Aaron Dignan is the founder of The Ready--a global organizational transformation and coaching practice--that helps companies large and small adopt new forms of self-organization and dynamic teaming. Clients include Johnson &amp; Johnson, Microsoft, Lloyds Bank, Citibank, Boeing, Mailchimp, Airbnb, Dropbox, and charity: water. 
 
He is also the founder of Murmur--a SaaS startup that helps teams scale culture through the magic of working agreements. The Murmur platform will allow every team on the planet to define and share their ways of working. 
 
Dignan is the author of Brave New Work (2019) and Game Frame (2011), co-host of the Brave New Work podcast, and a friend to misfit toys.

Aaron Dignan

Aaron Edwards is a senior lecturer in defence and international affairs at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, specialising in terrorism and counter-insurgency. He is the author and editor of several books, including Defending the Realm: The Politics of Britain’s Small Wars Since 1945, and has lectured all over the world on aspects of national and international security. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Aaron Edwards

Aaron Robertson is a writer, an editor, and a translator of Italian literature. His translation of Igiaba Scego’s Beyond Babylon was short-listed for the 2020 PEN Translation Prize and the National Translation Award, and in 2021 he received a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, n+1, The Point, and Literary Hub, among other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Aaron Robertson

Aaron Shapiro

Aaron T Beck

Aaron Vallance

Aaron Young was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, and read Politics and Communications at The University of Liverpool. He is a BAFTA-nominated director, producer and executive producer with over 20 years of experience across projects for the BBC, PBS, Channel 4, Channel 5, UKTV, UK Film Council and Arts Council England. A long-time collaborator of acclaimed historian, James Holland, he is the producer and director of the BAFTA-shortlisted BBC titles ‘Battle of Britain: The Real Story’ and, ‘Dam Busters: The Race to Smash the German Dams’, as well as ‘The Battle for Malta’, ‘Normandy ’44: The Battle Beyond D-Day’, the RTS-nominated ‘Imphal &amp; Kohima: Britain’s Greatest Battle.’, and the 3-part series, 'Normandy '44: D-Day and the Battle for France. His most recent credits include 'Hidden Histories of WWII', 'Lost Temples of Cambodia', the RTS-winning ‘Lost Home Movies of Nazi Germany’, and ‘Prue Leith: Journey with My Daughter’. Aaron was named in the inaugural list of BAFTA ‘Brits to Watch.’ He is the co-owner of award-winning film and television production company, Bright Button Productions, and lives with his wife and children in Poundbury, Dorset.

Aaron Young

Aatish Taseer

Abbe Prevost

Abbey Bryant is an NYC-based award-winning illustrator. With her BFA in Children's Book Illustration, her notable illustrated books include Nautilus award winner Hazel Mist, Hypnotist as well as an Enchanted Fairy House Kit with Scholastic's Klutz! 
 
As a queer illustrator, LGBTQ+ themes and stories hold a spot near to her heart. Most days she can be found around the city drawing New Yorkers or sketching trees at the park.

Abbey Bryant

Abbey Clancy is a model, television presenter and the host of chart-topping podcast The Therapy Crouch. She was the runner-up of Britain's Next Top Model in 2006, winner of Strictly Come Dancing in 2013 and went on to present Britain's Next Top Model. Later this year she will host Celebrity Homes on ITV.

Abbey Clancy

Abbie Greaves studied at Cambridge University before working in a literary agency for a number of years. She was inspired to write her first novel, The Silent Treatment, after reading a newspaper article about a boy in Japan who had never seen his parents speak to one another before. 
 
Abbie lives in Brighton with her boyfriend.

Abbie Greaves

Abbie Ross is a British author and psychotherapist. Her first book, Hippy Dinners, a funny and poignant memoir of her bohemian childhood in 1970s North Wales, has been optioned by Baby Cow, who are developing it into an 8-part television series. 
Before turning to writing, Abbie had a successful career as a producer at Aardman Animations, the acclaimed studios behind Wallace &amp; Gromit and the film Chicken Run. 
Today, she divides her time between her thriving psychotherapy practice in Bristol, and her writing, and finds that the two careers complement each other perfectly.

