Golden ages are marked by periods of spectacular cultural flourishing, scientific exploration, technological achievement and economic growth: Ancient Greece gave us democracy and the rule of the law; out of Abbasid Baghdad came algebra and modern medicine, and the Dutch Republic furnished us with Europe’s greatest artistic movements. As such, each has unique lessons to teach us about the world we live in today. But, all previous golden ages have proven finite, whether through external pressures or internal fracturing.

Peak Human : What We Can Learn from the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages – Johan Norberg – 9781838957315

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The threat to liberal democracy isn’t just autocrats – it’s a lack of effective action by so-called progressives.

We have the means to build an equitable world without hunger, fuelled by clean energy. Instead, we have a politics driven by scarcity, lives defined by unaffordability and public institutions that no longer deliver on big ideas. It’s time for change.

Bestselling authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson have spent decades analysing the political, economic and cultural forces that have led us here. In this once-in-a-generation intervention, they unpick the barriers to progress and show how we can, and must, shift the political agenda to one that not only protects and preserves, but also builds.

From healthcare to housing, infrastructure to innovation, they lay out a path to a future defined not by fear, but by abundance.

Abundance: How We Build a Better Future – Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson – 9781805226062

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“A whistle-stop introduction to the great works and thinkers of each age, this is a clear and accessible primer.”—Laura Garmeson, Financial Times   What causes poverty? Are economic crises inevitable under capitalism? Is government intervention in an economy helpful, or harmful? While the answers to such basic economic questions matter to everyone, the unfamiliar language and math of economics can seem daunting. This clear, accessible, and even humorous book is ideal for young readers new to economic concepts, and for readers of all ages who want to better understand economic history and ideas.   Economic historian Niall Kishtainy organizes short chapters that center on big ideas and events.

He introduces us to some of the key thinkers—Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and others—while examining topics ranging from the invention of money to the Great Depression, entrepreneurship, and behavioral economics. The result is an enjoyable book that succeeds in illuminating the economic ideas and forces that shape our world.

A Little History of Economics – Niall Kishtainy – 9780300234527

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In his eagerly anticipated, deeply researched new book, Schreier trains his investigative eye on the volatility of the video game industry. And the resilience of the people who work in it. The business of videogames is both a prestige industry and an opaque one. Based on dozens of first-hand interviews that cover the development of landmark games-Bioshock Infinite, Epic Mickey, Dead Space, and more-on . . . to the shocking closures of the studios that made them. Press Reset tells the stories of how real people are affected by game studio shutdowns. And how they recover, move on, or escape the industry entirely.

Schreier’s insider interviews cover hostile takeovers, abusive bosses, corporate drama znd bounced checks. And that one time the Boston Red Sox’s Curt Schilling decided he was going to lead a game studio that would take out World of Warcraft. Along the way, he asks pressing questions about why, when the video game industry is more successful than ever, it’s become so hard to make a stable living making video games; And whether the business of making games can change before it’s too late.

Press Reset : Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry – Jason Schreier – 9781538735497

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In this ambitious, myth-busting book, leading scientist and internationally bestselling author Vaclav Smil investigates many of the burning questions facing the world today: Why are some of the world’s biggest food producers also the countries with the most undernourished populations?

Why is food waste a colossal 1,000kcal per person daily, and how can we solve that?

Could we all go vegan and be healthy? Should we?

How will we feed the ballooning population without killing the planet?

How Food Really Works shows how we misunderstand the essentials of where our food really comes from, how our dietary requirements shape us, and why this impacts our planet in drastic ways.

Ultimately, this data-based, rigorously researched guide explains how we will survive and thrive long into the future.

How to Feed the World – Vaclav Smil – 9780241999509

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‘A historically insightful read’ Financial Times.
‘It’s a wry, rollicking, and provocative history’ Michael Taylor, author of The Interest.
‘A thought-provoking analysis of Africa’s relationship with economic imperialism’ Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata, authors of It’s A Continent.

