279 products in Books

As the global economy struggles to avoid meltdown, so the greatest Ponzi scheme in history approaches its final death rattle. Politicians have stood by and watched the financial industry create a massive overhang of debt, a mountain of low quality assets - and ultimately, an economic disaster which has dwarfed all others. The Eurozone crisis and the LIBOR manipulaton scandal are just two symptoms of a much broader problem: one of vastly excessive debt, regulatory failure, a culture of deceit on Wall Street and the City of London, and governments that have promised their citizens far more than they can deliver. In "Planet Ponzi", Mitch Feierstein tells you what's happened, what will happen next and how to protect yourself and your family.

The classic history of the political and economic devastation wrought by runaway inflation in Weimar Germany—“brilliant” (Guardian)   In 1923, with its currency effectively worthless (the exchange rate in December of that year was one dollar to 4,200,000,000,000 marks), the German republic was all but reduced to a barter economy. Expensive cigars, artworks, and jewels were routinely exchanged for staples such as bread; a cinema ticket could be bought for a lump of coal; and a bottle of paraffin for a silk shirt. People watched helplessly as their life savings disappeared and their loved ones starved. Germany's finances descended into chaos, with severe social unrest in its wake.   Money may no longer be physically printed and distributed in the voluminous quantities of 1923. However, "quantitative easing," that modern euphemism for surreptitious deficit financing in an electronic era, can no less become an assault on monetary discipline. Whatever the reason for a country's deficit— necessity or profligacy, unwillingness to tax or blindness to expenditure—it is beguiling to suppose that if the day of reckoning is postponed economic recovery will come in time to prevent higher unemployment or deeper recession. What if it does not? Germany in 1923 provides a vivid, compelling, sobering moral tale.

The foundational and wildly popular go-to resource for influence and persuasion—a renowned international bestseller, with over 5 million copies sold—now revised adding: new research, new insights, new examples, and online applications. In the new edition of this highly acclaimed bestseller, Robert Cialdini—New York Times bestselling author of Pre-Suasion and the seminal expert in the fields of influence and persuasion—explains the psychology of why people say yes and how to apply these insights ethically in business and everyday settings. Using memorable stories and relatable examples, Cialdini makes this crucially important subject surprisingly easy. With Cialdini as a guide, you don’t have to be a scientist to learn how to use this science. You’ll learn Cialdini’s Universal Principles of Influence, including new research and new uses so you can become an even more skilled persuader—and just as importantly, you’ll learn how to defend yourself against unethical influence attempts. You may think you know these principles, but without understanding their intricacies, you may be ceding their power to someone else. Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion: * Reciprocation * Commitment and Consistency * Social Proof  * Liking  * Authority * Scarcity * Unity, the newest principle for this edition Understanding and applying the principles ethically is cost-free and deceptively easy. Backed by Dr. Cialdini’s 35 years of evidence-based, peer-reviewed scientific research—including a three-year field study on what leads people to change—Influence is a comprehensive guide to using these principles to move others in your direction.

The author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance examines life's essential issues as he recounts the journey down the Hudson River in a sailboat of his philosopher-narrator Phaedrus.

Absolute Essentials of Ethereum is a concise textbook which guides the reader through the fascinating world of the emerging Ethereum ecosystem, from the basics of how its blockchain works to cutting-edge applications. Written by an experienced educator, each chapter is designed to progress potential students from class to class. Technical concepts are clearly explained for those new to the topic and readers are supported with definitions and summaries in each chapter. Real-life case studies situate the overviews in a contemporary context. Topics covered include the Ethereum Execution and Consensus layers, Ethereum governance and community, Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs), Decentralised Finance (DeFi), Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and Layer 2. This book is the ideal text to support undergraduate and postgraduate courses on blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies, Web3 and fintech, as well as for those who want to know how Ethereum really works.

A top cybersecurity journalist tells the story behind the virus that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear efforts and shows how its existence has ushered in a new age of warfare—one in which a digital attack can have the same destructive capability as a megaton bomb.  “Immensely enjoyable . . . Zetter turns a complicated and technical cyber story into an engrossing whodunit.”—The Washington Post   The virus now known as Stuxnet was unlike any other piece of malware built before: Rather than simply hijacking targeted computers or stealing information from them, it proved that a piece of code could escape the digital realm and wreak actual, physical destruction—in this case, on an Iranian nuclear facility.   In these pages, journalist Kim Zetter tells the whole story behind the world’s first cyberweapon, covering its genesis in the corridors of the White House and its effects in Iran—and telling the spectacular, unlikely tale of the security geeks who managed to unravel a top secret sabotage campaign years in the making.   But Countdown to Zero Day also ranges beyond Stuxnet itself, exploring the history of cyberwarfare and its future, showing us what might happen should our infrastructure be targeted by a Stuxnet-style attack, and ultimately, providing a portrait of a world at the edge of a new kind of war.