Abbie Ross

Abbie Spallen

Abbie Taylor lives in Dublin. She works as a doctor and has two daughters.

Abbie Taylor

Abby L Yates co-founded the Ghostbusters with Erin Gilbert. Ghosts from Our Past was her first book, now finally back in print.

Abby L Yates

Abby Lee

Abby Rawlinson is an integrative therapist with a private practice based in east London, UK. Her work mixes traditional psychotherapeutic theories with cutting-edge, evidence-based techniques into a style that feels relatable, down-to-earth, and compassionate. Abby regularly contributes to articles, including but not limited to Stylist, Elle, BBC, Harpers Bazaar, Sheerluxe, Women's Health, and Psychologies. She can be found on Instagram @therapywithabby or online at therapywithabby.co.uk

Abby Rawlinson

Abby Wambach is a two-time Olympic gold medallist, FIFA World Cup champion, six-time winner of the U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year award and one of Time’s Most Influential People. She is a founder of Treat Media, an award-winning media company that makes art for humans who want to stay human. Abby is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Wolfpack and the New York Times bestseller Forward. Named one of the ‘50 Most Powerful People in Podcasting,’ she is co-host of the chart-topping podcast We Can Do Hard Things, which has received over a half billion plays. Abby is an executive producer of the Sundance award-winning film Come See Me in the Good Light, part owner of the NWSL’s Angel City Football Club and sits on multiple boards. Her most recent book, We Can Do Hard Things: Answers to Life’s 20 Questions, created with Glennon Doyle, Amanda Doyle and Treat Media, is being hailed as ‘the guidebook for being alive.’

Abby Wambach

Abel &amp; Cole’s story starts in 1988 with Keith Abel flogging potatoes door-to-door. ‘Of course potatoes are organic,’ he thought, ‘they’re vegetables’. However, he quickly discovered how unnecessarily complicated our food system had become and, consequently, realised the huge benefits of going organic and never looked back. In fact, Abel &amp; Cole still get veg from the farm where Keith's first organic spuds came from. 
To this day, their priorities remain the same. Now, selling 100% organic produce, Abel &amp; Cole believe that organic farming (a holistic system that encourages biodiversity) is the very best way to go. It protects our countryside and the critters that inhabit it, insists on the very best animal welfare, supports your local community and, frankly, tastes heaps better. Abel &amp; Cole think so anyway.

Abel & Cole Limited

Abhijit Banerjee, winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, is the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). In 2011, he was named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s top 100 global thinkers. Banerjee served on the U.N. Secretary-General’s High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Abhijit V. Banerjee

Abhishek Mukherjee, 30, is a Delhi-based journalist. He holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from Delhi University, a post-graduate diploma in journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Raipur. He also likes dogs.

Abhishek Mukherjee

Abi Elphinstone grew up in Scotland where she spent most of her childhood running wild across the moors, hiding in tree houses and building dens in the woods. After being coaxed out of her tree house, she studied English at Bristol University and then worked as an English teacher in Africa, Berkshire and London. She is the bestselling and multi-award shortlisted author of RUMBLESTAR (first in The Unmapped Chronicles), SKY SONG &amp; THE DREAMSNATCHER TRILOGY, published by S&amp;S. When she's not writing, Abi volunteers for Beanstalk, speaks in schools and travels the world looking for her next story.

Abi Elphinstone

Abi Falase is a Black British writer and director, reimagining fundamental societal concepts in inventive new worlds. Abi has written and directed a number of plays, including The Village and Rush with the Almedia Theatre, as well as Rift for Immediate Theatre and was shortlisted for the BBC Scriptworks ‘A Thousand Stories’ scriptwriting competition in 2021.

Abi Falase

Abi Titmuss

Abie Longstaff is the eldest of six children and grew up in Australia, Hong Kong and France. She knows all about squabbling, chaos and bossing younger sisters around. So she logically began her career as a barrister. She started writing when her children were born. Her favourite childhood books were Hating Alison Ashley, A Little Princess, Maura's Angel and The Black Stallion and she sneakily reads them again sometimes. Abie lives in Hove with her family.

