Search results for ""currency""

Drawing on new archaeological evidence, an authoritative history of Rome’s Great Fire—and how it inflicted lasting harm on the Roman EmpireAccording to legend, the Roman emperor Nero set fire to his majestic imperial capital on the night of July 19, AD 64 and fiddled while the city burned. It’s a story that has been told for more than two millennia—and it’s likely that almost none of it is true. In Rome Is Burning, distinguished Roman historian Anthony Barrett sets the record straight, providing a comprehensive and authoritative account of the Great Fire of Rome, its immediate aftermath, and its damaging longterm consequences for the Roman world. Drawing on remarkable new archaeological discoveries and sifting through all the literary evidence, he tells what is known about what actually happened—and argues that the disaster was a turning point in Roman history, one that ultimately led to the fall of Nero and the end of the dynasty that began with Julius Caesar.Rome Is Burning tells how the fire destroyed much of the city and threw the population into panic. It describes how it also destroyed Nero’s golden image and provoked a financial crisis and currency devaluation that made a permanent impact on the Roman economy. Most importantly, the book surveys, and includes many photographs of, recent archaeological evidence that shows visible traces of the fire’s destruction. Finally, the book describes the fire’s continuing afterlife in literature, opera, ballet, and film.A richly detailed and scrupulously factual narrative of an event that has always been shrouded in myth, Rome Is Burning promises to become the standard account of the Great Fire of Rome for our time.

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Publisher's Note: Products purchased from Third Party sellers are not guaranteed by the publisher for quality, authenticity, or access to any online entitlements included with the product.An engagingly written case-based review for the Family Medicine Board Examination and the USMLE Step 3Widely recognized as the ideal study guide for the primary and recertification exams in family medicine and licensure exams, Graber and Wilbur's Family Medicine Examination and Board Review, Fifth Edition has been updated throughout to maintain currency and freshness—including new bits of humor that make the book fun to read and studying more enjoyable. Featuring hundreds of progressive cases, this acclaimed review has been applauded by residents and students for its "building-block approach" to learning that assures readers understand one subject before moving on to the next. The Fifth Edition has also been enhanced with cutting-edge coverage of topics such as health maintenance, decision-making, and metacognition. •More than 350 progressive case studies that reflect the realities of clinical practice and prepare readers for the exams •A 200-question final exam with answers referenced to pages in the book•Detailed answer explanations for most questions that explain not only why an answer is right, but why the other answers are wrong •Comprehensive coverage of ALL topics on the boards and recertifying exam •Super-effective learning aids such as Quick Quizzes, learning objectives, clinical pearls, and more •Color photographs of conditions most easily diagnosed by appearance •Written not only to help pass exams, but to also update knowledge of family medicine with state-of-the-art information •An outstanding refresher for primary care physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners

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A pocket-sized travel guide, packed with expert advice and ideas for the best things to see and do in Lisbon, and complemented with a sturdy pull-out map - perfect for a day trip or a short break.Whether you want to trundle through cobbled streets on a vintage tram, be moved by spine-tingling fado, enjoy spectacular panoramas from a rooftop bar, or simply eat a lot of custard tarts - this great-value, concise travel guide will ensure you don't miss a thing. Inside Mini Map and Guide Lisbon:- Easy-to-use pull-out map shows Lisbon in detail, and includes a transport map- Colour-coded area guide makes it easy to find information quickly and plan your day- Illustrations show the inside of some of Lisbon's most iconic buildings- Colour photographs of Lisbon's museums, architecture, shops, cathedrals and more- Essential travel tips including our expert choices of where to eat, drink and shop, plus useful transport, currency and health information and a phrase book- Chapters covering Alfama; Baixa and Avenida; Bairro Alto and Estrela; Belém; Beyond the Centre; The Lisbon Coast Mini Map and Guide Lisbon is abridged from DK Eyewitness Travel Guide LisbonStaying for longer and looking for a more comprehensive guide? Try our DK Eyewitness Top Ten Lisbon. About DK Eyewitness Travel: DK's Mini Map and Guides take the work out of planning a short trip, with expert advice and easy-to-read maps to inform and enrich any short break. DK is the world's leading illustrated reference publisher, producing beautifully designed books for adults and children in over 120 countries.

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Daniel Defoe's bawdy tale of a woman's struggle for independence and redemption, Moll Flanders is edited with an introduction and notes by David Blewett in Penguin Classics.Born in Newgate prison and abandoned six months later, Moll Flanders' drive to find and hold on to a secure place in society propels her through incest, adultery, bigamy, prostitution and a resourceful career as a thief ('the greatest Artist of my time') before her crimes catche up with her, and she is transported to the colony of Virginia in the New World. If Moll Flanders is on one level a Puritan's tale of sin and repentance, through self-made, self-reliant Moll, Daniel Defoe's rich subtext conveys all the paradoxes and amoralities of the struggle for property and power in the newly individualistic society of Eighteenth-century England.Based on the first edition of 1722, this volume includes a chronology, suggestions for further reading, notes on currency and maps of London and Virginia in the late seventeenth century.Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) had a variety of careers including merchant, soldier, spy, and political pamphleteer. Over the course of his life Daniel Defoe wrote over two hundred and fifty books on economics, history, biography and crime, but is best remembered for the fiction he produced in late life, which includes Robinson Crusoe (1719), Moll Flanders (1722) and Roxana (1724). Defoe had a great influence on the development of the English novel and many consider him to be the first true novelist.If you enjoyed Moll Flanders, you might like Samuel Richardson's Pamela, also available in Penguin Classics.

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Open-Economy Macroeconomics for Developing Countries focuses on fiscal, monetary and exchange rate issues of importance to less developed economies. The book argues that the dichotomy between the short-term macroeconomic stabilization goal and the long-term economic growth objective commonly found in developing countries' policy framework is inappropriate. The authors report empirical evidence to support the proposition that macroeconomic stability is a pre-requisite for sustained economic growth and the root of macroeconomic instability in developing countries lies in the government budget deficits. The book discusses the stabilization tools available to deal with capital flows, supply shocks and the effects of financial deregulation. It opens with a discussion of macroeconomic policy problems for open developing economies and an historical overview of the international institutions such as IMF, GATT and UNCTAD. The authors then provide a comprehensive review of macroeconomic models which are popularly used to analyse policy dilemmas related to internal and external balances of open economies.Having reviewed the institutional and theoretical framework, the authors assess the macroeconomic impact of financial deregulation, capital flows and foreign investment. They address the debt crisis, financial instability, capital flight, currency substitution and exchange rate arrangements. The authors also consider more general issues such as the political economy of macroeconomic management and the institutional framework that may enhance credibility and effectiveness of macroeconomic policy. In conclusion, they stress that the openness of an economy itself acts as a constraint on macroeconomic mismanagement and hence may enhance economic growth.This comprehensive book will be an important addition to the literature, and will be of use to advanced undergraduates and graduates of development economics, development studies and financial and monetary economics.

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The successes and failures of an industry that claims to protect and promote our online identities What does privacy mean in the digital era? As technology increasingly blurs the boundary between public and private, questions about who controls our data become harder and harder to answer. Our every web view, click, and online purchase can be sold to anyone to store and use as they wish. At the same time, our online reputation has become an important part of our identity—a form of cultural currency. The Identity Trade examines the relationship between online visibility and privacy, and the politics of identity and self-presentation in the digital age. In doing so, Nora Draper looks at the revealing two-decade history of efforts by the consumer privacy industry to give individuals control over their digital image through the sale of privacy protection and reputation management as a service. Through in-depth interviews with industry experts, as well as analysis of media coverage, promotional materials, and government policies, Draper examines how companies have turned the protection and promotion of digital information into a business. Along the way, she also provides insight into how these companies have responded to and shaped the ways we think about image and reputation in the digital age. Tracking the successes and failures of companies claiming to control our digital ephemera, Draper takes us inside an industry that has commodified strategies of information control. This book is a discerning overview of the debate around who controls our data, who buys and sells it, and the consequences of treating privacy as a consumer good.

