking collapse is a tawdry tale of collusion, back-scratching and denial among bankers, developers, regulators and politicians. 
 
This is the story Shane Ross - independent Senator, long-time champion of citizens against misbehaving corporations, and Journalist of the Year 2009 - tells in The Bankers, going behind the scenes and the headlines to explain what happened, how it happened and who made it happen. They're all here: Sean FitzPatrick, Michael Fingleton and the other bank bosses; Patrick Neary and his colleagues in Ireland's failed regulatory apparatus; the property developers, whose borrowings ruined the banks, and many of whom are now personally ruined; and the politicians, whose policies helped inflate the property bubble and who have allowed the banks to dictate the terms of their bail-out. Shane Ross knows the stories of these people and what they got up to, and in The Bankers he makes sense of a scandal that will haunt Ireland for years to come.

The Bankers

How the Banks Brought Ireland to Its Knees

Michael Lewis

From Black Monday to the Asian financial crisis, from the internet bubble to mortgage meltdown, our lives are ruled by crazy cycles of euphoria and hysteria that manage to grip the world but are all-too-soon forgotten. 
 
In this unique collection of articles Michael Lewis - ex-trader and bestselling chronicler of greed and frenzy in the markets - casts a sceptical eye back over the most panicked-about panics of recent decades. He tells a story of boom and bust, deranged greed, outsized egos and over-inflated salaries, where the only thing that can ever be predicted is our constant inability to predict anything. 
 
Using contemporary accounts from commentators such as Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs and Paul Krugman, plus many of his own best writings, Michael Lewis gives us a completely new insight into how markets really operate - and who really knows what they're talking about.

Panic!

The Story of Modern Financial Insanity

Dearbhail McDonald

When, after fifteen years of runaway growth based largely on property speculation, the Irish economy finally crashed, Ireland's bankers and developers tried to keep themselves out of sight. But they couldn't keep themselves out of court - and it is in the courtrooms that the full, sickening drama of the Irish meltdown is being played out. 
 
Dearbhail McDonald, the legal editor of the Irish Independent, has been following the high-stakes rows through the courts and, drawing upon her unmatched contacts, tells the often bizarre stories behind an extraordinary reversal of fortune. From the man who ran a pyramid scheme in a Dublin suburb to the leading developers whose business now lies in ruins, from the man who lost billions on Anglo Irish Bank to the ordinary mortgage-holders who find themselves on the wrong side of the law, Bust paints a gripping picture of the human drama - and the human cost - of an economic catastrophe.

Bust

How the Courts Have Exposed the Rotten Heart of the Irish Economy

Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot. Call it what you like, it matters now more than ever. In The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson shows that finance is the foundation of all human progress and the lifeblood of history. From the cash injection that funded the Italian Renaissance to the stock market bubble that sparked the French Revolution, from the bonds that fuelled Britain's war effort to the Wall Street Crash and today's meltdown, this is the story of boom and bust as it's never been told before. Whether you're scraping by or rolling in it, there's no better time to understand the ascent of money.

The Ascent of Money

A Financial History of the World

Matt Cooper

From the night when the Irish government guaranteed the debts of Irish banks in September 2008, to November 2010 when heavy hitters from the IMF and the ECB arrived in government buildings, Ireland was on a one-way road to ruin. 
 
In How Ireland Really Went Bust Matt Cooper, journalist, broadcaster and No 1 bestselling author of Who Really Runs Ireland?, describes the tumultuous events of that period and he assesses the fall-out and what it means for Ireland's future. Drilling deep into the the economic collapse and the unprecedented political upheaval that characterised the time after the bank bailout and led to a game-changing general election, Cooper gets to the heart of what really happened. He investigates the background of the key decisions and reveals why they were taken, and by whom, to throw new light on a period that has changed Ireland forever.

How Ireland Really Went Bust

Tom Lyons

Brian Carey

One day in May 2009, Sean FitzPatrick - the disgraced former chief executive and chairman of Anglo Irish Bank - sat down to lunch in a Holiday Inn in Dublin. Across the table sat Tom Lyons, a business reporter with the Sunday Times. 
 
Seven months later, the two met for the first of what would be seventeen formal, tape-recorded interviews over the course of 2010: a year when Ireland, its public finances ruined in large part by the cost of covering Anglo's losses, went bust itself. In these interviews, FitzPatrick talked at length and in detail about his banking experiences and philosophy, his colleagues and clients, his investments, his public disgrace, his arrest and his bankruptcy. 
 