Abie Longstaff

Abigail Ahern

Abigail Balfe is a queer, auDHD author-illustrator and Emmy award-winning creative based in Brighton. Before writing books full-time, Abigail led digital campaigns for pop stars such as One Direction and Little Mix, and for TV broadcasters including Channel 4 and Netflix. She also performed stand-up comedy and won several small trophies for her onstage humour, which featured life-size illustrations, ridiculous songs, and rambling stories about her family. In 2023, Abigail was named one of the Top 50 Influential Neurodivergent Women in the UK.

Abigail Balfe

Abigail Docherty

Abigail Foster is a Chartered Accountant and founder of Elent Finance, a financial education company designed to demystify the world of finance and empower you to achieve financial wellbeing. 
 
Abigail has worked with leading financial institutions across the UK, including HMRC, the Bank of England and Downing Street, and global companies such as Google and Goldman Sachs. She hosts a weekly money segment on LBC radio and has also appeared as a finance expert on ITV, Channel 5 and Sky News.

Abigail Foster

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Jacob Soll

In The Reckoning, award-winning historian Jacob Soll shows how the use and misuse of financial bookkeeping has determined the fates of entire societies. Time and again, Soll reveals, good and honest accounting has been a tool to build successful companies, states and empires. Yet when it is neglected or falls into the wrong hands, accounting has contributed to cycles of destruction that continue to this day. Combining rigorous scholarship and fresh storytelling, The Reckoning traces the surprisingly powerful influence of accounting on financial and political stability, from the powerful Medici bank in the 14th century Italy to the 2008 financial crisis.

The Reckoning

Financial Accountability and the Making and Breaking of Nations

Philip Coggan

What happens in the City has never affected us more 
 
In this excellent guide, now fully revised and updated, leading financial journalist Philip Coggan cuts through the headlines, the scandals and the jargon to explain the nuts and bolts of the financial system. 
What causes the pound to rise or interest rates to fall? Which are the institutions that really matter? Why is it we need the Money Machine - and what happens when it crashes? Coggan provides clear and concise answers and shows why we should all be more familiar with a system we so intimately depend upon.

The Money Machine

How the City Works

David Marquand

Since 2008's financial crisis, we have heard much about the failures of bankers, regulators and politicians. David Marquand sees a wider issue: the fall of the public realm. The crisis, he argues, is one of our moral economy as much as of our political economy. Already, we are well advanced towards a near-Hobbesian state of genteel barbarism - and greed is all-pervasive. 
 
Setting out a framework for a new public philosophy founded on civic conscience and cooperation, Marquand seeks to spring the trap into which our culture has stumbled. The message is plain: we cannot continue on our present path.

Mammon's Kingdom

An Essay on Britain, Now

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

Niall Ferguson

The decline of the West is something that has long been prophesied. Symptoms of decline are all around us today: slowing growth, crushing debts, ageing populations. But what exactly is amiss with Western civilization? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues, is that the institutions that were once the four pillars of Western society - representative government, the free market, the rule of law and civil society - are degenerating. 
 
 The Great Degeneration is a powerful indictment of an era of negligence and complacency. To stop us frittering away the institutional inheritance of centuries, Ferguson warns, will take heroic leadership and radical reform. 
 
 'A refreshing perspective on the economic decline of advanced countries and the origins of the crisis' Samuel Brittan, Financial Times 
 
 'He writes with splendid panache and a seemingly effortless, debonair wit' The Times 
 
 'One of the most incisive writers of history, politics and economics today' Sunday Telegraph 
 
 'Niall Ferguson has transformed the intellectual landscape' Economist

The Great Degeneration

How Institutions Decay and Economies Die

Carol Loomis

Warren Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway into something remarkable - and Fortune had a front-row seat 
 
When Fortune writer Carole Loomis first mentioned a little-known Omaha hedge fund manager in an article, she didn't dream that Warren Buffett would become the world's greatest investor. Nor did she imagine that she and Buffett would be close friends. 
 
