Author: David R. Fontijn Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 9781138088412 Category : Bronze age Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Why do people destroy objects and materials that are important to them? This book aims to make sense of this fascinating, yet puzzling social practice by focusing on a period in history in which such destructive behaviour reached unseen heights and complexity: the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in Europe (c. 2300-500 BC). This period is often seen as the time in which a 'familiar' Europe took shape due to the rise of a metal-based economy. But it was also during the Bronze Age that massive amounts of scarce and recyclable metal were deliberately buried in the landscape and never taken out again. This systematic deposition of metalwork sits uneasily with our prevailing perception of the Bronze Age as the first 'rational-economic' period in history - and therewith - of ourselves. Taking the patterned archaeological evidence of these seemingly un-economic metalwork depositions at face value, it is shown that the 'un-economic' giving-up of metal valuables was an integral part of what a Bronze Age 'economy' was about. Based on case studies from Bronze Age Europe, this book attempts to reconcile the seemingly conflicting political and cultural approaches that are currently used to understand this pivotal period in Europe's deep history. It seems that to achieve something in society, something else must be given up. Using theories from economic anthropology, this book argues that - paradoxically - giving up that which was valuable created value. It will be invaluable to scholars and archaeologists interested in the Bronze Age, ancient economies, and a new angle on metalwork depositions.
Author: Philippe Aghion Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674971167 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 401
Book Description
From one of the world’s leading economists and his coauthors, a cutting-edge analysis of what drives economic growth and a blueprint for prosperity under capitalism. Crisis seems to follow crisis. Inequality is rising, growth is stagnant, the environment is suffering, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed every crack in the system. We hear more and more calls for radical change, even the overthrow of capitalism. But the answer to our problems is not revolution. The answer is to create a better capitalism by understanding and harnessing the power of creative destruction—innovation that disrupts, but that over the past two hundred years has also lifted societies to previously unimagined prosperity. To explain, Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin, and Simon Bunel draw on cutting-edge theory and evidence to examine today’s most fundamental economic questions, including the roots of growth and inequality, competition and globalization, the determinants of health and happiness, technological revolutions, secular stagnation, middle-income traps, climate change, and how to recover from economic shocks. They show that we owe our modern standard of living to innovations enabled by free-market capitalism. But we also need state intervention with the appropriate checks and balances to simultaneously foster ongoing economic creativity, manage the social disruption that innovation leaves in its wake, and ensure that yesterday’s superstar innovators don’t pull the ladder up after them to thwart tomorrow’s. A powerful and ambitious reappraisal of the foundations of economic success and a blueprint for change, The Power of Creative Destruction shows that a fair and prosperous future is ultimately ours to make.
Author: Glenn Hubbard Publisher: FT Press ISBN: 0132371316 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 308
Book Description
If you think the current administration is mismanaging the economy straight towards disaster, you're not alone: so do two top economists from both sides of the political aisle. In Seeds of Destruction, former Bush chief White House economist R. Glenn Hubbard and well-known CNBC commentator Peter Navarro explain why current economic policy is a catastrophic failure. Then, they offer a comprehensive, bipartisan blueprint for reversing the decline of America's currency, manufacturing base, and standard of living - setting the stage for the epic policy debates that will precede the 2010 elections. Hubbard and Navarro begin with a "checklist" of what it takes to be a prosperous, democratic nation - and show why Obama's policies (some of Bush's also) fail on every level. They explain why the activist Federal Reserve and Obama fiscal stimulus policies are doing far more harm than good... why we must restore the U.S. manufacturing base, whatever China says about it... how to transform tax policy into an engine of growth and innovation... how to apply the "tough love" needed to save Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid... why America must resign the job of world policeman... how market-based solutions can finally deliver real energy independence... how to reform our antique financial regulatory system without imposing heavy-handed rules that cause even more trouble.
