Trade History

A heady blend of international intrigue, social theory, botanical lore, and ecological study, The Cactus Hunters offers complex insight into species extinction, conservation, and more-than-human care.

A new, gripping history of America - told through the executives, bankers, farmers, and politicians who paved the way from colonial times to the present - reveals that this country was founded as much on the search for wealth and prosperity as the desire for freedom.

After the 2008 financial crisis, investment banks and other professional investors had the edge when it came to bailouts and stock trading. The crisis also ushered in a wave of new small-scale retail investors who were hell-bent on crushing the big guys by using social media channels to connect, share ideas, promote stocks, and reap the rewards—Robin Hood-style. But did the meme short squeeze stand a chance in a rigged playing field? This concise, definitive account of a daring Wall Street heist exposes a fight to the death against a fraudulent system.

The New York Times best-selling author of The Roaring 2000s guides listeners through the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. The first and last economic depression that you will experience in your lifetime is just ahead. The years 2009 and 2010 will be the initial end of prosperity in almost every market, ushering in a downturn like most of us have not experienced before.

Neil Irwin’s The Alchemists is a gripping account of the most intense exercise in economic crisis management we’ve ever seen, a poker game in which the stakes have run into the trillions of dollars. The book begins in, of all places, Stockholm, Sweden, in the 17th century, where central banking had its rocky birth, and then progresses through a brisk but dazzling tutorial on how the central banker came to exert such vast influence over our world, from its troubled beginnings to the age of Greenspan, bringing the listener into the present with a marvelous handle on how these figures and institutions became what they are.

On May 6, 2010, financial markets around the world tumbled simultaneously and without warning. In the span of five minutes, a trillion dollars of valuation was lost. The Flash Crash, as it became known, represented the fastest drop in market history. When share values rebounded less than half an hour later, experts around the globe were left perplexed. What had they just witnessed? Navinder Singh Sarao hardly seemed like a man who would shake the world's financial markets to their core.

In 1919, Texas rancher J. Frank Norfleet lost everything he had in a stock market swindle. He did what many other marks did - he went home, borrowed more money from his family, and returned for another round of swindling. Only after he lost that second fortune did he reclaim control of his story. Instead of crawling back home in shame, he vowed to hunt down the five men who had conned him. Through Norfleet's ingenious reverse-swindle, Amy Reading reveals the mechanics behind the scenes of the big con.

The Silk Road and the Incense Trade Route have been heavily investigated in recent decades, but the Amber Road trade network dominating northern Europe has been given far less attention. Perhaps even more interesting than the movement of the amber is regarding shifting trade operations from government controlled systems to private merchant enterprises to monopolies of guilds and orders, a return to government control, and finally, the selling of the trade to individual countries.

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.

The Kingdom of Alashiya: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Trading Kingdom on Cyprus during the Bronze Age examines the mysterious kingdom and its relationships with various other kingdoms nearby. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about ancient Cyprus like never before.

In this comprehensive work, David Eltis offers a two-thousand-year perspective on the trafficking of people, and boldly intervenes in the expansive discussions about slavery in the last half-century. Using new and underexplored data made available by slavevoyages.org, Eltis offers compelling explanations of why the slave trades began and why they ended, and in the process debunks long-held assumptions, including how bilateral rather than triangular voyages were the norm, and how the Portuguese rather than the British were the leading slave traders.

Miriam Beckstein has said good-bye to her comfort zone. The transition from journalist to captive in an alternative time line was challenging, to say the least. As was discovering her long-lost family, the Clan, were world-skipping assassins. Now civil war rages in her adopted home, she's pregnant with the heir to their throne and a splinter group want her on their side of a desperate power struggle. But as a leader or figurehead?

Before Columbus's fateful voyage in 1492, no European had ever seen, much less tasted, tobacco or chocolate. Initially dismissed as dry leaves and an odd Indian drink, these two commodities came to conquer Europe on a scale unsurpassed by any other American resource or product. A fascinating story of contact, exploration, and exchange in the Atlantic world, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures traces the ways in which these two goods of the Americas both changed and were changed by Europe.

The purpose of this insider's account is to provide an answer to all these questions and more. Andrew Marr's brilliant, and brilliantly funny, book is a guide to those of us who read newspapers, or who listen to and watch news bulletins but want to know more. Andrew Marr tells the story of modern journalism through his own experience.

The most feared ship in Britain’s West Africa Squadron, His Majesty’s brig Black Joke was one of a handful of ships tasked with patrolling the western coast of Africa in an effort to end hundreds of years of global slave trading. Sailing after the spectacular fall of Napoleon in France, yet before the rise of Queen Victoria’s England, Black Joke was first a slaving vessel itself, and one with a lightning-fast reputation; only a lucky capture in 1827 allowed it to be repurposed by the Royal Navy to catch its former compatriots.

What You Need To Know About The TRUMP Tariffs NOW - Protect Yourself and Capitalize on the Dramatic Changes Ahead! Unlock the INSIDER'S guide to the Trump Tariffs and gain an unfair advantage! Sruggling to understand the sweeping implications of the 2025 Trump Tariffs? Cut through the noise and get straight to the essential facts in "What You Need To Know About The TRUMP Tariffs NOW" by Paul David Franklin. This isn't just another dry economic treatise; it's your action-oriented guide to navigating the seismic shifts in global trade and the US economy. In addition to the historical facts of...

Monday, October 19, 1987, was by far the worst day in Wall Street history. The market fell 22.6% - almost twice as bad as the worst day of 1929 - equal to a one-day loss of nearly 5,000 points today. Black Monday was more than seven years in the making and threatened nearly every US financial institution. Drawing on superlative archival research and dozens of original interviews, Diana B. Henriques weaves a tale of missed opportunities, market delusions, and destructive actions.

The Silk Road, which has been understood as a generalized route of trade between the East and the West, is different from European, North African, and Near Eastern trade routes because until recently, it has been understood as solely being a land route; in fact, it was believed to be the longest overland trade route in human history. The history of the Silk Road is extremely complex. It cannot be told as a singular chronological narrative.

The richest people in the world use inflation investing to protect and grow their wealth during times of currency devaluation. While the average person sees inflation as a financial burden, the smart investor knows how to take advantage of inflation to build generational wealth. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just getting started, this book will show you how to make inflation work in your favor. Inflation Investing is your guide to making money and protecting yourself from economic disaster. Harness the power of inflation and never lose money to inflation ever again.

This enthralling book is the first to uncover the story of New York City merchants who engaged in forbidden trade with the enemy before and during the Seven Years’ War. Ignoring British prohibitions designed to end North America’s wartime trade with the French, New York’s merchant elite conducted a thriving business in the French West Indies, insisting that their behavior was protected by long practice and British commercial law. But the government in London viewed it as treachery, and its subsequent efforts to discipline North American commerce inflamed the colonists.