Economic Policy contains six lectures Ludwig von Mises delivered in 1959 for the Centro de Estudios sobre la Libertad in Argentina. The lectures were posthumously edited by Mises’s wife, Margit, and George Koether, a student and long-time friend of Mises. This volume serves as an excellent introduction to what Mises sees as the simple truths of history in terms of economic principles. In straightforward language, Mises explains topics such as capitalism, socialism, interventionism, inflation, foreign investment, and economic policies and ideas. Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) was the leading spokesman of the Austrian School of economics throughout most of the twentieth century. Bettina Bien Greaves is a former resident scholar and trustee of the Foundation for Economic Education and was a senior staff member at FEE from 1951 to 1999.

This classic guide offers clear, concise instruction in the basics as well as the finer points of pencil drawing. Appropriate for beginning and intermediate students, it features sixty-six well-chosen illustrations that encompass a wide range of subjects — mainly architectural, but also people, animals, and landscapes — and demonstrate a tremendous variety of techniques. An architect, painter, art director, and teacher, Arthur L. Guptill wrote several popular books on drawing. He begins this two-part treatment, aimed at architects, artists, and students, with discussions of drawing objects in outline and in light and shade, the principles of freehand perspective, methods of cast and life drawing, and sketching animals. The second part examines the choice of subjects and drawing in outline and in flat and graded tones. The important subject of composition receives considerable attention, with particular focus on unity and balance. Additional topics include working from photographs and from nature, the representation of buildings — including exteriors, interiors, and street scenes — and portraying details and accessories, from furniture, draperies, doors, and windows to clouds, water, and trees.

Béla Bartók wrote the first four volumes of the Mikrokosmos as a series of beginning piano exercises for his son Péter. The great Hungarian composer's complete six-volume collection represents one of the most comprehensive anthologies of contemporary technique ever assembled. This edition, consisting of the first two volumes, presents more than 100 pieces of study material suitable for first- and second-year students. In a 1945 radio interview, Bartók explained, "The Mikrokosmos is a cycle of 153 pieces for piano, written with a didactic purpose. That is, to give piano pieces which can be used from the very beginning and then going on. It is graded according to difficulties. And the word Mikrokosmos may be interpreted as a series of pieces in many different styles, representing a small world. Or it may be interpreted as 'world of the little ones, the children.'" This volume constitutes the definitive edition of Bartók's tutorials, drawing upon all known manuscripts and the printed originals for a corrected version approved by the composer's son and the first student to benefit from these exercises.

THE CLASSIC BOOK THAT HAS INSPIRED MILLIONS A penetrating examination of how we live and how to live better Few books transform a generation and then establish themselves as touchstones for the generations that follow. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is one such book. This modern epic of a man’s search for meaning became an instant bestseller on publication in 1974, acclaimed as one of the most exciting books in the history of American letters. It continues to inspire millions.  A narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance becomes a personal and philosophical odyssey into fundamental questions on how to live. The narrator's relationship with his son leads to a powerful self-reckoning; the craft of motorcycle maintenance leads to an austerely beautiful process for reconciling science, religion, and humanism. Resonant with the confusions of existence, this classic is a touching and transcendent book of life. This new edition contains an interview with Pirsig and letters and documents detailing how this extraordinary book came to be.

What is money? How does it work and what effects does it have on our society and economy? Hardly anyone has penetrated the answers to these questions better and explained them more comprehensibly than Alfred Lansburgh, who published them in the form of letters to his son, under the pseudonym "Argentarius" in his publishing house "Die Bank". This edition contains the following collections of letters from the years 1921: On Money (Original "Vom Gelde")

While many books explain the how of bitcoin, The Internet of Money delves into the why of bitcoin. Acclaimed information-security expert and author of Mastering Bitcoin, Andreas M. Antonopoulos examines and contextualizes the significance of bitcoin through a series of essays spanning the exhilarating maturation of this technology. Bitcoin, a technological breakthrough quietly introduced to the world in 2008, is transforming much more than finance. Bitcoin is disrupting antiquated industries to bring financial independence to billions worldwide. In this book, Andreas explains why bitcoin is a financial and technological evolution with potential far exceeding the label "digital currency." Andreas goes beyond exploring the technical functioning of the bitcoin network by illuminating bitcoin's philosophical, social, and historical implications. As the internet has essentially transformed how people around the world interact and has permanently impacted our lives in ways we never could have imagined, bitcoin--the internet of money--is fundamentally changing our approach to solving social, political, and economic problems through decentralized technology.