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Capitalism and slavery stand as the two economic phenomena that have most clearly defined the United States. Yet, despite African Americans' nearly $500 billion annual spending power, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the ways U.S. businesses have courted black dollars in post-slavery America. Robert E. Weems, Jr., presents the first fully integrated history of black consumerism over the course of the last century. The World War I era Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to northern and southern cities stimulated initial corporate interest in blacks as consumers. A generation later, as black urbanization intensified during World War II and its aftermath, the notion of a distinct, profitable African American consumer market gained greater currency. Moreover, black socioeconomic gains resulting from the Civil Rights movement which itself featured such consumer justice protests as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, further enhanced the status and influence of African American shoppers. Unwilling to settle for facile answers, Weems explores the role of black entrepreneurs who promoted the importance of the African American consumer market to U.S. corporations. Their actions, ironically, set the stage for the ongoing destruction of black-owned business. While the extent of educational, employment, and residential desegregation remains debatable, African American consumer dollars have, by any standard, been fully incorporated into the U.S. economy. Desegregating the Dollar takes us through the "blaxploitation" film industry, the vast market for black personal care products, and the insidious exploitation of black urban misery by liquor and cigarette advertisers. Robert E. Weems, Jr., has given us the definitive account of the complicated relationship between African Americans, capitalism, and consumerism.

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The Second World War put an end to America's historical isolation from international power politics, and so also to the long-standing American defiance of the Realist ideology that shaped Old World affairs. The advent of transoceanic military technologies, now wielded by menacing states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, made Americans more receptive to the Realist idea that international relations is about fear and survival. The American Realists Reinhold Niebuhr, Hans Morgenthau, and Kenneth Waltz developed a modern strategic framework that sought to introduce American leaders and the educated public to these harsher realities of international politics. They emphasized a clear-eyed, cold approach to the play of interests, egotism, and the drive for power in world affairs-a struggle in which the threat of major war remained, in the end, the only legitimate currency. Yet even as Americans began to accept this new Realism, thermonuclear weaponry threatened to make it absurd. A major war to defend the nation might result in its total destruction; a thermonuclear war leading to the death of hundreds of millions of citizens seemed an unusual way to preserve American survival. This dilemma became central to the Realist understanding of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz. How could a Realist approach to international politics and war be sustained in the face of possible global annihilation? Glimmer of a New Leviathan is the engrossing story of how the three chief architects of an influential ideology struggled with the implications of their own creation. It offers crucial historical context for contemporary debates about weapons of mass destruction and the post-Cold War international order.

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Videogames! Aren’t they the medium of the twenty-first century? The new cinema? The apotheosis of art and entertainment, the realization of Wagnerian gesamtkunstwerk? The final victory of interaction over passivity? No, probably not. Games are part art and part appliance, part tableau and part toaster. In How to Talk about Videogames, leading critic Ian Bogost explores this paradox more thoroughly than any other author to date.Delving into popular, familiar games like Flappy Bird, Mirror’s Edge, Mario Kart, Scribblenauts, Ms. Pac-Man, FarmVille, Candy Crush Saga, Bully, Medal of Honor, Madden NFL, and more, Bogost posits that videogames are as much like appliances as they are like art and media. We don’t watch or read games like we do films and novels and paintings, nor do we perform them like we might dance or play football or Frisbee. Rather, we do something in-between with games. Games are devices we operate, so game critique is both serious cultural currency and self-parody. It is about figuring out what it means that a game works the way it does and then treating the way it works as if it were reasonable, when we know it isn’t.Noting that the term games criticism once struck him as preposterous, Bogost observes that the idea, taken too seriously, risks balkanizing games writing from the rest of culture, severing it from the “rivers and fields” that sustain it. As essential as it is, he calls for its pursuit to unfold in this spirit: “God save us from a future of games critics, gnawing on scraps like the zombies that fester in our objects of study.”

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Existentialism is the philosophy of human existence, which flourished first in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s and then in France in the decade following the end of World War II. The operative meaning of existentialism here is thus broader than it was circa 1945 when the term first gained currency in France as a label for the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre. However, it is considerably less broad than the view proposed by commentators in the 1950s and 1960s who, in an attempt to overcome Sartre's hegemony, discovered the seeds of existentialism far and wide: in Shakespeare, Saint Augustine, and the Old Testament prophets. In this dictionary, existentialism is understood as a decidedly 20th-century phenomenon, though with roots in the 19th century. Effort has been made to understand the philosophy of existentialism, as all philosophies should be understood, as part of an ongoing intellectual tradition: an evolving history of problems, concepts, and arguments. The Historical Dictionary of Existentialism explains the central claims of existentialist philosophy and the contexts in which it developed into one of the most influential intellectual trends of the 20th century. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and more than 300 cross-referenced dictionary entries offering clear, accessible accounts of the life and thought of major existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, Martin Buber, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as well as thinkers influential to its development such as Wilhelm Dilthey, Henri Bergson, Edmund Husserl, and Max Scheler. Historical Dictionary of Existentialism affords readers an integrated, critical, and historically-sensitive understanding of this important philosophical movement.

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An examination of coined money and its significance to rulers, aristocrats and peasants in early medieval EuropeBetween the end of the Roman Empire in the fifth century and the economic transformations of the twelfth, coined money in western Europe was scarce and high in value, difficult for the majority of the population to make use of. And yet, as Rory Naismith shows in this illuminating study, coined money was made and used throughout early medieval Europe. It was, he argues, a powerful tool for articulating people’s place in economic and social structures and an important gauge for levels of economic complexity. Working from the premise that using coined money carried special significance when there was less of it around, Naismith uses detailed case studies from the Mediterranean and northern Europe to propose a new reading of early medieval money as a point of contact between economic, social, and institutional history.Naismith examines structural issues, including the mining and circulation of metal and the use of bullion and other commodities as money, and then offers a chronological account of monetary development, discussing the post-Roman period of gold coinage, the rise of the silver penny in the seventh century and the reconfiguration of elite power in relation to coinage in the tenth and eleventh centuries. In the process, he counters the conventional view of early medieval currency as the domain only of elite gift-givers and intrepid long-distance traders. Even when there were few coins in circulation, Naismith argues, the ways they were used—to give gifts, to pay rents, to spend at markets—have much to tell us.

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This is a condensed edition of 'The Road to Serfdom' republished in this edition with 'The Intellectuals and Socialism' (originally published in 1949). In 'The Road to Serfdom' F. A. Hayek set out the danger posed to freedom by attempts to apply the principles of wartime economic and social planning to the problems of peacetime. Hayek argued that the rise of Nazism was not due to any character failure on the part of the German people, but was a consequence of the socialist ideas that had gained common currency in Germany in the decades preceding the outbreak of war. Such ideas, Hayek argued, were now becoming similarly accepted in Britain and the USA. On its publication in 1944, 'The Road to Serfdom' caused a sensation. Its publishers could not keep up with demand, owing to wartime paper rationing. Then, in April 1945, Reader's Digest published a condensed version of the book and Hayek's work found a mass audience. This condensed edition was republished for the first time by the IEA in 1999. Since then it has been frequently reprinted. There is an enduring demand for Hayek's relevant and accessible message. The 'Road to Serfdom' is republished in this impression with 'The Intellectuals and Socialism' originally published in 1949, in which Hayek explained the appeal of socialist ideas to intellectuals - the 'second-hand dealers in ideas'. Intellectuals, Hayek argued, are attracted to socialism because it involves the rational application of the intellect to the organisation of society, while its utopianism captures their imagination and satisfies their desire to make the world submit to their own design.

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THINK Currency. THINK Relevancy. THINK Social Problems. THINK Social Problems is informed with the latest research and the most contemporary examples, allowing you to bring current events directly into your classroom with little additional work. An engaging visual design developed with extensive student feedback and 12-15 page chapters makes THINK Social Problems the textbook your students will actually read. This student-friendly text delivers the core concepts of Social Problems in a way they can easily understand. The 2nd edition includes three new chapters: “Economy and Work,” “Politics,” and “Sex and Social Problems Related to Sexuality.” A better teaching and learning experience This program will provide a better teaching and learning experience–for you and your students. Here’s how: Personalize Learning — MySearchLab delivers proven results in helping students succeed, provides engaging experiences that personalize learning, and comes from a trusted partner with educational expertise and a deep commitment to helping students and instructors achieve their goals. Improve Critical Thinking — Chapter organization follows a 3-step process that presents the topic, considers the social problems, and urges students to uncover solutions. Engage Students — TheThinkSpot provides open-access to chapter-by-chapter quizzes, study cards, flashcards, and a professor-written sociology blog. Explore Theory — Three main sociological paradigms are discussed visually through a theory infographic in every chapter. Understand Diversity — Global comparisons are found in every chapter within a designated feature box. Support Instructors - Written activities and assessment in MySearchLab offer instructors supplemental materials to help their students succeed. Note: MySearchLab does not come automatically packaged with this text. To purchase MySearchLab, please visit: www.mysearchlab.com or you can purchase a valuepack of the text + MySearchLab (at no additional cost).