Lyons and his colleague Brian Carey, who have been covering the Anglo story brilliantly since the bank's crisis began in 2007, have drawn on the FitzPatrick tapes and on their many sources within Anglo, the state and the business community to tell the story of that crisis - and of the man who became the face of it. This is a tale of toothless regulators, hopeless accountants, politicians and civil servants out of their depth, and businessmen in denial about the crash. Above all, though, it is the story of FitzPatrick: the man who built that bank that has been at the centre of Ireland's economic meltdown.

The FitzPatrick Tapes

The Rise and Fall of One Man, One Bank, and One Country

Cecil Woodham-Smith

The Irish potato famine of the 1840s, perhaps the most appalling event of the Victorian era, killed over a million people and drove as many more to emigrate to America. It may not have been the result of deliberate government policy, yet British &lsquo;obtuseness, short-sightedness and ignorance&rsquo; &ndash; and stubborn commitment to laissez-faire &lsquo;solutions&rsquo; &ndash; largely caused the disaster and prevented any serious efforts to relieve suffering. The continuing impact on Anglo-Irish relations was incalculable, the immediate human cost almost inconceivable. In this vivid and disturbing book Cecil Woodham-Smith provides the definitive account. 
 
&lsquo;A moving and terrible book. It combines great literary power with great learning. It explains much in modern Ireland &ndash; and in modern America&rsquo; D.W. Brogan.

The Great Hunger

Ireland 1845-1849

Tony Connelly

Brexit represents potentially the single greatest economic and foreign-policy challenge to the Irish state since the Second World War. There is hardly any area of Irish life that won't be affected. 
 
More than any other journalist, RTE's long-time Brussels correspondent Tony Connelly has been helping the public make sense of the implications of Brexit for Ireland. Now, he tells the dramatic inside story of the Irish response to this political and economic earthquake and lays out the agenda for the uncertain years ahead. 
 
Based on extensive interviews with insiders in Dublin, London, Belfast and Brussels, Brexit and Ireland is full of insights about how the EU actually works, and of colourful and revealing stories from the corridors of power. It is a must-read for anyone who cares about Ireland's future.

Brexit and Ireland

The Dangers, the Opportunities, and the Inside Story of the Irish Response

Philip Augar

'A brilliantly readable account, based on exceptional access, of the transformation of the old Quaker bank into a hard-charging capitalist adventurer ... both a thriller and a reminder that business is fascinating because all human life is there' John Plender, Financial Times 
 
Based on unparalleled access to those involved, and told with compelling pace and drama, The Bank that Lived a Little describes three decades of boardroom intrigue at one of Britain's biggest financial institutions. In a tale of feuds, grandiose dreams and a struggle for supremacy between rival strategies and their adherents, Philip Augar gives a riveting account of Barclays' journey from an old Quaker bank to a full-throttle capitalist machine. The disagreement between those ambitious for Barclays to join the top table of global banks, and those preferring a smaller domestic role more in keeping with the bank's traditions, cost three chief executives their jobs and continues to divide opinion within Barclays, the City and beyond. 
 
This is an extraordinary corporate thriller, which among much else describes how Barclays came to buy Lehman Brothers for a bargain price in 2008, why it was so keen to avoid taking government funding during the financial crisis, and the price shareholders have paid for a decade of barely controlled ambition. But Augar also shows how Barclays' experiences are a paradigm for Britain's social and economic life over thirty years, which saw the City move from the edge of the economy to its very centre. These decades created unprecedented prosperity for a tiny number, and made the reputations of governments and individuals but then left many of them in tatters. 
 
The leveraged society, the winner-takes-all mentality and our present era of austerity can all be traced to the influence of banks such as Barclays. Augar's book tells this rollercoaster story from the perspective of many of its participants - and also of those affected by the grip they came to have on Britain.

The Bank That Lived a Little

Barclays in the Age of the Very Free Market

Simon Carswell

The Number 1 Bestseller - The definitive history of the bank that brought Ireland to ruin 
 
As late as 2007, Anglo Irish Bank was a darling of the markets, internationally recognized as one of the fastest growing financial institutions in the world. By 2008, it was bust. The Irish government's hopeless attempts to save Anglo have led the state to ruin - culminating in a punitive IMF bailout in late 2010 and threatening the future of the euro. 
 
Now, for the first time, the full story of the bank the Sunday Times described as 'a building society on crack' is being told - by the journalist who has led the way in coverage of Anglo and its many secrets. Drawing on his unmatched sources in and around Anglo, Simon Carswell of the Irish Times shows how the business model that brought Anglo twenty years of spectacular growth was also at the heart of its - and Ireland's - downfall. He paints a vivid and disturbing picture of life inside Anglo - the credit committee meetings, the lightning-quick negotiations with property developers, the culture of lavish entertainment - and of the men who presided over its dizzying rise and fall: Sean FitzPatrick, David Drumm, Willie McAteer and many others. This is not only the first full account of the Anglo disaster; it will also be the definitive one.

