Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000

The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000

by Niall Ferguson

Acclaimed historian Niall Ferguson offers a radical new history of the links between politics and economics, drawing unsettling conclusions about the future of capitalism and democracy. Conventional wisdom has long claimed that economic change is the prime mover of political change, whether in the age of industry or Internet. But is it? Ferguson thinks it is high time we re-examined the link--the nexus, in... (more)

A Leader Becomes a Leader: Inspirational Stories of Leadership for a New Generation

A Leader Becomes a Leader: Inspirational Stories of Leadership for a New Generation

by J. Kevin Sheehan

A Leader Becomes a Leader opens with a window on history: Henry David Thoreau riding a borrowed horse and wagon into the woods around Concord, Massachusetts to Walden Pond in 1845. There, he writes a classic work that has a powerful effect on the lives and philosophies of seminal leaders in the next century as diverse as Mohandas Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela. Thoreau believed that a... (more)

The Age of Uncertainty

by John Kenneth Galbraith

The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea (Modern Library Chronicles)

The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea (Modern Library Chronicles)

by John Micklethwait

Chosen by BusinessWeek as One of the Top Ten Business Books of the Year With apologies to Hegel, Marx, and Lenin, the basic unit of modern society is neither the state, nor the commune, nor the party; it is the company. From this bold premise, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge chart the rise of one of history’s great catalysts for good and evil. In a “fast-paced and well-written” work ( Forbes ), the... (more)

Folk Nation: Folklore in the Creation of American Tradition (American Visions (Wilmington, Del.), No. 6.)

Folk Nation: Folklore in the Creation of American Tradition (American Visions (Wilmington, Del.), No. 6.)

by Simon J. Bronner

This lively reader traces the search for American tradition and national identity through folklore and folklife from the 19th century to the present. Through an engaging set of essays, Folk Nation shows how American thinkers and leaders have used folklore-ranging from Paul Bunyan and Davey Crockett to quilts, cowboys, and immigrants-to express the meaning and mystique of their country. Simon Bronner has carefully... (more)

A Shopkeeper's Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837

A Shopkeeper's Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837

by Paul E. Johnson

A quarter-century after its first publication, A Shopkeeper's Millennium remains a landmark work--brilliant both as a new interpretation of the intimate connections among politics, economy, and religion during the Second Great Awakening, and as a surprising portrait of a rapidly growing frontier city. The religious revival that transformed America in the 1820s, making it the most militantly Protestant nation on... (more)

The Later Roman Empire, 284-602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey (Later Roman Empire, 284-602)

The Later Roman Empire, 284-602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey (Later Roman Empire, 284-602)

by A. H. M. Jones

The Peopling of British North America: An Introduction

The Peopling of British North America: An Introduction

by Bernard Bailyn

In this introduction to his large-scale work The Peopling of British North America, Bernard Bailyn identifies central themes in a formative passage of our history: the transatlantic transfer of people from the Old World to the North American continent that formed the basis of American society. Voyagers to the West, which covers the British migration in the years just before the American Revolution and is the first... (more)

The Curse of American Agricultural Abundance: A Sustainable Solution (Our Sustainable Future Series)

The Curse of American Agricultural Abundance: A Sustainable Solution (Our Sustainable Future Series)

by Willard Wesley Cochrane

Advisor to President Kennedy, consultant for foreign governments, and spokesman for family farmers everywhere, Willard W. Cochrane has been a leading expert on agriculture and its problems in the United States since the 1940s. In his straightforward style Cochrane analyzes the propensity for American agriculture to produce too much and the inability of our social and economic system to make effective use of that... (more)

I'll Take My Stand

The South and the Agrarian Tradition

by Twelve Southerners

This book has been at the center of controversy since it was published in 1930. Written by a group of 12 Southerners, it cannot be ignored by anyone who wants to understand a complex American region.