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From the pen of highly esteemed trade scholar Alan Sykes, this book presents a rigorous introduction to the law and economics of modern international trade agreements.With a bottom-up approach that requires neither a background in international trade law nor significant economics training, Sykes sets out to map and explain the complex dynamics of international trade agreements and institutions, synthesising legal analysis and cutting-edge economic research in order to present the reader with a sophisticated, holistic view of the field.Against the backdrop of the current impasse in both negotiation and dispute settlement at the World Trade Organisation, the book charts a clear path from the historical origins of trade law and the international system, to the current state of play, including unpacking the major areas of controversy. It exposits the economic theory of trade agreements, discusses the role of international trade law in domestic legal systems and analyzes the role of self-enforcement and formal dispute resolution mechanisms. It provides lucid and detailed analysis of the restrictions, exceptions, obligations and special measures that constitute the core building blocks of international trade rules, including the distinct features of international trade in services. With an international outlook, the book also addresses the role of China in the world trading system, looking at such issues as the credibility of market access commitments, China's industrial policies, “forced technology transfer” and currency manipulation.Providing an eloquent, thorough and technically astute overview of international trade agreements, this title will be invaluable to scholars and teachers of international trade across the disciplines of law, economics and political science.

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European integration has had many successes and failures, Brexit being one of the biggest failures. Despite the setbacks, the EU has been acquiring more functions and members and has now reached a stage where it needs to become a political adult. In this book, one of the world’s leading authorities on Europe provides a lucid and wide-ranging appraisal of contemporary European affairs – of how the EU became what it is today and the key challenges Europeans must now confront. These challenges include the search for a common foreign and security policy that will also require a more symmetrical transatlantic relationship; the search for democracy beyond the nation state; more inclusive societies; the development of the euro into a fully fledged currency; a higher degree of autonomy in high technology; and the greening of economies. In Tsoukalis’ view, what is at stake in these challenges is whether the EU can exercise effective political power in a multipolar, highly asymmetrical and increasingly unstable world, and whether it can find a workable relationship between global markets and domestic social contracts. Willing and able countries should lead the way. The stakes are high – and not just for Europe. A declining and marginalized Europe would not be able to defend fundamental interests and values, including freedom and security for its citizens. And the world would greatly benefit from the moderating influence of a regional power that operates on the basis of broad consensus and compromise. This bold and ambitious book, based on extensive experience of European affairs, will be of value to anyone interested in Europe and its future as well as anyone concerned with the great political challenges of our time.

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The successes and failures of an industry that claims to protect and promote our online identities What does privacy mean in the digital era? As technology increasingly blurs the boundary between public and private, questions about who controls our data become harder and harder to answer. Our every web view, click, and online purchase can be sold to anyone to store and use as they wish. At the same time, our online reputation has become an important part of our identity—a form of cultural currency. The Identity Trade examines the relationship between online visibility and privacy, and the politics of identity and self-presentation in the digital age. In doing so, Nora Draper looks at the revealing two-decade history of efforts by the consumer privacy industry to give individuals control over their digital image through the sale of privacy protection and reputation management as a service. Through in-depth interviews with industry experts, as well as analysis of media coverage, promotional materials, and government policies, Draper examines how companies have turned the protection and promotion of digital information into a business. Along the way, she also provides insight into how these companies have responded to and shaped the ways we think about image and reputation in the digital age. Tracking the successes and failures of companies claiming to control our digital ephemera, Draper takes us inside an industry that has commodified strategies of information control. This book is a discerning overview of the debate around who controls our data, who buys and sells it, and the consequences of treating privacy as a consumer good.

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A devastatingly incisive look at the devaluation of the American dollar and how it impacts you In the newly revised third edition of Demise of the Dollar: From the Bailouts to the Pandemic and Beyond, New York Times and international bestselling author Addison Wiggin delivers yet another timely and insightful account of the devaluation of the American dollar. Fully updated to consider the events of the last ten years—including the COVID-19 pandemic—the book contains nuanced discussions of historic inflation, interest rates and the Federal Reserve, the impact the Euro has had since its introduction, the rise of China prior to the pandemic, cryptocurrencies and the United States’ consumer debt addiction. It also demonstrates how all these factors, and more, are affected by the American dollar’s role as the world’s “reserve currency”. You’ll learn what a weakened American dollar means for your portfolio and how you can best arrange your finances to protect against global macroeconomic risks. You’ll find: Strategies for making your portfolio more resilient against economic shocks, downturns, and crises Explorations of what increasing levels of US consumer debt mean for your investments, and for the world’s largest economics Examinations of how foreign countries have come to control the economic fate of the United States via the issuance of debt A fascinating account of one of the most important trends in American economics in the last hundred years, Demise of the Dollar offers incisive observations about the factors driving the world’s contemporary economies and specific and strategic guidance on how to structure your portfolio to survive, and even thrive, in a new financial environment.

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From The Road to Game of Thrones, across works as seemingly different as Gone Girl and Saw, literature, film, and television have become obsessed with the intersection of survival and choice. When the trapped rock-climber hero of 127 Hours is confronted with self-amputation or death, it is only a particularly blunt example of an omnipresent set-up. In real-life settings or fantastical games, protagonists find themselves confronting extreme scenarios with life-or-death consequences, forced to make torturous either-or choices in stripped-down, brutally stark environments.Jane Elliott identifies and analyzes this new and distinctive aesthetic phenomenon, which she calls “the microeconomic mode.” Through close readings of its narratives, tropes, and concepts, she traces the implicit theoretical and political claims conveyed by this combination of abstraction and extremity. In the microeconomic mode, humans isolated from any forms of social organization operate within a mini-economy of costs and benefits, gains and losses, measured in the currency of life. Elliott reads the key concepts that emerge from this aesthetic—life-interest, sovereign capture, and binary life—in relation to biopolitics and natural law theory, becoming and the control society, and primitive accumulation in racial capitalism. The microeconomic mode interrogates the destruction of the liberal political subject, but what it leaves in its place is as disturbing as it is radically new. Going beyond the question of neoliberalism in literature, The Microeconomic Mode combines revelatory close readings of key literary and popular texts with significant theoretical interventions to identify how an aesthetics of choice has reshaped our contemporary understanding of what it means to be human.

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The Second World War put an end to America's historical isolation from international power politics, and so also to the long-standing American defiance of the Realist ideology that shaped Old World affairs. The advent of transoceanic military technologies, now wielded by menacing states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, made Americans more receptive to the Realist idea that international relations is about fear and survival. The American Realists Reinhold Niebuhr, Hans Morgenthau, and Kenneth Waltz developed a modern strategic framework that sought to introduce American leaders and the educated public to these harsher realities of international politics. They emphasized a clear-eyed, cold approach to the play of interests, egotism, and the drive for power in world affairs-a struggle in which the threat of major war remained, in the end, the only legitimate currency. Yet even as Americans began to accept this new Realism, thermonuclear weaponry threatened to make it absurd. A major war to defend the nation might result in its total destruction; a thermonuclear war leading to the death of hundreds of millions of citizens seemed an unusual way to preserve American survival. This dilemma became central to the Realist understanding of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz. How could a Realist approach to international politics and war be sustained in the face of possible global annihilation? Glimmer of a New Leviathan is the engrossing story of how the three chief architects of an influential ideology struggled with the implications of their own creation. It offers crucial historical context for contemporary debates about weapons of mass destruction and the post-Cold War international order.