Anglo Republic

Inside the bank that broke Ireland

David McWilliams

Ireland is deeply in debt, beholden to the IMF, the EU and the bond markets. Its economy is frozen, and years of austerity are ahead. 
 
It didn't have to be this way - and it doesn't have to be this way. In The Good Room, David McWilliams - who spotted the Irish property bubble and warned of imbalances within the eurozone at a time when other commentators were cheerleading the boom - explains the bizarre economics and peculiar psychology behind Ireland's predicament. He brings us on a tour of his granny's 'good room' - a shrine of respectability, reserved for important visitors - and shows how our ruling class has succumbed to a perverse 'good room' mentality, seeking always to appease our supposed betters. He explains why austerity can't work and shows that history offers numerous useful models for Irish recovery. And, through the character of Olivia Vickers - a young woman struggling to repay her mortgage - he illustrates the consequences of debt and austerity for ordinary Irish people. 
 
Economics is about people like you. The Pope's Children was the book that connected the dots between economics and daily life in Ireland during the boom years. The Good Room does the same for the Ireland of today, and is - in its call for a completely different approach - an even more urgent and necessary book.

The Good Room

Why we ended up in a debtors' prison – and how we can break free

Adam Tooze

In September 2008 the Great Financial Crisis, triggered by the collapse of Lehman brothers, shook the world. A decade later its spectre still haunts us. As the appalling scope and scale of the crash was revealed, the financial institutions that had symbolised the West's triumph since the end of the Cold War, seemed - through greed, malice and incompetence - to be about to bring the entire system to its knees. 
 
Crashed is a brilliantly original and assured analysis of what happened and how we were rescued from something even worse - but at a price which continues to undermine democracy across Europe and the United States. Gnawing away at our institutions are the many billions of dollars which were conjured up to prevent complete collapse. Over and over again, the end of the crisis has been announced, but it continues to hound us - whether in Greece or Ukraine, whether through Brexit or Trump. Adam Tooze follows the trail like no previous writer and has written a book compelling as history, as economic analysis and as political horror story.

Crashed

How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

John Cassidy

At a time when we are faced with fundamental questions about the sustainability and morality of the economic system, Capitalism and Its Critics provides a kaleidoscopic history of global capitalism, from colonialism and the Industrial Revolution to the ecological crisis and artificial intelligence. 
 
John Cassidy tells the story through the eyes of the system’s critics across the globe: from eighteenth-century weavers who rebelled against early factory automation to Eric Williams's paradigm-changing work on slavery and capitalism, to the Latin American dependistas, the international Wages for Housework campaign of the 1970s, and the modern degrowth movement; from familiar figures like Smith, Marx, Luxemburg, Keynes, Polanyi to the lesser-known voices such as William Thompson, the Irish proto-socialist whose work influenced Marx; Flora Tristan, the French proponent of a universal labour union; John Hobson, the original theorist of imperialism; and J. C. Kumarappa, the Indian exponent of Gandhian economics. 
 
Blending biography, panoramic history, and lively exploration of economic theories, Capitalism and Its Critics illuminates the deep roots of many of the most urgent issues of our time.

Capitalism and Its Critics

A Battle of Ideas in the Modern World

John Lanchester

John Lanchester's Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay is the unbelievable true story of the economic crisis. 
 
 We are, to use a technical economic term, screwed. The cowboy capitalists had a party with everyone's money and now we're all paying for it. What went wrong? And will we learn our lesson - or just carry on as before, like celebrating surviving a heart attack with a packet of Rothmans? 
 
 John Lanchester travels with a cast of characters - including reckless banksters, snoozing regulators, complacent politicians, predatory lenders, credit-drunk spendthrifts, and innocent bystanders to understand deeply and genuinely what is happening and why we feel the way we do. 
 
 'Devastatingly funny ... the route map to the crazed world of contemporary finance we have all been waiting for' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Will Self 
 
 'Bang on the money' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Independent 
 
 'Explains the crisis in a way that actually sticks ... to my amazement, I finally grasp it' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Janice Turner, The Times 
 
 'Endlessly witty ... will turn any reader into an expert within the space of 200 pages' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Jonathan Coe 
 
 'Terrific ... there is no better guide to the crazy world of high finance' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;GQ 
 
 John Lanchester is a journalist, novelist and winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award. His fiction includes Mr Philips, The Debt to Pleasure and Capital. He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and the New Yorker, with a monthly column in Esquire.