As Buffett's fortune and reputation grew, Loomis used her unique insight into his thinking to chronicle his work, writing scores of stories that tracked his many accomplishments - and his occasional mistakes. 
 
Now Loomis has collected and updated the best Buffett articles from Fortune, including cover stories and pieces by Buffett himself. Readers will gain fresh insights into Buffett's investment strategies and his thinking on management, philanthropy, public policy, and even parenting. 
 
Scores of Buffett books have been written, but none can claim this combination of trust, deep understanding of Buffett's world, and a long-term perspective.

Tap Dancing to Work

Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966-2013

Robert Skidelsky

Robert Skidelsky's three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes has been acclaimed as the authoritative account of the great economist-statesman's life. Here, Skidelsky has revised and abridged his magnum opus into one definitive book, which examines in its entirety the intellectual and ideological journey that led an extraordinarily gifted young man to concern himself with the practical problems of an age overshadowed by war. John Maynard Keynes offers a sympathetic account of the life of a passionate visionary and an invaluable insight into the economic philosophy that still remains at the centre of political and economic thought.

John Maynard Keynes

1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman

Winner of the Spears Business Book of the Year Award 
 
Longlisted for the Financial Times Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 
 
In today's financial climate, we are all, naturally, obsessed by debt. In almost every aspect of our life we experience it - on our credit cards, mortgages, bank loans and student loans. But where has this debt come from? How does it work? What is any money really worth? And what promises do we need to believe to keep the whole system afloat? 
 
In this fascinating look at money through the ages - including our own unstable future - award-winning financial journalist Philip Coggan examines the flawed structure of the global finance systems as they exist today, and asks, with deeper imbalances that the world is currently facing, what's actually at stake.

Paper Promises

Money, Debt and the New World Order

Niall Brady

In the summer of 2011, investors with Custom House Capital - some of whom had all their pension savings tied up with the investment house - faced a nightmare: the possibility that their money was gone, and that they wouldn't be getting it back. 
 
Finance journalist Niall Brady takes us behind the scenes for the first in-depth account of a disaster that has cost investors millions. He shows how clients' funds were mis-allocated to cover losses, how the Financial Regulator, though aware of irregularities at CHC for years, failed to forestall the crisis, and how it remains unclear, over a year after the scandal was uncovered, whether people will get their money back. His account of the strange culture and practices of CHC makes House of Cards a must-read for fans of Too Big to Fail and The Big Short.

House of Cards

The Inside Story of the Fall of Custom House Capital

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

William D. Cohan

'If they could screw you over, they totally would ...' 
 
Goldman Sachs are the investment bank all other banks - and most businesses -want to emulate; the firm with the best talent, the best clients, the best strategy. But is their success just down to the gilded magic of the 'Goldman way'? 
 
William D. Cohan has gained unprecedented access to Goldman's inner circle - both on and off the record. In an astonishing story of clashing egos, backstabbing, sex scandals, private investigators, court cases and government cabals, he reveals what really lies beneath their gold-plated image.

Money and Power

How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World

Martin Jacques

China will replace the United States as the world's dominant power. In so doing, it will not become more western but the world will become more Chinese. 
 
Jacques argues that we cannot understand China in western terms but only through its own history and culture. To this end, he introduces a powerful set of ideas including China as a civilization-state, the tributary system, the Chinese idea of race, a very different concept of the state, and the principle of contested modernity. 
 
First published in 2009 to widespread critical acclaim - and controversy - 'When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Rise of a New Global Order' has sold a quarter of a million copies, been translated into eleven languages, nominated for two major literary awards, and has been the subject of an immensely popular TED talk. In the three years since the first edition was published, the book has transformed the debate about China worldwide and proved remarkably prescient. 
 
In this greatly expanded and fully updated paperback edition, with nearly three-hundred pages of new material backed up by the latest statistical data, Martin Jacques renews his assault on conventional thinking about China's ascendancy, showing how its impact will be as much political and cultural as economic, thereby transforming the world as we know it.