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Over the past decade the European Union has faced threats to its currency, borders and unity. Covid-19, which began its inexorable spread across Europe in February 2020, is the latest crisis to test the Union’s resilience. Luuk van Middelaar’s compelling analysis of the EU’s response to the pandemic details how events and decisions unfolded, how crisis solutions were improvised in a situation of deep uncertainty, and the lessons it must learn if it is to continue to protect its citizens. As member states shut their borders and scrambled for supplies, the European Union at first appeared irrelevant. But once shaken from its torpor by a public cry for help, the EU has coordinated a formidable response to the chaos, including an unprecedented level of financial assistance. This reaction, argues van Middelaar, demonstrates the Union’s enduring strength and how it has learnt to deal with real world events. Indeed, the EU’s response to the pandemic reveals how far it has come on its journey from regulatory body to geopolitical actor. The pandemic highlighted that Europe’s next challenge will most likely come from its uneasy position between a strategically assertive China and a more self-centred United States. Facing this will require a greater political will than that mustered in the health emergency. To become a true power among powers, Van Middelaar contends, Europe must give firmer political shape to its own historical and cultural identity. Pandemonium cements Luuk van Middelaar’s position as one of the most insightful commentators on EU politics. His powerful analysis will be welcomed by anyone seeking to understand Europe’s dynamics and changing geopolitical role.

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Whether you are managing institutional portfolios or private wealth, augment your asset allocation strategy with machine learning and factor investing for unprecedented returns and growthIn a straightforward and unambiguous fashion, Quantitative Asset Management shows how to take join factor investing and data science—machine learning and applied to big data. Using instructive anecdotes and practical examples, including quiz questions and a companion website with working code, this groundbreaking guide provides a toolkit to apply these modern tools to investing and includes such real-world details as currency controls, market impact, and taxes. It walks readers through the entire investing process, from designing goals to planning, research, implementation, and testing, and risk management. Inside, you’ll find: Cutting edge methods married to the actual strategies used by the most sophisticated institutions Real-world investment processes as employed by the largest investment companies A toolkit for investing as a professional Clear explanations of how to use modern quantitative methods to analyze investing options An accompanying online site with coding and apps Written by a seasoned financial investor who uses technology as a tool—as opposed to a technologist who invests—Quantitative Asset Management explains the author’s methods without oversimplification or confounding theory and math. Quantitative Asset Management demonstrates how leading institutions use Python and MATLAB to build alpha and risk engines, including optimal multi-factor models, contextual nonlinear models, multi-period portfolio implementation, and much more to manage multibillion-dollar portfolios.Big data combined with machine learning provide amazing opportunities for institutional investors. This unmatched resource will get you up and running with a powerful new asset allocation strategy that benefits your clients, your organization, and your career.

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Trust is the fuel for all of life. We are wired biologically, neurologically, emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically to trust. Trust is the currency that drives every relationship, beginning with the foundational bond between infants and their mothers, extending to the trust networks that undergird every human endeavour - art, science, commerce - and binding together every relationship we have ever had or ever will have. Nothing in our world works without trust.It is tempting to think that trust is simple, that we should be able to spot a lack of trustworthiness relatively easily. But we all have our stories about misplaced trust. We either missed clear or subtle warning signs or there just were not any warning signs to see. Everything looked good on the surface, and maybe it was. But we got burned anyway.And sometimes we struggle to earn and keep the trust of those around us when trust bonds fail to form or are broken. When trust breaks down, so does our ability to move forward.Dr. Cloud explores the five foundational aspects of trust that must be present for any relationship to function successfully and helps us to understand how to implement them. He also guides us through the difficult process of repairing trust when it has been violated and broken, even when restoring trust feels impossible.Rich with wisdom drawn from decades of experience in clinical practice, business consulting and research, Trust is the ultimate resource for managing this most complex and fundamental of human bonds, allowing us to experience more fruitful and rewarding relationships in every area of our lives.

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Drawing on new archaeological evidence, an authoritative history of Rome’s Great Fire—and how it inflicted lasting harm on the Roman EmpireAccording to legend, the Roman emperor Nero set fire to his majestic imperial capital on the night of July 19, AD 64 and fiddled while the city burned. It’s a story that has been told for more than two millennia—and it’s likely that almost none of it is true. In Rome Is Burning, distinguished Roman historian Anthony Barrett sets the record straight, providing a comprehensive and authoritative account of the Great Fire of Rome, its immediate aftermath, and its damaging longterm consequences for the Roman world. Drawing on remarkable new archaeological discoveries and sifting through all the literary evidence, he tells what is known about what actually happened—and argues that the disaster was a turning point in Roman history, one that ultimately led to the fall of Nero and the end of the dynasty that began with Julius Caesar.Rome Is Burning tells how the fire destroyed much of the city and threw the population into panic. It describes how it also destroyed Nero’s golden image and provoked a financial crisis and currency devaluation that made a permanent impact on the Roman economy. Most importantly, the book surveys, and includes many photographs of, recent archaeological evidence that shows visible traces of the fire’s destruction. Finally, the book describes the fire’s continuing afterlife in literature, opera, ballet, and film.A richly detailed and scrupulously factual narrative of an event that has always been shrouded in myth, Rome Is Burning promises to become the standard account of the Great Fire of Rome for our time.

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An innovative recasting of US legal and economic history through the power of clothing for those who lacked power and status in American society. What can dresses, bedlinens, waistcoats, pantaloons, shoes, and kerchiefs tell us about the legal status of the least powerful members of American society? In the hands of eminent historian Laura F. Edwards, these textiles tell a revealing story of ordinary people and how they made use of their material goods' economic and legal value in the period between the Revolution and the Civil War. Only the Clothes on Her Back uncovers practices, commonly known then, but now long forgotten, which made textiles--clothing, cloth, bedding, and accessories, such as shoes and hats--a unique form of property that people without rights could own and exchange. The value of textiles depended on law, and it was law that turned these goods into a secure form of property for marginalized people, who not only used these textiles as currency, credit, and capital, but also as entree into the new republic's economy and governing institutions. Edwards grounds the laws relating to textiles in engaging stories from the lives of everyday Americans. Wives wove linen and kept the proceeds, enslaved people traded coats and shoes, and poor people invested in fabrics, which they carefully preserved in trunks. Edwards shows that these stories are about far more than cloth and clothing; they reshape our understanding of law and the economy in America. Based on painstaking archival research from fifteen states, Only the Clothes on Her Back reconstructs this hidden history of power, tracing it from the governing order of the early republic in which textiles' legal principles flourished to the textiles' legal downfall in the mid-nineteenth century when they were crowded out by the rising power of rights.

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Development needs to meet the UN SDG have primarily been financed through private sector financing, conventional public sector funding and philanthropic commitment. These sources are not sufficient in scale and speed to meet the pressing finance needs. The world community is too busy repairing, stabilizing, and refunding the system to maintain the stability of the existing system. The introduction of a parallel electronic currency specifically designed to finance global commons, and a human-centred economy would provide the necessary resources to achieve the UN SDGs while stabilizing the existing monetary system.This book analyses how the development of cryptocurrencies based on blockchain distributed ledger technologies has prompted leading central banks around the world to study the potential application of this approach to directly inject purchasing power without dependence on the banking system. Furthermore, the book illustrates how this approach can be utilized to finance the huge multi-trillion dollar annual investment requirements for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).With a Foreword from the President of the Club of Rome.“This book is where fiction turns into fact.” - World Bestselling Author of ‚The Minister of the Future‘ Stan Robinson“…challenging, innovative and interdisciplinary… to address the world’s problems.” - Founder and Father of the Quantitative Easing (QE), Prof. Dr. Richard Werner, Oxford University, GB“The real tragedy of the commons, as this book shows, is that we have allowed the most valuable social resources, our money and legal systems, to be employed for private gain instead of mobilizing them for social goals, not the least to ensure the survival of the human species on this planet.” - Best-selling author of ‚The code of capital’ Katharina Pistor, Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law and Director, Center on Global Legal Transformation Columbia Law School, USA