In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th-Century America

In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th-Century America

by Alice Kessler-Harris

In this volume, Alice Kessler-Harris explores the transformation of some of the United States' most significant social policies. Tracing changing ideals of fairness from the 1920s to the 1970s, she shows how a deeply embedded set of beliefs, or "gendered imagination" shaped seemingly neutral social legislation to limit the freedom and equality of women. Law and custom generally sought to protect women from... (more)

A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present

A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present

by Rondo E. Cameron

This classic book offers a broad sweep of economic history from prehistoric times to the present and explores the disparity of wealth among nations. Now in its fourth edition, A Concise Economic History of the World has been updated to reflect the stunning changes in the world economy since 1989. Truly a definitive history of globalization, the new edition has been expanded to include coverage of the most recent... (more)

Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century

Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century

by Peter H. Lindert

Peter Lindert inquires as to whether social policies that redistribute income impose constraints on economic growth. Although taxes and transfers have been debated for centuries, only recently have we been able to obtain a clear view of the evolution of social spending. Lindert argues that, contrary to the intuition of many economists and the ideology of many politicians, social spending has contributed to, rather... (more)

The Ordinary Business of Life: A History of Economics from the Ancient World to the Twenty-First Century

The Ordinary Business of Life: A History of Economics from the Ancient World to the Twenty-First Century

by Roger Backhouse

In some of Western culture's earliest writings, Hesiod defined the basic economic problem as one of scarce resources, a view still held by most economists. Diocletian tried to save the falling Roman Empire with wage and price fixes--a strategy that has not gone entirely out of style. And just as they did in the late nineteenth century, thinkers trained in physics renovated economic inquiry in the late twentieth... (more)

Industry and Empire: The Birth of the Industrial Revolution

Industry and Empire: The Birth of the Industrial Revolution

by E. J. Hobsbawm

The American South in a Global World

by James L. Peacock

Looking beyond broad theories of globalization, this volume examines the specific effects of globalizing forces on the southern United States. Eighteen essays approach globalization from a variety of perspectives, addressing relations between global and local communities; immigration, particularly of Latinos and Asians; local industry in a time of globalization; power and confrontation between rural and urban... (more)

America's Musical Life: A History

by Richard Crawford

"A superb, all-encompassing survey of music in America." — Kirkus Reviews When it comes to American music, America's Musical Life is "the best one-volume history yet on the subject for musicians and enthusiasts, professional or amateur" ( Kirkus Reviews ). "Well-researched and sensitively constructed" ( Library Journal ) and "a book that welcomes the reader, who is happy to keep returning for more" ( Music... (more)

Born in the Country: A History of Rural America (Revisiting Rural America)

Born in the Country: A History of Rural America (Revisiting Rural America)

by David B. Danbom

Born in the Country was the first -- and is still the only -- general history of rural America published. Ranging from pre-Columbian times to the enormous changes of the twentieth century, Born in the Country masterfully integrates agricultural, technological, and economic themes with new questions social historians have raised about the American experience -- including the different experiences of whites and... (more)

The American Musical Landscape: The Business of Musicianship from Billings to Gershwin, Updated With a New Preface (Ernest Bloch Lectures, 8)

The American Musical Landscape: The Business of Musicianship from Billings to Gershwin, Updated With a New Preface (Ernest Bloch Lectures, 8)

by Richard Crawford

In this refreshingly direct and engaging historical treatment of American music and musicology, Richard Crawford argues for the recognition of the distinct and vital character of American music. What is that character? How has musical life been supported in the United States and how have Americans understood their music? Exploring the conditions within which music has been made since the time of the American... (more)

The Transformation of Rural Life: Southern Illinois, 1890-1990 (Studies in Rural Culture)

The Transformation of Rural Life: Southern Illinois, 1890-1990 (Studies in Rural Culture)

by Jane Adams

Jane Adams focuses on the transformation of rural life in Union County, Illinois, as she explores the ways in which American farming has been experienced and understood in the twentieth century. Reconstructing the histories of seven farms, she places the details of daily life within the context of political and economic change. Adams identifies contradictions that, on a personal level, influenced relations between... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: economic history

by Niall Ferguson

by J. Kevin Sheehan

by John Kenneth Galbraith

by John Micklethwait

by Simon J. Bronner

by Paul E. Johnson

by A. H. M. Jones

by Bernard Bailyn

by Willard Wesley Cochrane

The South and the Agrarian Tradition

by Twelve Southerners

by Alice Kessler-Harris

by Rondo E. Cameron

by Peter H. Lindert

by Roger Backhouse

by E. J. Hobsbawm

by James L. Peacock

by Richard Crawford

by David B. Danbom

by Richard Crawford

by Jane Adams