When China Rules The World

The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World [Greatly updated and expanded]

Dambisa Moyo

From the author of Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo's How the West was Lost explores how the 'first world' has its wasted inheritance with flawed economic policy - and what can be done to reverse the decline. 
 
 We think we know what's coming. But is it already too late? 
 
 How the West Was Lost is a wake-up call for all of us. Dambisa Moyo argues that during the last fifty years the most advanced countries on earth have squandered their advantage through fatally flawed policies: obsessing over property, ravenously consuming and building up debt instead of investing. Here Moyo outlines solutions that could help stem the tide. By rethinking many of the things we take for granted, she shows, it may yet be possible for the West to get back into the race. 
 
 'An outspoken iconoclast ... Moyo shows well how fundamental economic liberalisation espoused by what she calls the profligate, greedy, self-interested West has come back to bite it' 
 
 Guardian 
 
 'Succinct and sophisticated ... I applaud her brave alarum against our economic and social complacency' 
 
 Observer 
 
 'A well-reasoned look at how the world's most-advanced nations are squandering their economic lead ... a prescription for stopping the rot' 
 
 Bloomberg 
 
 'Clear and brazen ... This argument has rarely have been made more concisely' 
 
 The Times 
 
 'An economist who makes waves' 
 
 Sunday Telegraph 
 
 Dambisa Moyo worked at Goldman Sachs for eight years, having previously worked for the World Bank as a consultant. Moyo completed a PhD in Economics at Oxford University, and holds a Masters from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. Her other books include Winner Take All and How the West was Lost. She was born and raised in Lusaka, Zambia.

How The West Was Lost

Fifty Years of Economic Folly - And the Stark Choices Ahead

John Gapper

The definitive, classic account of the fall of the House of Baring and the ultimate rogue trader Nick Leeson. 
 
John Gapper, Associate Editor of the Financial Times, and his co-author Nicholas Denton, now founder of Gawker Media, interviewed all the major players involved in the collapse of one of England's oldest banks. 
 
All That Glitters reveals the faustian deal struck between the whizz-kid traders who seemed to be bringing in huge profits and the grandies who were happy to pocket them without asking too many questions. For the first time, the actions and motives of all the participants are explained, including the final days when politicians and bankers made a last-ditch attempt to save the bank, as well as Nick Leeson's actions and motives.

All That Glitters

The Fall of Barings

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is John Gapper's foray into the world of rogue traders. 
 
Unlike most bankers, they are household names: Nick Leeson of Barings, Jerome Kerviel of Societe Generale, John Rusnak of Allied Irish Bank. And now the 31 year-old Kweku Adoboli, who allegedly ran up $2.3bn in losses at UBS. These are the men who have bought banks to their knees and global financial systems to a halt. Each time the banks declare themselves to be innocent victims of a fraud. 
 
But why do traders keep on committing apparently senseless crimes, with little benefit apart from higher bonuses and a risk of ending up in prison? And why do banks, which should have learned the tricks of the traders, keep being deceived? 
 
In this Penguin Special, the Financial Times' associate editor John Gapper unlocks the mystery by delving into the evolutionary risk-taking instincts of both humans and animals - from yellow-eyed junco sparrows in Arizona to honey-bees. He reveals how banks encourage their traders to evade risk limits, and shows how the rogue traders merely mimic the strategies used by their firms to seem more profitable than they really are. 
 
A rogue trader is often an outsider who starts in a lowly role and gambles with a bank's money in a bid to become a star. Gapper traces patterns of behaviour and personality that could be used to catch them before disaster strikes. But do the banks really want to? And are the rogue traders just the symptoms of a financial system gone rogue?

How to be a Rogue Trader

In this groundbreaking biography, based on more than 10,000 hitherto unavailable letters and diary entries, Niall Ferguson returns to his roots as a financial historian to tell the story of the extraordinary Siegmund Warburg. 
 