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Inflation Targeting and Policy Rules is an essential book for understanding how Mexico’s monetary policy has been evolving and functioning, from the beginning of the century to recent, highlighting the doctrine of policy rules and focusing on inflation targeting, both fundamental elements necessary to comprehend the operation of the main central banks of the world.The book is valuable because of its theoretical and empirical treatment applied to the policy rules and to inflation targeting, which range from their origin, criticism, development, controversies, evolution, and evaluation of the subject. It is accessible reading for anyone interested in approaching the subject of the monetary policy of a developing country. It is, without a doubt, a relevant addition to the bank of knowledge on the monetary reality of any country that has recently adopted inflation targeting and use a policy rule based on interest rate as instrument, as well as the flexible currency exchange regimen. It will become an essential source for future investigations in Mexico and other countries in similar situations.The book: Explains the analytical framework that consists of developing conditional probability as essential for rational expectations hypothesis Presents a synthetic but detailed exposure of the approach of inflation targeting, especially based on the consensus among monetary authorities in the pursuit of low and stable inflation, detailing some of the most relevant experiences as well as their main objections. Reviews the process origin-evolution of monetary policy rules, Assesses the actions of the Banco de México in terms of the implementation of the approach of inflation targeting Summarizes the highlights of Mexico’s monetary policy and offers conclusions The book is suitable for macroeconomics courses and courses dealing with developing economies as well as for financial professionals seeking recent and trends.

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Throughout the Western world, governments and financial elites responded to the financial crisis of 2008 by trying to restore the conditions of business as usual, but the economic, social and human damage inflicted by the crisis has given rise to a reconsideration of the inevitability of unfettered capitalism as a fact of life. A number of economic practices and organizations emerged in Europe and the United States that embodied alternative values: the value of life over the value of money; the effectiveness of cooperation over cut-throat competition; the social responsibility of corporations and responsible regulation by governments over the short-term speculative strategies that brought the economy to the brink of catastrophe. This book examines the blossoming of innovative new experiments in organizing work and life that emerged in the wake of the financial crisis: cooperatives, barter networks, ethical banking, community currencies, shared time banks, solidarity networks, sharing of goods, non-monetary transactions, etc., experiments that paved the way for the emergence of a sharing economy in all domains of activity oriented toward the satisfaction of human needs. Other innovations included the creation of cryptographic virtual currencies, epitomized by bitcoin, which blended a libertarian, entrepreneurial spirit with information technology to provide an alternative to standard forms of currency. On the basis of a cross-cultural analysis of alternative economic practices, this book develops an important theoretical argument: that the economy, as a human practice, is shaped by culture, and that the diversity of cultures, as revealed in a time of crisis, implies the possibility of different economies depending on the values and power relations that define economic institutions. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, economics and the social sciences generally, and to anyone who wishes to understand how our societies and economies are changing today.

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Data has become the new currency; organizations are drowning in it, but few are cashing in on its true value. The Analytics Lifecycle Toolkit translates the entire analytics lifecycle into actionable insights, providing a framework for building an effective analytics capability and the processes that turn data into action. Part 1 describes the “who,” “how,” and “why” of modern enterprise analytics, giving leaders clear insight into the value of strategically-aligned capabilities. Part 2 details best practices that include problem framing, data sensemaking, model development, change management, data management, product management, and more. Part 3 rounds out the discussion by providing guidance on sustaining high performance and guiding the analytics function into new phases of business. For organizations who see the value of analytics but lack the depth of knowledge needed to structure appropriate solutions, this book breaks the cycle of frustration and provides a roadmap for putting the right people, processes, and technologies into place. For those who have already implemented analytics, this book serves as a reference for leadership and a “refresher course” to update the team on the latest in practices and processes. Rather than a simple catalogue of analytics models, the discussion emphasizes underlying principles in key process areas to help organizations build analytics capabilities tailored to their specific needs—allowing them to harvest the highest-value information to better inform strategic decisions. In line with the book’s practical focus, the companion website provides downloadable resources, tools, videos, and more to support and streamline implementation. The discussion itself assumes no prior knowledge of analytics and explicitly clarifies complex concepts and terms, using real-world examples to illustrate what effective practice looks like on the ground. With clear guidance, expert insight, and a wealth of practical tools, The Analytics Lifecycle Toolkit is an essential resource for any organization seeking an optimized analytics program.

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RESPATIALISING FINANCE ‘In Respatialising Finance Sarah Hall uses the internationalisation of the Chinese Renminbi (RMB) to work through a sympathetic conceptual and empirical critique of prevailing analyses of International Financial Centres (IFCs). Her conceptual (re)framing stresses the politics, institutions and economics of IFCs and will be essential reading for all social scientists interested in the dynamism of contemporary finance and financial centres.’Professor Jane Pollard, Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS), Newcastle University, UK‘Through detailed study of Chinese RMB internationalisation and combining analytical insights from economic geography, sociology, and international political economy, Sarah Hall shows why offshore networks anchored in territories such as the City of London are both core to global monetary and financial landscapes, and provide a key terrain for state power and politics.’Professor Paul Langley, Department of Geography, Durham University, UKRespatialising Finance is one of the first detailed empirical studies of how and why London became the leading western financial centre within the wider Chinese economic and political project of internationalising its currency, the renminbi (RMB). This in-depth volume examines how political authorities in both London and Beijing identified the potential value of London’s international financial centre in facilitating and legitimising RMB internationalisation, and how they sought to operationalise this potential through a range of market-making activities.The text features original data from on-the-ground research in London and Beijing conducted with financial and legal professionals working in RMB markets and offers an original theoretical approach that brings economic geography into closer dialogue with international political economy. Recent work on territory illustrates how financial centres are not simply containers and facilitators of global financial flows – rather they serve as territorial fixes within the dynamic and crisis-prone nature of global finance.

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The decades after World War II were a golden age across much of the world. It was a time of economic miracles, an era when steady jobs were easy to find and families could see their living standards improving year after year. And then, around 1973, the good times vanished. The world economy slumped badly, then settled into the slow, erratic growth that had been the norm before the war. The result was an era of anxiety, uncertainty, and political extremism that we are still grappling with today.In An Extraordinary Time , acclaimed economic historian Marc Levinson describes how the end of the postwar boom reverberated throughout the global economy, bringing energy shortages, financial crises, soaring unemployment, and a gnawing sense of insecurity. Politicians, suddenly unable to deliver the prosperity of years past, railed haplessly against currency speculators, oil sheikhs, and other forces they could not control. From Sweden to Southern California, citizens grew suspicious of their newly ineffective governments and rebelled against the high taxes needed to support social welfare programs enacted when coffers were flush.Almost everywhere, the pendulum swung to the right, bringing politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to power. But their promise that deregulation, privatization, lower tax rates, and smaller government would restore economic security and robust growth proved unfounded. Although the guiding hand of the state could no longer deliver the steady economic performance the public had come to expect, free-market policies were equally unable to do so. The golden age would not come back again.A sweeping reappraisal of the last sixty years of world history, An Extraordinary Time forces us to come to terms with how little control we actually have over the economy.

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In the turbulent period following the First World War the young Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi founded the Pan-European Union, offering a vision of peaceful, democratic unity for Europe, with no borders, a common currency, and a single passport. His political congresses in Vienna, Berlin, and Basel attracted thousands from the intelligentsia and the cultural elite, including Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, and Sigmund Freud, who wanted a United States of Europe brought together by consent. The Count's commitment to this cooperative ideal infuriated Adolf Hitler, who referred to him as a "cosmopolitan bastard" in Mein Kampf.Communists and nationalists, xenophobes and populists alike hated the Count and his political mission. When the Nazis annexed Austria, the Count and his wife, the famous actress Ida Roland, narrowly escaped the Gestapo. He fled to the United States, where he helped shape American policy for postwar Europe. Coudenhove-Kalergi's profile was such that he served as the basis for the fictional resistance hero Victor Laszlo in the film Casablanca.A brilliant networker, the Count guided many European leaders, notably advising Winston Churchill before his 1946 Zürich speech on Europe. A friend to both Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and President Charles de Gaulle, Coudenhove-Kalergi was personally invited to the High Mass in Rheims Cathedral in 1961 to celebrate Franco-German reconciliation. A provocative visionary for Europe, Coudenhove-Kalergi thought and acted in terms of continents, not countries.For the Count, the United States of Europe was the answer to the challenges of communist Russia and capitalist America. Indeed, he launched his Pan-European Union thirty years before Jean Monnet set up the European Coal and Steel Community, the precursor to the European Union. Timely and captivating, Martyn Bond's biography offers an opportunity to explore a remarkable life and revisit the impetus and origins of a unified Europe.