We need to think differently about African economics. For centuries, Westerners have tried to ‘fix’ African economies. From the abolition of slavery onwards, missionaries, philanthropists, development economists and NGOs have arrived on the continent, full of good intentions and bad ideas.

Their experiments have invariably gone awry, to the great surprise of all involved. In this short, bold story of Western economic thought about Africa, historian Bronwen Everill argues that these interventions fail. Because they start from a misguided premise: that African economies just need to be more like the West. Ignoring Africa’s own traditions of economic thought. Europeans and Americans assumed a set of universal economic laws that they thought could be applied anywhere.

They enforced specifically Western ideas about growth, wealth, debt, unemployment, inflation, women’s work and more, and used Western metrics to find African countries wanting. The West does not know better than African nations how an economy should be run. By laying bare the myths and realities of our tangled economic history, Africonomics moves from Western ignorance to African knowledge.

*Shortlisted for the BCA African Business Book of the Year*

AFRICONOMICS : A HISTORY OF WESTERN IGNORANCE – Bronwen Everill – 15.90 € – 9780008581183

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Why has Palestine become a defining fault line of contemporary politics?

Challenging mainstream narratives that reduce Palestine to ancient hatreds, humanitarian tragedy, or legal abstractions, Resisting Erasure places Israeli settler-colonialism within the broader historical arc of imperialism, race, and fossil capitalism in the Middle East.

Resisting Erasure is a succinct and far-reaching critique of the socio-economic and political forces that sustain the Israeli settler-colonial project. An essential introduction for anyone looking to understand what Palestine reveals about the world – and what it demands of us today.

RESISTING ERASURE  – Adam Hanieh, Robert Knox & Rafeef Ziadah – 14.90 € – 9781836740759

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How does our economic system impact the way we live? Does it really affect what we truly care about?

Oxford economist E. F. Schumacher provides an enlightening study of our economic system and its purpose, challenging the current state of excessive consumption in our society.

Offering a crucial message for the modern world struggling to balance economic growth with the human costs of globalisation, Small Is Beautiful puts forward the revolutionary yet viable case for building our economies around the needs of communities, not corporations. ‘One of the 100 most influential books published since World War II’ The Times Literary Supplement

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL – E F Schumacher – 14.90 € – 9780099225614

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Thomas Piketty imagine: you are designing a society, but you don’t know who you’ll be within it. Rich or poor, man or woman, gay or straight.

What would you want that society to look like? This is the revolutionary thought experiment proposed by the twentieth century’s greatest political philosopher, John Rawls.

Economist and philosopher Daniel Chandler argues in this hugely ambitious and exhilarating intervention. It is by rediscovering Rawls that we can find a way out of the escalating crises that are devastating our world today. Taking Rawls’s humane and egalitarian liberalism as his starting point. Chandler builds a careful and ultimately irresistible case for a progressive agenda. It would fundamentally reshape our societies for the better.

He shows how we can protect free speech and transcend the culture wars; get money out of politics; and create an economy where everyone has the chance to fulfil their potential. Where prosperity is widely shared, and which operates within the limits of our finite planet. This is a book brimming with hope and possibility – a galvanising alternative to the cynicism that pervades our politics.

Free and Equal has the potential not only to transform contemporary debate, but to offer a touchstone for a modern, egalitarian liberalism for many years to come. It is cementing Rawls’s place in political discourse, and firmly establishing Chandler as a vital new voice for our time.

Free and Equal: What would a fair society Look Like – Daniel Chandler – 9780141991948 – 15,90€

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Humanity’s greatest invention. From clay tablets in Mesopotamia to today’s cryptocurrency, global economist David McWilliams takes us on an epic journey of innovation, disruption and transformation that is an astonishing new history of our species. The question is, over 5,000 years, have we changed money – or has money changed us?

Money:A Story of Humanity – David McWilliams – 9781471195464 – 15,90€

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