A refugee from Hitler's Germany, Warburg rose to become the dominant figure in the post-war City of London and one of the architects of European financial integration. Seared by events in the 1930s, when the long-established Warburg bank was first almost destroyed by the Depression and then 'Aryanized' by the Nazis, Warburg was determined that his own bank would learn from the past and contribute to the economic recovery of Britain, the unity of Western Europe and the birth of globalization. 
 
Siegmund Warburg was a complex and ambivalent man, as much a psychologist, politician and actor-manager as a banker. In High Financier Niall Ferguson reveals Warburg's idiosyncracies but above all he recaptures the meticulous business methods and strict ethical code that set Warburg apart from the mere speculators and traders who inhabit today's financial world.

High Financier

The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg

Bethany McLean

Joe Nocera

As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began. Should the blame fall on greedy traders, lazy regulators, or clueless home buyers? 
 
According to Bethany McLean, author of the bestselling Enron book The Smartest Guys in the Room, and Joe Nocera, the star New York Times columnist, the real answer is all of the above. Many devils helped bring hell to the economy. 
 
Yet despite all the analysis of the crash, no one has put all the pieces together and named those responsible. Until now.

All The Devils Are Here

Unmasking the Men Who Bankrupted the World

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

'One of the smartest books of all time' Fortune 
 
 Everyone wants to succeed in life. But what causes some of us to be more successful than others? Is it really down to skill and strategy - or something altogether more unpredictable? This book is the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you think about business and the world. 
 
 It is all about luck: more precisely, how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences. 
 
 Nowhere is this more obvious than in the markets - we hear an entrepreneur has 'vision' or a trader is 'talented', but all too often their performance is down to chance rather than skill. It is only because we fail to understand probability that we continue to believe events are non-random, finding reasons where none exist. This irreverent bestseller has shattered the illusions of people around the world by teaching them how to recognize randomness. Now it can do the same for you. 
 
 Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a radical and paradoxical philosopher for our times. He has spent his life immersing himself in problems of luck, uncertainty, probability, and knowledge, and he has led three high-profile careers around his ideas, as a man of letters, as a businessman-trader, and as a university professor and researcher. 
 
 He is currently Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University's Polytechnic Institute. His books Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan have been published in thirty-three languages. Taleb refuses all awards and honours as they debase knowledge by turning it into competitive sports.

Fooled by Randomness

The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

Simon Kelly

Simon Kelly's involvement in property development began when, as a computer-mad child in the 1980s, he started making spreadsheets for his father, the developer Paddy Kelly. By 2008, when the Irish property market crashed, Simon and Paddy owed their creditors nearly a billion euro. In 2009, they were the first big developers to admit they were bust - and they encouraged their fellow developers to face reality in the same way. In 2010, in the pages of a national newspaper, Simon Kelly apologized for his part in the long-term damage created by the property bubble. 
 
Until now, the story of Ireland's property boom and bust has been told only by people on the outside. The bankers and the developers have kept quiet. Now, Simon Kelly breaks the silence with this vivid and unsparing account of how it all worked and why it went sour. He brings us to the muddy fields, humble cafés and grand dining rooms where the deals were made; he explains how it was that debt always begat more debt; and he takes us through the hitherto opaque portals of Anglo Irish Bank, the Kellys' main lender. 
 
In an account packed with telling and indiscreet detail, Simon Kelly makes no excuses for ending up bust. He simply shows how it happened - to him, to other developers, to the banks, and to the country. In doing so, he courageously breaks ranks with the insiders who created this disaster, and who would prefer to blame 'international forces', bad luck, or one another. Breakfast with Anglo is a landmark in our national accounting of the present crisis, an essential read for anyone who wants to know how we got into this mess and how we might begin to think about getting out of it.

Breakfast with Anglo

Joel Mokyr

Why did Western countries become so much wealthier than the rest of the world? What explains the huge rise in incomes during the Industrial Revolution - and why did Britain lead the way? 
 
