Engineering Economics

When was the last time you read a grand statement, accompanied by a large number and wondered whether it could really be true? Statistics are vital in helping us tell stories - we see them in the papers, on social media and we hear them used in everyday conversation - and yet we doubt them more than ever. But numbers - in the right hands - have the power to change the world for the better. Contrary to popular belief, good statistics are not a trick, although they are a kind of magic.

Financial economist George G. Szpiro here tells the fascinating stories of the pioneers of mathematical finance who conducted the search for the elusive options pricing formula. From the broker's assistant who published the first mathematical explanation of financial markets to Albert Einstein and other scientists, Pricing the Future retraces the historical and intellectual developments that ultimately led to the widespread use of mathematical models to drive investment strategies on Wall Street.

Age of Discovery explores a world on the brink of a new Renaissance and asks: how do we share more widely the benefits of unprecedented progress? How do we endure the inevitable tumult generated by accelerating change? How do we each thrive through this tangled, uncertain time? From gains in health, education, wealth and technology to crises of conflict, disease and mass migration, the similarities between today's world and that of the 15th century are both striking and prophetic: we have been here before.

The industrial age made possible by fossil fuels will surely decline as these fuels run out. In The Ecotechnic Future John Michael Greer alerts the listener to possible changes future generations may face as these dwindling fuel supplies lead first to a deindustrial age, then to a society which salvages the remnants of our current plenty, and eventually to a time in which people may learn to live in balance with the environment: an ecotechnic society.

Dynasties of the Sea is the first audiobook to examine one of the most powerful forces in global trade and economic development: world shipping and the magnates who drive the industry. Operating from Monaco to Hong Kong, London to Athens, Singapore to Oslo, shipowners and their financiers have changed the world in every way.

Like F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises moved beyond economics in his later years to address questions regarding the foundation of all social science. But unlike Hayek's attempts, Mises' writings on these matters have received less attention than they deserve. Theory and History, writes Rothbard in his introduction, "remains by far the most neglected masterwork of Mises". Here Mises defends his all-important idea of methodological dualism: one approach to the hard sciences and another for the social sciences.

Few consumers are aware of the economic forces behind the production of meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. Yet omnivore and herbivore alike, the forces of meatonomics affect us in many ways. Most importantly, we've lost the ability to decide for ourselves what - and how much - to eat. Those decisions are made for us by animal food producers who control our buying choices with artificially-low prices, misleading messaging, and heavy control over legislation and regulation.

With exclusive access to Elon, his family, and his friends, this book traces Elon's journey from a kid in South Africa to a young man in the United States, his dramatic technical inventions, and his world-changing companies. Elon has sparked new levels of innovation in the world, and this book gives young listeners a detailed but fast-paced look at his story.

Bestselling author and renowned economic and social theorist Jeremy Rifkin delivers the political narrative, technical framework, and economic plan for the debate now taking center stage across America. The concurrence of a stranded fossil fuel assets bubble and a green political vision opens up the possibility of a massive global paradigm shift into a post-carbon ecological era, hopefully in time to prevent a temperature rise that will tip us over the edge into runaway climate change.

In the rubble of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans and ultrarich "Puertopians" are locked in a pitched struggle over how to remake the island. In this vital and startling investigation, The New York Times best-selling author and activist Naomi Klein uncovers how the forces of shock politics and disaster capitalism seek to undermine the nation's radical, resilient vision for a just recovery.

Wagner and Martin Weitzman explore in lively, clear terms the likely repercussions of a hotter planet, drawing on and expanding from work previously unavailable to general audiences. They show that the longer we wait to act, the more likely an extreme event will happen. A city might go underwater.

Why do three out of four professional football players go bankrupt? How can illiterate jungle dwellers pass a test that tricks Harvard philosophers? And why do billionaires work so hard - only to give their hard-earned money away? When it comes to making decisions, the classic view is that humans are eminently rational. But growing evidence suggests instead that our choices are often irrational, biased, and occasionally even moronic. Which view is right - or is there another possibility?

The second volume of William T. Vollmann's epic book about the factors and human actions that have led to global warming begins in the coal fields of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. Over the course of four years, Vollmann finds hollowed out towns with coal-polluted streams and acidified drinking water; makes covert visits to mountaintop removal mines; and offers documented accounts of unpaid fines for federal health and safety violations and of miners who died because their bosses cut corners to make more money.

Our take-make-waste economy has cost consumers and taxpayers billions while cheating us out of a habitable planet. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The Waste-Free World makes a persuasive, forward-looking case for a circular economic model, a “closed-loop” system that wastes no natural resources. Entrepreneur, CEO, and sustainability expert Ron Gonen argues that circularity is not only crucial for the planet but holds immense business opportunity.

We are in a race between political and natural tipping points. Can we close coal-fired power plants fast enough to save the Greenland ice sheet and avoid catastrophic sea level rise? Can we raise water productivity fast enough to halt the depletion of aquifers and avoid water-driven food shortages? Can we cope with peak water and peak oil at the same time? These are some of the issues Lester R. Brown skillfully distills in World on the Edge.

The last century saw a revolution in life expectancy. Whether you are male or female, born in the global south or north, the chances are that you can expect to live much longer than previous generations. But instead of seeing this as a precious gift of extra life, we see it as a burden, with ageing populations dogged by infirmity, dependent on an ever-decreasing number of young people to support them. Andrew Scott argues it doesn't have to be like that.

Imagine a world in which corporations such as Costco, Nike, BP, and countless others are forming partnerships with environmental and social justice organizations to ensure better stewardship of the earth and better livelihoods in the developing world. Now, stop imagining - that world is already emerging.

Humanly Possible is a wide-ranging, personal, thought-provoking and entertaining journey through the battle of ideas over some 700 years of history—mostly, but not exclusively, in Europe. Through a mixture of biography and philosophy, Bakewell seeks to understand what humanism is, why it has continued to flourish despite opposition from fanatics, mystics, tyrants and cultural pessimists of all kinds, and exactly why we should value and defend it in the 21st century.

Five Times Faster is an inside story from Simon Sharpe, who has spent ten years at the forefront of climate change policy and diplomacy. In our fight to avoid dangerous climate change, science is pulling its punches, diplomacy is picking the wrong battles, and economics has been fighting for the other side. This provocative and engaging book sets out how we should rethink our strategies and reorganize our efforts in the fields of science, economics, and diplomacy, so that we can act fast enough to stay safe.

In this compelling journey through twenty-six countries, Simon Mundy traces how the struggle to respond to the climate crisis is rapidly reshaping the modern world–shattering communities, shaking global business and propelling waves of cutting-edge innovation. Telling unforgettable human stories, meeting scientists and business tycoons, activists and political leaders, this is an account of disaster and survival, of frantic adaptation and groundbreaking innovation, of hope, and of the forces that will define our future.