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The political and economic history of Latin America has been marked by great hopes and even greater disappointments. Despite abundant resources - and a history of productivity and wealth - in recent decades the region has fallen further and further behind developed nations, surpassed even by other developing economies in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. In "Left Behind", Sebastian Edwards asks why the nations of Latin America have failed to share in the fruits of globalization and forcefully highlights the dangers of the recent turn to economic populism in the region. He begins by detailing the many ways Latin American governments have stifled economic development over the years through excessive regulation, currency manipulation, and thoroughgoing corruption. He then turns to the neoliberal reforms of the early 1990s, which called for the elimination of deficits, lowering of trade barriers, and privatization of inefficient public enterprises-and which, Edwards argues, held the promise of freeing Latin America from the burdens of the past. Flawed implementation, however, meant the promised gains of globalization were never felt by the mass of citizens, and growing frustration with stalled progress has led to a resurgence of populism, exemplified by the economic policies of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. But such measures, Edwards warns, are a recipe for disaster; instead, he argues, the way forward for Latin America lies in further market reforms, more honestly pursued and fairly implemented. As the global financial crisis has reminded us, the risks posed by failing economies extend far beyond their national borders. Putting Latin America back on a path toward sustained growth is crucial not just for the region but for the world, and "Left Behind" offers a clear, concise blueprint for the road ahead.

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Blockchain technology is poised to revolutionize more than just payment and crypto-currency. Many vertical industries will be reshaped by the new trusted data models enabled and inspired by the blockchain – healthcare is no exception. In fact, healthcare may hold the greatest opportunities for meaningful use of the technology. Early pioneers have explored some of the first use cases for medical payments, electronic health records, HIPAA/data privacy, drug counterfeiting, and credentialing of healthcare professionals. We have only begun to scratch the surface in how to automate the complexities of today’s healthcare systems and design new systems which focus on trust, transparency and the alignment of incentives.Metcalf, Bass, Dhillon, and Hooper have curated a collection of examples based on the fundamentals of blockchain that build upon the early successes and examples that point to the future. After a brief introduction to bitcoin, blockchain and the protocols available, a getting-started guide is presented specific to health and healthcare. The authors discuss the complexities and possibilities of smart contracts and some of the early consortia that are exploring the possibilities. Examples and use cases are found throughout the book, with specific sections that cover the more sophisticated and far-reaching examples which have the potential to scale at the industry-level. In addition, a discussion of integrating blockchain technology into other advanced healthcare trends and IT systems – such as telemedicine, artificial intelligence, machine learning, the Internet of Things, value-based payments , patient engagement solutions, big data solutions, medical tourism, and precision medicine/genetic therapies among many others are presented. The final section provides a glimpse into the future using blockchain technology and examples of research projects that are still in labs across the globe. The appendices may prove particularly useful for additional details on how to get started, including resources and organizations specifically focusing on blockchain and distributed ledger solutions.

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The Great Houses of the prehistoric and early medieval periods were enormous structures whose forms were modelled on those of domestic dwellings. Most were built of wood rather than stone; they were used over comparatively short periods; they were frequently replaced in the same positions; and some were associated with exceptional groups of artefacts. Their construction made considerable demands on human labour and approached the limits of what was possible at the time. They seem to have played specialised roles in ancient society, but they have been difficult to interpret. Were they public buildings or the dwellings of important people? Were they temples or military bases, and why were they erected during times of crisis or change? How were their sites selected, and how were they related to the remains of a more ancient past? Although their currency extended from the time of the first farmers to the Viking Age, the similarities between the Great Houses are as striking as the differences.This study focuses on the monumental buildings of northern and northwestern Europe, but draws on structures over a wide area, extending from Anatolia as far as Brittany and Norway. It employs ethnography as a source of ideas and discusses the concept of the House Society and its usefulness in archaeology. The main examples are taken from the Neolithic and Iron Age periods, but this account also draws on the archaeology of the first millennium AD. The book emphasises the importance of comparing archaeological sequences with one another rather than identifying ideal social types. In doing so, it features a range of famous and less famous sites, from Stonehenge to the Hill of Tara, and from Old Uppsala to Yeavering.

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This book deals with Alexanders the Great (Μέγας Ἀλέξανδρος; 356-323 B.C.) campaign in Asia and measures his revenues and expenses during these wars by taking information from different historians of his time and it uses the current value of gold to translate these measurements inτο U.S. dollar. Alexander had to exercise an efficient and effective public policy (revenue and spending) for his vast Empire and to satisfy all his citizens as a Hellenic civilizer and not as a conqueror. The book examines the Hellenic values, which made Alexander one of the most important people in human history. He was a student of the greatest of philosophers Aristotle (Ἀριστοτέλης) and for this reason he had shown outstanding management and military capabilities used even today my military schools. His efficiencies with rates of salaries, health and welfare, building projects, supplies, transports, reforms of the tax system, indirect taxes and donations, loans, minting of coins; even his dealing with financial scandals and other actions are information useful for our policy makers, today. The book presents also Alexanders contribution to the world as the greatest civilizer and preparer of the ground for the expected Unknown God. Alexanders political history and economic policy is very useful for our current leaders and scholars (historians, political scientist, economists, generals, and others). Further, the current politics of the region are covered to give to the reader a better idea of the true history of the glorious past and the strange (suspicious) conflicts of the present. Finally, some useful information on numismatics (currency, coins, and their values) from his time is given, so we can compare prices, wages, and exchange rates with respect of the U.S. dollar and the Greek drachma.

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The Gunpowder Plot is perhaps the most famous and well-documented event in British Early Modern history. This means the story can be told through original dialogue recorded at the time to a greater extent than any other of the period. James Travers’ new account exploits this potential for dramatic first-hand history by drawing on those original sources, at The National Archives and elsewhere. The book includes material from the official investigation and new evidence relating to the torture of Guy Fawkes. This expert retelling of the Gunpowder Plot story brings seventeenth-century voices fresh to the page. It shows the complex motivations of the principal figures involved, both officers of the state and the plotters themselves, and tells the story of the Plot without the benefit or distortion of hindsight. Moving away from the crude dichotomy of Catholic and Protestant, characters’ decisions and reactions are shown at the heart of events. It can be argued, for example, that Fawkes was as much anti-Scottish as anti-Protestant. It is a dramatic tale, with original documents unveiling the key figures’ fateful decisions as they happen. The plotters’ generation was the first audience of Shakespeare’s plays and his words were common currency among them. There are shades of meaning in their plans and confessions, which have eluded historians until now. At the time, Fawkes was the ‘unknown face’ of the Plot, prized by the well-known and well-connected plotters as a man who could pass unnoticed in Westminster, even as he went to destroy the Houses of Parliament. Today, ‘Guido Fawkes’ has become the face of political disaffection, thanks to his popularity as a mask for protestors. And in a modern world of religious terrorism, this book lets us understand what drove the participants in British history’s most potentially destructive home-grown plot.

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Get what you need to achieve your objectives and produce results Influence Without Authority is the classic guide to getting what you need from people you don't control. Getting things done requires collaboration, and convincing others to contribute requires political skill; this book introduces the Exchange Model, in which you get what you need by offering something of value in return. The key lies in knowing what the other person values—that's their "currency," and it's your immediate tool for coaxing their cooperation. This model has been proven over decades, as organizations around the world have turned away from frustration and resignation toward collaboration and results. This book shows you how to implement the Exchange Model at the personal, team, and organizational level to raise the bar for performance and leadership. This new third edition has been updated reflect the changing face of the workplace, and includes new examples and information on geographically dispersed virtual teams. Supplementary materials facilitate classroom and training use with discussions, role-play, videos, and other ancillaries that deepen understanding and promote practical application. Get what you need from the people who have it through mutual exchange Think in terms of interest, and pinpoint the "currencies" other people trade in Apply the Exchange Model across entire organizations to lead major change Learn practical real-world strategies for influencing those you do not control The ability to influence those not under your authority is becoming ever more valuable. Organizations are flattening, and outside contractors are taking on larger roles than ever before—getting results now means lateral cooperation, often across borders, time zones, organizations, and more. Influence Without Authority provides a proven model for success in this new environment, with expert guidance for real-world application.

