Examines the economic growth of the United States since the Civil War, arguing that the rate of growth between 1870 and 1970 cannot be repeated and that a number of issues are further stagnating the already slow rate of productivity growth. "In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, home appliances, motor vehicles, air travel,...

For years, America has been plagued by slow economic growth and increasing inequality. Yet economists have long taught that there is a tradeoff between equity and efficiency-that is, between making a bigger pie and dividing it more fairly. That is why our current predicament is so puzzling: today, we are faced with both a stagnating economy and sky-high inequality. In The Captured Economy , Brink Lindsey and Steven M. Teles identify a common factor...

"A progressive takedown of the uber-capitalist status quo that has enriched millionaires and billionaires at the expense of the working class, and a blueprint for what transformational change would actually look like. It's OK to be angry about capitalism. Reflecting on our turbulent times, Senator Bernie Sanders takes on the billionaire class and speaks blunt truths about our country's failure to address the destructive nature of a system that is...

On January 3, 1889 in Turin, Italy, Friedrich Nietzsche steps out of the doorway of number six, Via Carlo Albert. Not far from him, a cab driver is having trouble with a stubborn horse. The horse refuses to move, whereupon the driver loses his patience and takes his whip to it. Nietzsche puts an end to the brutal scene, throwing his arms around the horse's neck, sobbing. Afterwards, he lies motionless and silent for two days on a divan, until he loses...

"Award-winning journalist Barbara Demick follows the lives of six North Korean citizens over fifteen years -- a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, and a devastating famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today -- an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet, where displays...

"China's economy has been booming for decades now. Keyu Jin, an economist who was born in China and educated in the United States, brings her fluency in Eastern and Western cultures together to offer an explanation of how China became such a successful economic story. This book is a guide to the Chinese economy as it has shifted from being based primarily on state-owned enterprise to being based on entrepreneurship and participation in the global...

Vance, a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, provides an account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like...

"Everything you know about income inequality, poverty and other measures of economic well-being in America is wrong. In measuring income inequality, poverty and other indexes of well-being our government does not count two-thirds of all transfer payments that are received or any of the taxes paid. When we get our facts straight poverty has virtually been eliminated, income inequality is lower than it was in 1947 and America is still the great land...