Author: Kalle Lasn Publisher: Seven Stories Press ISBN: 1609804333 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 407
Book Description
From the editor and magazine that started and named the Occupy Wall Street movement, Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics is an articulation of what could be the next steps in rethinking and remaking our world that challenges and debunks many of the assumptions of neoclassical economics and brings to light a more ecological model. Meme Wars aims to accelerate the shift into this new paradigm that takes into account psychonomics, bionomics, and other aspects of our physical and mental environment that are often left out in discussions of economics. Like Adbusters, the book will be image heavy and full-color throughout. Lasn calls it "a textbook for the future" that provides the building blocks, in texts and visuals, for a new way of looking at and changing our world. Through an examination of alternative economies, Lasn hopes to spur students to become "barefoot economists" and to see that a humanization of economics is possible. Meme Wars will include contributions from Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Samuelson, George Akerlof, Lourdes Benería, Julie Matthaei, Manfred Max-Neef, David Orrell, Paul Gilding, Mathis Wackernagel and the father of ecological economics Herman Daly, among others. Based on ideas that were presented in a special issue of Adbusters entitled "Thought Control in Economics: Beyond the Growth Paradigm / An Activist Toolkit," Meme Wars will help move forward the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Author: Adam Tooze Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1101564954 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 940
Book Description
"Masterful . . . [A] painstakingly researched, astonishingly erudite study…Tooze has added his name to the roll call of top-class scholars of Nazism." —Financial Times An extraordinary mythology has grown up around the Third Reich that hovers over political and moral debate even today. Adam Tooze's controversial book challenges the conventional economic interpretations of that period to explore how Hitler's surprisingly prescient vision--ultimately hindered by Germany's limited resources and his own racial ideology--was to create a German super-state to dominate Europe and compete with what he saw as America's overwhelming power in a soon-to- be globalized world. The Wages of Destruction is a chilling work of originality and tremendous scholarship that set off debate in Germany and will fundamentally change the way in which history views the Second World War.
Author: Steve Forbes Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional ISBN: 0071823719 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 286
Book Description
Why a return to sound money is our only hope for a true recovery and a healthy global economy “Money clearly illustrates that sound money is an essential foundation for a free and prosperous society and that the Federal Reserve’s current policies are a greater threat to the economic future of the U.S. than government deficit spending. This is an important book well worth reading.” -- John A. Allison, President and CEO, Cato Institute, and author of the New York Times bestselling The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure “Few topics today are as misunderstood as the subject of money. Steve Forbes understands money better than most heads of state do, and in this provocative book he shares his vast knowledge and gives us sensible and time-tested recommendations for stopping future financial meltdowns.” -- Lawrence Kudlow, CNBC Senior Contributor “Economic and monetary policies can be difficult to master for even the savviest politicians. Money effectively communicates these complexities into a cohesive argument for economic recovery and preventing a new financial crisis. Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames deliver a gripping read and an intriguing viewpoint on how to get our economy back on track.” --Greta Van Susteren, host of On the Record, Fox News Channel Few topics are as misunderstood today as the subject of money. Since the U.S. abandoned a gold-linked dollar more than four decades ago, the world’s governments have slid into a dangerous ignorance of the fundamental monetary principles that guided the world’s most successful economies for centuries. Today’s wrong-headed monetary policies are now setting the stage for a new global economic and social catastrophe that could rival the recent financial crisis and even the horrors of the 1930s. Coauthored by Steve Forbes, one of the world’s leading experts on finance, Money shows you why that doesn’t need to happen--and how to prevent it. After reading this entertaining and hugely well-informed book, you will know more about money than most people in the highest government positions today. Money explains why a return to sound money is absolutely essential if the U.S. and other nations are ever to overcome today’s problems. Stable money, Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames argue, is the only way to a true recovery and a stable and prosperous economy. Today’s system of fluctuating “fiat” money, in which governments manipulate the value of the dollar and other currencies, has been responsible for the biggest economic failures of recent decades, including the 2008 financial crisis, from whose effects we continue to suffer. The Obama/Bernanke/Yellen Federal Reserve and its unstable dollar policies are accelerating our course toward disaster, the authors show, in numerous convincing examples. In Money, Forbes and Ames answer these crucial questions: What is the difference between money and value? What is real wealth? How does sound money contribute to a well-functioning society? How have our money policy errors led to the current problems in global financial markets? What can we do now to reestablish the strength of the dollar and other currencies? The authors argue that the most effective way to return to a sound money policy and a healthy economy is to put the dollar back on a gold standard, and they outline the several different forms a gold standard could take. They also share invaluable suggestions for how to preserve our wealth and where to invest our money. Money is essential reading for anyone interested in this crucially important subject.