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A pocket-sized travel guide, packed with expert advice and ideas for the best things to see and do in Rome, and complemented with a sturdy pull-out map - perfect for a day trip or a short break.Whether you want to step back in time to Ancient Rome, see the Sistine Chapel, throw a coin into the Trevi Fountain, or check out the hipster bars and restaurants in Monti - this great-value, concise travel guide will ensure you don't miss a thing. Inside Mini Map and Guide Rome:- Easy-to-use pull-out map shows Rome in detail, and includes a Metro map- Colour-coded area guide makes it easy to find information quickly and plan your day- Illustrations show the inside of some of Rome's most iconic buildings- Colour photographs of Rome's museums, ancient ruins, shops, parks, churches, and more- Essential travel tips including our expert choices of where to eat, drink and shop, plus useful transport, currency and health information and a phrase book- Chapters covering Capitol; Forum and Palatine; Piazza della Rotonda; Piazza Navona; Piazza di Spagna and Villa Borghese; Campo de' Fiori; Quirinal and Monti; Esquiline; Lateran; Caracalla; Aventine; Trastevere; Janiculum; Vatican; Via VenetoMini Map and Guide Rome is abridged from DK Eyewitness Travel Guide RomeStaying for longer and looking for a more comprehensive guide? Try our DK Eyewitness Top Ten Rome. About DK Eyewitness Travel: DK's Mini Map and Guides take the work out of planning a short trip, with expert advice and easy-to-read maps to inform and enrich any short break. DK is the world's leading illustrated reference publisher, producing beautifully designed books for adults and children in over 120 countries.

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A pocket-sized travel guide, packed with expert advice and ideas for the best things to see and do in Paris, and complemented with a sturdy pull-out map - perfect for a day trip or a short break.Whether you want to lose yourself in the galleries of the Louvre, seek out the best boulangeries, bars and bistros, or simply wander along the Seine - this great-value, concise travel guide will ensure you don't miss a thing. Inside Mini Map and Guide Paris:- Easy-to-use pull-out map shows Paris in detail, and includes a Métro map- Colour-coded area guide makes it easy to find information quickly and plan your day- Illustrations show the inside of some of Paris's most iconic buildings- Colour photographs of Paris's museums, architecture, shops, cathedrals and more- Essential travel tips including our expert choices of where to eat, drink and shop, plus useful transport, currency and health information and a phrase book- Chapters covering Île de la Cité and Île St-Louis; The Marais; Bastille and Oberkampf; République and Canal St-Martin; Belleville and Ménilmontant; La Villette; Montmartre and Pigalle; Opéra and Grands Boulevards; Louvre and Les Halles; Eiffel Tower and Invalides; Champs-Élysées and Chaillot; St-Germain-des-Prés; Latin Quarter; Jardin des Plantes and Place d'Italie; Montparnasse and Jardin du Luxembourg Mini Map and Guide Paris is abridged from DK Eyewitness Travel Guide ParisStaying for longer and looking for a more comprehensive guide? Try our DK Eyewitness Top Ten Paris. About DK Eyewitness Travel: DK's Mini Map and Guides take the work out of planning a short trip, with expert advice and easy-to-read maps to inform and enrich any short break.

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Re-envisages what we know about African political economies through its examination of one of the key questions in colonial and African history, that of commercial agriculture and its relationship to slavery. This book considers commercial agriculture in Africa in relation to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the institution of slavery within Africa itself, from the beginnings of European maritime trade in the fifteenth century to theearly stages of colonial rule in the twentieth century. From the outset, the export of agricultural produce from Africa represented a potential alternative to the slave trade: although the predominant trend was to transport enslaved Africans to the Americas to cultivate crops, there was recurrent interest in the possibility of establishing plantations in Africa to produce such crops, or to purchase them from independent African producers. Thisidea gained greater currency in the context of the movement for the abolition of the slave trade from the late eighteenth century onwards, when the promotion of commercial agriculture in Africa was seen as a means of suppressing the slave trade. At the same time, the slave trade itself stimulated commercial agriculture in Africa, to supply provisions for slave-ships in the Middle Passage. Commercial agriculture was also linked to slavery within Africa, since slaves were widely employed there in agricultural production. Although Abolitionists hoped that production of export crops in Africa would be based on free labour, in practice it often employed enslaved labour, so that slaveryin Africa persisted into the colonial period. Robin Law is Emeritus Professor of African History, University of Stirling; Suzanne Schwarz is Professor of History, University of Worcester; Silke Strickrodt is Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of African Studies and Anthropology, University of Birmingham.

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This book will be of interest to all those concerned with the EU, whether from the perspective of political science, law or economics. Under the shadow of the financial crisis, studies with a broad research perspective and contributors from diverse backgrounds are important.'- Paul Craig, St John s College, Oxford'The European Union is re-emerging from the most serious economic crisis in its history. The agenda of the European Commission was highly influenced by the decisions to handle the debt, euro, banking and financial crises. The Union and its single currency have become much stronger. Economic law and governance in the Union are now rather different. By reading this book you will see where and how.'- Siim Kallas, Former Vice President of the European Commission 2004-2014How has the EU's economic crisis affected the development of economic law in the Union? This book contributes to the debate by examining EU economic law from a contextual and policy-oriented perspective.The expert authors explore areas such as the EMU and the internal market, and emphasize the important fields of public procurement, taxation, and intellectual property rights. The investigation proceeds along themes such as harmonization, institutional interplay, non-economic values, and international actions. The authors conclude that, during the crisis, the attention of the Barroso Commission focused quite narrowly on the most urgent problems, failing to consider longer-term issues to spark off bold policy endeavours, and break inter-institutional blockages.This book is targeted at scholars, policy-makers and other practitioners, as well as students, interested in EU economic law, integration, and the economic crisis.Contributors: J. Faull, C. Geiger, F. Hoffmeister, M.S. Jansson, H. Kalimo, T. Lahti, I. Lejeune, M. Meulenbelt, K. Olkkonen, J. Salminen, A. Strub, J. Strupczewski, J. Vaario

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The first monograph of the California firm whose regional sensibility and early attention to sustainable design anticipated the prevalent trends in residential architecture today. A generous look at the San Francisco Bay Area architects’ pioneering approach to sustainable houses, ranging from the vineyard regions of California to Telluride, Colorado; the rugged ranch lands of Montana and the picturesque hamlets of the Hudson Valley and Martha’s Vineyard. Since its formation in 1981, Fernau + Hartman has become renowned for its imaginative expansion of the possibilities of site- and region-specific architecture. Leaders in these concepts, as well as in sustainable design long before its currency today, Fernau + Hartman’s houses maximize the connection between the natural and built environments, intensify the experience of place, and invite an open, playful, and inventive approach to life. A Newport Beach weekend house has flexible sleeping quarters and almost everything else (spaces for cooking, eating, showering, and bathing) is outdoors; a house made of alternating indoor and outdoor rooms climbs up a Sonoma County hillside; and an island house inspired by the fishing village of Menemsha is composed as three independent gabled “sheds” docked at a central screened porch featuring a fireplace and dining table. With essays by Beth Dunlop, Laura Hartman, Thomas Fisher, and Daniel P. Gregory, Improvisations on the Land creates a multifaceted portrait of the firm’s history, philosophy, and practice - revealing as much about their process as the finished houses themselves. Models, axonometric drawings, floor and site plans, elevations, and photographs of vernacular structures - from a collapsed barn in Montana, to Colorado mining compounds and a louvered colonnade in the Sacramento River Delta - contribute to a full appreciation of Fernau + Hartman’s work, how its sense of spontaneity and joy provides the antidote to so much of the self-conscious architecture that surrounds us, and results in houses that push the possibilities of residential design today.