In the years between the Glorious Revolution and the Great Exhibition, the British economy was transformed. Joel Mokyr's landmark history offers a wholly new perspective for understanding Britain's extraordinary rise during the Industrial Revolution, showing how intellectual, rather than material, forces were the driving force behind it. While empire, trade, resources and other factors all played a part, above all it was the creative ferment of the Enlightenment - with its belief in progress and scientific advancement - that affected the economic behaviour of thinkers, inventors, entrepreneurs and artisans, taking Britain into the modern era. 
 
Linking ideas and beliefs to the heart of modern economic growth, The Enlightened Economy will transform the way we view the Industrial Revolution.

The Enlightened Economy

Britain and the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1850

DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOKS OF THE YEAR 
 
If in the year 1411 you had been able to circumnavigate the globe, you would have been most impressed by the dazzling civilizations of the Orient. The Forbidden City was under construction in Ming Beijing; in the Near East, the Ottomans were closing in on Constantinople. 
 
By contrast, England would have struck you as a miserable backwater ravaged by plague, bad sanitation and incessant war. The other quarrelsome kingdoms of Western Europe - Aragon, Castile, France, Portugal and Scotland - would have seemed little better. As for fifteenth-century North America, it was an anarchic wilderness compared with the realms of the Aztecs and Incas. The idea that the West would come to dominate the Rest for most of the next half millennium would have struck you as wildly fanciful. And yet it happened. 
 
What was it about the civilization of Western Europe that allowed it to trump the outwardly superior empires of the Orient? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues, was that the West developed six "killer applications" that the Rest lacked: competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic. The key question today is whether or not the West has lost its monopoly on these six things. If so, Ferguson warns, we may be living through the end of Western ascendancy. 
 
Civilization takes readers on their own extraordinary journey around the world - from the Grand Canal at Nanjing to the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul; from Machu Picchu in the Andes to Shark Island, Namibia; from the proud towers of Prague to the secret churches of Wenzhou. It is the story of sailboats, missiles, land deeds, vaccines, blue jeans and Chinese Bibles. It is the defining narrative of modern world history.

Civilization

The West and the Rest

Michael Lewis

'We fed the monster until it blew up ...' 
 
While Wall Street was busy creating the biggest credit bubble of all time, a few renegade investors saw it was about to burst, bet against the banking system - and made a fortune. 
 
From the jungles of the trading floor to the casinos of Las Vegas, this is the outrageous story of the misfits, mavericks and geniuses who, against all odds, made the greatest financial killing in history.

The Big Short

Inside the Doomsday Machine

In the current financial crisis Keynes has been taken out of his cupboard, dusted down, consulted, cited, invoked and appealed to about why events have taken the course they have and how a rescue operation can be effected. Why have we gone back so emphatically to the ideas of an economist who died fifty years ago? 
 
There are three main ideas of Keynes's worth thinking about now. The first is that the future is unknowable, and therefore that economic storms are part of the normal workings of the market system. The second idea is that economies wounded by these 'shocks' can, if left to themselves, stay in a depressed condition for a long time. That is why governments need to have and use fiscal ammunition to prevent a slide from financial crisis to economic depression. The third concerns what he termed 'organicism': societies are communities not, as he put it, 'branches of the multiplication table'. These ideas have never been more timely.

Keynes

The Return of the Master

Gregory Zuckerman

Autumn 2008. The world's finances collapse but one man makes a killing. 
John Paulson, a softly spoken hedge-fund manager who still took the bus to work, seemed unlikely to stake his career on one big gamble. But he did - and The Greatest Trade Ever is the story of how he realised that the sub-prime housing bubble was going to burst, making $15 billion for his fund and more than $4 billion for himself in a single year. It's a tale of folly and wizardry, individual brilliance versus institutional stupidity. 
John Paulson made the biggest winning bet in history. And this is how he did it.

The Greatest Trade Ever

How One Man Bet Against the Markets and Made $20 Billion

Alan Beattie

Why do oil and diamonds lead to economic disaster more often than boom? Why doesn't Africa grow cocaine? Why might believing in God be good for your balance-sheet? 
 