Author: Phil Mullan Publisher: Policy Press ISBN: 1447336127 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 361
Book Description
Western economies have become stuck in a protracted depression that began long before the 2008 crash. Low productivity, which started in the 1970s, has prevented durable rises in living standards. Phil Mullan shows that the only way to ensure a better future is to create one, calling for a comprehensive economic restructure backed by political and cultural change. This means embracing the uncomfortable disruption involved in progressive change, rekindling in democratic form a spirit of Enlightenment thinking. The votes for Brexit and in the US presidential elections in 2016 indicate that many people desire change, offering greater opportunity for this public discussion. What is needed is a new industrial revolution which develops a broad range of emerging and yet unimagined services and products, provides decent jobs and restores prosperity. Providing examples of the new technologies needed to drive change, backed up by a wealth of data, this important book calls for a sea-change in imagination and thinking.
Author: David R. Fontijn Publisher: Sidestone Press ISBN: 9088901023 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 352
Book Description
Over a 1000 tiny bronze artefacts were found alongside the remains of a man in a Dutch barrow that was excavated in laboratory conditions. The objects had been dismantled and taken apart, all to be destroyed by fire in what appears to have been a pars pro toto burial. In essence, a person and a place were being transformed through destruction. Based on the meticulous excavation and a range of specialist and comprehensive studies of finds, a prehistoric burial ritual now can be brought to life in surprising detail. This Iron Age community used extraordinary objects that find their closest counterpart in the elite graves of the Hallstatt culture in Central Europe.
Author: Michael Ellman Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317457498 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 350
Book Description
The inside story of the political collpase of the Soviet Union is far better understood than the course of economic and social disintegration. In order to capture the story, the editors compiled a list of questions which they addressed to former top Soviet officials and economic and other policy advisors (both Soviet and foreign) who were privy not only to data on the functioning of the Soviet economy but also to the internal policy debate during the 1980s. This volume assembles the Informants' analyses of key issues and the turning points, and weaves them into a compelling history of systemic collapse. Among the topics investigated are: economic policies in the 1980s; the standard of living: the reliability of Soviet statistics; Gosplan's projections for the economy to the year 2000; was the arms race starving the civilian economy? the role of ideology in supporting the functioning of an economic system; the party's participating in economic management; the influence of foreign advisors; the struggle over a transition program; the functioning and collapse of the supply system, the CMEA, and the foreign trade system.
Author: Tyler Cowen Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400825180 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 192
Book Description
A Frenchman rents a Hollywood movie. A Thai schoolgirl mimics Madonna. Saddam Hussein chooses Frank Sinatra's "My Way" as the theme song for his fifty-fourth birthday. It is a commonplace that globalization is subverting local culture. But is it helping as much as it hurts? In this strikingly original treatment of a fiercely debated issue, Tyler Cowen makes a bold new case for a more sympathetic understanding of cross-cultural trade. Creative Destruction brings not stale suppositions but an economist's eye to bear on an age-old question: Are market exchange and aesthetic quality friends or foes? On the whole, argues Cowen in clear and vigorous prose, they are friends. Cultural "destruction" breeds not artistic demise but diversity. Through an array of colorful examples from the areas where globalization's critics have been most vocal, Cowen asks what happens when cultures collide through trade, whether technology destroys native arts, why (and whether) Hollywood movies rule the world, whether "globalized" culture is dumbing down societies everywhere, and if national cultures matter at all. Scrutinizing such manifestations of "indigenous" culture as the steel band ensembles of Trinidad, Indian handweaving, and music from Zaire, Cowen finds that they are more vibrant than ever--thanks largely to cross-cultural trade. For all the pressures that market forces exert on individual cultures, diversity typically increases within society, even when cultures become more like each other. Trade enhances the range of individual choice, yielding forms of expression within cultures that flower as never before. While some see cultural decline as a half-empty glass, Cowen sees it as a glass half-full with the stirrings of cultural brilliance. Not all readers will agree, but all will want a say in the debate this exceptional book will stir.
Author: David R. Fontijn
Author: Philippe Aghion
Author: Glenn Hubbard
Author: Kalle Lasn
Author: Adam Tooze
Author: Steve Forbes
Author: Phil Mullan
Author: David R. Fontijn
Author: Michael Ellman
Author: Tyler Cowen