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Pieces of paper that claimed to be good for two dollars upon redemption at a distant bank. Foreign coins that fluctuated in value from town to town. Stock certificates issued by turnpike or canal companies-worth something...or perhaps nothing. IOUs from farmers or tradesmen, passed around by people who could not know the person who first issued them. Money and banking in antebellum America offered a glaring example of free-market capitalism run amok-unregulated, exuberant, and heading pell-mell toward the next "panic" of burst bubbles and hard times. In Other People's Money, Sharon Ann Murphy explains how banking and money worked before the federal government, spurred by the chaos of the Civil War, created the national system of US paper currency. Murphy traces the evolution of banking in America from the founding of the nation, when politicians debated the constitutionality of chartering a national bank, to Andrew Jackson's role in the Bank War of the early 1830s, to the problems of financing a large-scale war. She reveals how, ultimately, the monetary and banking structures that emerged from the Civil War also provided the basis for our modern financial system, from its formation under the Federal Reserve in 1913 to the present. Touching on the significant role that numerous historical figures played in shaping American banking-including Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Louis Brandeis- Other People's Money is an engaging guide to the heated political fights that surrounded banking in early America as well as to the economic causes and consequences of the financial system that emerged from the turmoil. By helping readers understand the financial history of this period and the way banking shaped the society in which ordinary Americans lived and worked, this book broadens and deepens our knowledge of the Early American Republic.

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By the turn of the 20th century, Paris was the capital of the art world. While this is usually understood to mean that Paris was the center of art production and trading, this book examines a phenomenon that has received little attention thus far: Paris-based dealers relied on an ever-expanding international network of peers. Many of the city's galleries capitalized on foreign collectors' interest by expanding globally and proactively cultivating transnational alliances. If the French capital drew artists from around the world—from Cassatt to Picasso—the contemporary-art market was international in scope. Art dealers deliberately tapped into a growing pool of discerning collectors in northern and eastern Europe, the UK, and the USA. International trade was rendered not just desirable but necessary by the devastating effects of wars, revolutions, currency devaluation, and market crashes which stalled collecting in Europe. Pioneers of the Global Art Market assembles original scholarship based on a close inspection of and fresh perspective on extant dealer records. It caters to an amplified curiosity concerning the emergence and workings of our unprecedented contemporary-centric and global art market. This anthology fills a significant gap in the expanding field of art market studies by addressing how, initially, contemporary art, which is now known as historical modernism, made its way into collections: who validated what by promoting and selling it, where, and how. It includes unpublished material, concrete examples, bibliographical and archival references, and appeals to students, academics, curators, educators, dealers, collectors, artists and art lovers alike. It celebrates the modern art dealer as transnational impresario, the global reach of the modern-art market, and the impact of traders on the history of collecting, and ultimately on the history of art.

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In this electric speculative YA sci/fi novel, the world treats memories like currency, so dreams can be a complicated business. Perfect for fans of Neal Stephenson and Philip K. Dick.In an alternative 1987, a disease ravages human memories. There is no cure, only artificial recall. The lucky ones—the recollectors—need the treatment only once a day.Freya Izquierdo isn’t lucky. The high school senior is a “degen” who needs artificial recall several times a day. Plagued by blinding half-memories that take her to her knees, she’s desperate to remember everything that will help her investigate her father’s violent death. When her sleuthing almost lands her in jail, a shadowy school dean selects her to attend his Foxtail Academy, where five hundred students will trial a new tech said to make artificial recall obsolete.She’s the only degen on campus. Why was she chosen? Freya is nothing like the other students, not even her new friends Ollie, Chase, and the alluring Fletcher Cohen. Definitely not at all like the students who start to vanish, one by one. And nothing like the mysterious Dean Mendelsohn, who has a bunker deep in the woods behind the school.Nothing can prepare Freya and her friends for the truth of what that bunker holds. And what kind of memories she’ll have to access to survive it.“Vaca’s debut is a thrilling and often unsettling examination of the elusive nature of memory and truth. The Memory Index will leave you breathlessly turning pages until its satisfying conclusion.” —Jonathan Evison, New York Times bestselling author of Small WorldGet hooked on The Memory Index Duology: Book 1: The Memory Index Book 2: The Recall Paradox (coming Spring 2023)

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The premier form of Roman money since the time of the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.), coins were vital to the success of Roman state finances, taxation, markets, and commerce beyond the frontiers. Yet until now, the economic and social history of Rome has been written independently of numismatic studies, which detail such technical information as weight standards, mint output, hoards, and finds at archaeological sites. In Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700, noted classicist and numismatist Kenneth W. Harl brings together these two fields in the first comprehensive history of how Roman coins were minted and used. Drawing on literary and documentary sources as well as on current methods of metallurgical study and statistical analysis of coins from archaeological sites, Harl presents a sweeping overview of a system of coinage in use for more than a millennium. Challenging much recent scholarship, he emphasizes the important role played by coins in the overseas expansion of the Roman Republic during the second century B.C., in imperial inflationary policies during the third and fourth centuries A.D., and in the dissolution of the Roman Mediterranean order in the seventh century A. D. He also offers the first region-by-region analysis of prices and wages throughout Roman history with reference to the changing buying power of the major circulating denominations. And he shows how the seldom-studied provincial, civic, and imitative coinages were in fact important components of Roman currency. Richly illustrated with photographic reproductions of nearly three hundred specimens, Coinage in the Roman Economy offers a significant contribution to Roman economic history. It will be of interest to scholars and students of classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, as well as to professional and amateur numismatists.

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Banks and bankers are hardly the most beloved people and institutions in this country. With its corruptive influence on politics and stranglehold on the American economy, Wall Street is not held in high regard by many outside the financial sector. But the pitchforks raised against this behemoth are largely rhetorical: we rarely see riots in the streets or public demands for an equitable and democratic banking system that result in serious national changes. Yet the situation was vastly different a century ago, as Christopher W. Shaw shows in Money, Power, and the People. His book upends the conventional thinking that financial policy in the early twentieth century was set primarily by the needs and demands of bankers. Shaw shows that banking and politics were directly shaped by the literal and symbolic investments of the grassroots. This engagement remade financial institutions and the national economy, through populist pressure and the establishment of federal regulatory programs and agencies like the Farm Credit System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Shaw reveals the surprising groundswell behind such seemingly arcane legislation as the Emergency Currency Act of 1908, as well as the power of the people to demand serious political repercussions for the banks that caused the Great Depression. One result of this sustained interest and pressure was legislation and regulation that brought on a long period of relative financial stability, with a reduced frequency of economic booms and busts. Ironically, though, this stability led to the current decline of the very banking politics that enabled it. Giving voice to a broad swath of American figures, including workers, farmers, politicians, and bankers alike, Money, Power, and the People recasts our understanding of what might be possible in balancing the needs of the people with those of their financial institutions.

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New Surrealism: The Uncanny in Contemporary Painting by Robert Zeller offers a sweeping exposition of both historical Surrealism and its legacy in the world of contemporary art. It demonstrates the many ways in which the most significant art movement of the last century continues to be relevant today, featuring an international selection of contemporary artists whose compositions and studio practice reveal its influence. There are many modalities of historical Surrealism that still maintain contemporary currency: presenting the familiar as unfamiliar and uncanny, the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated imagery, the use of absurdity to critique political or social issues, and the use of erotic imagery in an irrational, non-linear context. Not all the artists brought together in this book self-identify as Surrealist, per se, but each uses some variation of Surrealism in a personal manner. The book begins with a study of the origins, leadership, participating artists, and major milestones of historical Surrealism. Zeller chronicles the movement starting at the end of World War I and the birth of Dada. The most important players and events emerge throughout the timeline of events—including World War II, and such notable artists as Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Leonora Carrington, and many others—up until the death of its leader Andre Breton in 1966. Zeller then explores how elements of New Surrealism are being put into practice in the contemporary art world. Section Two offers a survey of 29 contemporary artists who engage in New Surrealism’s seemingly unlimited variations of the movement’s original themes, including Rosa Loy, Glenn Brown, and Arghavan Khosravi. Section Three features 14 artists, including important contemporary artists such as Inka Essenhigh, Ginny Casey and Anna Weyant, who speak to Surrealism’s influence on their studio practice, detailing in their own words how they create a composition from start to finish.

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