In 2001 Argentina's government bankrupted itself, yet for the past two hundred years it had enjoyed a vista of economic opportunity almost identical to that of the USA. Why did the USA succeed while Argentina stalled? Botswana and Sierra Leone are both blessed with abundant diamonds. Why did Botswana became the world's fastest-growing economy while Sierra Leone suffered a decade of brutal civil war? 
 
In False Economy, Alan Beattie uses extraordinary stories of economic triumph and disaster to explain how some countries went wrong while others went right, and why it's so difficult to change course once you're on the path to ruin.

False Economy

A Surprising Economic History of the World

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

Back in 2006, hunched over spreadsheets, hedge fund titan John Paulson realised that the housing market was vastly overstretched. Fuelled by sub-prime mortgages, it was a classic bubble ready to burst. He had waited his whole life for this perfect trade. 
Paulson, who had never dealt in real-estate before, struggled to convince bullish Wall Street investors about the coming crash. But as house prices began to falter and the financial system collapsed, he reaped the rewards. He made a now-legendary series of trades, executed with technical skill and perfect timing. 
The results were spectacular. In a single morning in late 2007 Paulson made $1.25bn from a five-point fall in the markets. Across the year he earned $15 billion for his fund, including $4 billion for himself - more than the incomes of J.K Rowling, Oprah Winfrey and Tiger Woods put together. It was the largest trading windfall in history by far, securing his place in the history books alongside Warren Buffet and George Soros. 
Written with the exclusive co-operation of the highly secretive Paulson, The Greatest Trade Ever tells the full story of his trade for the first time. Like Barbarians at the Gate 20 years ago, it also tells a wider story of staggering wealth accumulation, hubris and financial whizzery. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the inner workings of the markets - and trying to spot the next bubble.

How John Paulson Bet Against the Markets and Made $20 Billion

Charles D. Ellis

Despite financial turmoil, Goldman Sachs remain the leading investment bank in their field. They are notorious for their unique management culture, unorthodox recruiting techniques - and for their secrecy. In The Partnership Charles Ellis reveals their story. 
 
With unparalleled access to the leadership of this famously close-knit firm, Ellis investigates the brilliant individuals who turned a marginal family business into a global powerhouse, weathering recession, scandal and disaster on the way. Among them are high school dropout and financial genius Sidney Weinberg, maverick reinventor John Whitehead, former US treasury secretary Hank Paulson and working-class New Yorker turned current CEO, Lloyd Blankfein. 
 
The Partnership reveals the shared values of intensive recruitment, discipline and talent that have tied Goldman Sachs's people together - and made it a survivor.

The Partnership

The Making of Goldman Sachs

Erin Arvedlund

Take the combined fortunes of Bill Gates, Tiger Woods and Roman Abramovich. Now imagine someone stealing that much money - and being hailed as a financial genius. 
 
That man is Bernard Madoff. Backed by governments and global banks, Madoff defrauded $65 billion from charities and individual investors including Stephen Spielberg. Finally turned in by his own sons, Madoff opened his door in his dressing gown to be arrested by the FBI. Eleven charges and eleven guilty verdicts later he swapped his penthouse for a prison cell. Only $1 billion was left. 
 
Madoff is the first definitive account of the rise and fall of the biggest fraudster ever. It's a story of greed, betrayal and lies, of remorseless risk-taking, family tragedy and financial disaster. 
 
Investigative reporter Erin Arvedlund was the first to expose Madoff back in 2001, but Wall Street and the world didn't listen. In this astonishing book she answers the crucial unsolved questions: why and when did Madoff turn his business into a massive fraud? How did he fool so many investors for so long? Who knew the truth? And who, ultimately, is Bernard Madoff?

Madoff

The Man Who Stole $65 Billion

Seth Freedman

What is it like to make millions before you turn 20? What drives City traders to excess in their quest for extreme wealth? And what happens when they lose it all overnight? This is the first account of life in today's Square Mile, laying bare the tricks, lifestyles and minds of the men who gamble with millions and influence all our lives. It's a thrilling insider story, full of anecdotes and personalities in the style of Liar's Poker and Kitchen Confidential.

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