Whoops!

Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

'Really made me think about how I think' - Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit West 
 
Tough times don't last. Tough people do. 
 
In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. Here Taleb stands uncer&shy;tainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resil&shy;ient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. 
 
Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls antifragile are things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. 
 
Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb's message is revolutionary: the antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it. 
 
'The hottest thinker in the world' Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times

Antifragile

Things that Gain from Disorder

Lawrence McDonald

James Robinson

'Any investor with skin in the game needs to buy this book.' Niall Ferguson 
 
From Wall Street to the White House, the fantasy of an eventual 'return to normal' is still alive and well. But the economic world as we know it - and the rules that govern it - are over. And few are prepared. 
 
Here, market risk expert Lawrence McDonald unveils the predictive model he developed in the aftermath of Lehman Brothers’ collapse, outlining actionable trading ideas for a radically reshaped economy. Readers will discover: 
<ul><li>Why inflation will stay near 3-5% for the next decade</li><li>Why hard assets and rare minerals like lithium and cobalt will outperform growth stocks and passive investment strategies</li><li>Why America will likely lose its position as a global superpower and holder of the world's premier reserve currency</li></ul> 
Rather than merely doomsaying, How to Listen When Markets Speak equips readers to make sense of our current moment, resist reactionary narratives and baseless analysis and pounce on a new investing playbook.

How to Listen When Markets Speak

Risks, Myths and Investment Opportunities in a Radically Reshaped Economy

Edward Chancellor

All economic and financial activities take place across time. Interest coordinates these activities. The story of capitalism is thus the story of interest: the price that individuals, companies and nations pay to borrow money. 
 
In The Price of Time, Edward Chancellor traces the history of interest from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia, through debates about usury in Restoration Britain and John Law ' s ill-fated Mississippi scheme, to the global credit booms of the twenty-first century. We generally assume that high interest rates are harmful, but Chancellor argues that, whenever money is too easy, financial markets become unstable. He takes the story to the present day, when interest rates have sunk lower than at any time in the five millennia since they were first recorded - including the extraordinary appearance of negative rates in Europe and Japan - and highlights how this has contributed to profound economic insecurity and financial fragility. 
 
Chancellor reveals how extremely low interest rates not only create asset price inflation but are also largely responsible for weak economic growth, rising inequality, zombie companies, elevated debt levels and the pensions crises that have afflicted the West in recent years - conditions under which economies cannot possibly thrive. At the same time, easy money in China has inflated an epic real estate bubble, accompanied by the greatest credit and investment boom in history. As the global financial system edges closer to yet another crisis, Chancellor shows that only by understanding interest can we hope to face the challenges ahead.

The Price of Time

The Real Story of Interest

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 
'Silicon Valley needed a history lesson and Ferguson has provided it' Eric Schmidt 
 
Most history is about the people at the top of the towers of power. But what if the real action is in the social networks down below, in the town squares? Niall Ferguson, the international bestselling author of Empire, The Ascent of Money and Civilization, brilliantly recasts past and present as an unending contest between hierarchies and networks. 
 
'Provocative, snappy, a rare book ... fasten your seatbelts' Peter Frankopan, Daily Telegraph 
 
'Immensely stimulating, absorbing, illuminating ... sends ideas blazing all over the place ... one of the best popular historians of our time' David Goodhart, Prospect 
 
'Powerful, fast-paced ... a pull-yourself-together warning to the present by way of arresting historical precedent' Andrew Anthony, Guardian 
 
'Captivating and compelling' Jonathan A. Knee, The New York Times

The Square and the Tower

Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power

biblio.categories.code

biblio.publicationStatus

biblio.brand

biblio.workEditions.format

biblio.ageRange

biblio.series.seriesName

biblio.imprint.description

biblio.type

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Best-Jane-Austen-quotes_Online-Desktop_Penguin

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Search Results

The Fall of the West

Hunt the Villain

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Fight or Flight (Book 21)

The Mortons

Watch a trailer for The Spook's Blood

A photograph of Ben Barnes in character for Shadow and Bone Netflix series.

Interviews

Shadow and Bone’s Ben Barnes on tear-jerking books and what he’s reading

An image showing a selection of adventure stories for 9-12 year olds on a bright yellow background with orange doodles that include a hashtag, flag, danger sign and speech bubble

Children's reading lists

16 books for 9 to 12-year-olds that love adventures

An image of a selection of books for 9-12s on a blue background with a large splodge and striped print

24 must-read books for 9-12-year-olds

A picture of several different children's books on a pink to blue ombre background; each book has a bright yellow shadow

Showing results for: ‘joseph delaney’

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Series

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter