Search results for ""Author Philip Coggan""

We spend a lot of our time at work and would be depressed with nothing to do. But when it gets to Monday, many of us are already longing for the weekend and the prospect of escape. How did work become so tedious and stressful? And is there anything we can do to make it better?Based on his popular Economist Bartleby column, Philip Coggan rewrites the rules of work to help us survive the daily grind. Ranging widely, he encourages us to cut through mindless jargon, pointless bureaucracy and endless meetings to find a new, more creative - and less frustrating - way to get by and get on at work.Incisive, original, and endlessly droll, this is the guide for beleaguered underlings and harried higher-ups alike. As Rousseau might have said: Man was born free, but is everywhere stuck in a meeting. If you''ve ever thought there must be a better way, this is the book for you.

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Beginning with a definition of who the Cambodians are, this fully illustrated history then tracks back to the earliest kingdoms before 800 AD, followed by an investigation of the creation of the magnificent city of Angkor and Cambodia’s centuries of greatness up to 1400 AD. The following chapter describes the times from 1400–1860, which were centuries of crisis, succeeded by the recovery during next 100 years when the country came under the influence of the French. The final chapter discusses the disastrous Khmer Rouge and finishes with the significance of the UN and Hun Sen. Philip Coggan’s illuminating text follows the changing fortunes of Cambodia from pre-history to the present day

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We spend a lot of our time at work and would be depressed with nothing to do. But when it gets to Monday, many of us are already longing for the weekend and the prospect of escape. How did work become so tedious and stressful? And is there anything we can do to make it better? Based on his popular Economist Bartleby column, Philip Coggan rewrites the rules of work to help us survive the daily grind. Ranging widely, he encourages us to cut through mindless jargon, pointless bureaucracy and endless meetings to find a new, more creative - and less frustrating - way to get by and get on at work. Incisive, original, and endlessly droll, this is the guide for beleaguered underlings and harried higher-ups alike. As Rousseau might have said: "Man was born free, but is everywhere stuck in a meeting." If you've ever thought there must be a better way, this is the book for you.

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Winner of the Spears Business Book of the Year AwardLonglisted for the Financial Times Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year AwardIn today's financial climate, we are all, naturally, obsessed by debt. In almost every aspect of our life we experience it - on our credit cards, mortgages, bank loans and student loans. But where has this debt come from? How does it work? What is any money really worth? And what promises do we need to believe to keep the whole system afloat?In this fascinating look at money through the ages - including our own unstable future - award-winning financial journalist Philip Coggan examines the flawed structure of the global finance systems as they exist today, and asks, with deeper imbalances that the world is currently facing, what's actually at stake.

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The Road to Angkor describes a journey through Indo-China from the ancient capital of Champa (now south Vietnam) to Angkor, capital of the old Khmer empire in Cambodia. Christopher Pym originally went to Indo-China in 1956. He stayed 20 months and during 1957 made the seven-week journey described in this book. He travelled the 450 miles on foot, seeking to trace an ancient Khmer road, which may have linked Angkor to the coast. Overcoming the hazards of tigers, a blocked frontier and the rigours of Asian life at peasant level, and ignoring rumours of wars in Vietnam, he set off into the jungle with a small group of tribesmen. His picture of rural, Buddhist Cambodia, now independent, is of an interesting and little-known country. He describes conditions there and in Vietnam with knowledge and understanding, and gives a fascinating account of the varied customs of tribes found right off the beaten track.

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There are 17 ingredients in a typical tube of toothpaste, from titanium dioxide to xanthum gum, and that's not counting the tube. Everything had to come from somewhere and someone had to bring it all together. The humblest household product reveals a web of enterprise that stretches around the globe. More is the story of how we spun that web. It begins with the earliest glimmerings of long-distance trade - obsidian blades that made their way from what is now Turkey to the Iran-Iraq border 7,000 years before Christ - and ends with the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. On such a grand scale, quirks of historical perspective leap out: futures contracts and commercial branding are among the many seemingly modern components of the global economy have existed since ancient times. Yet it was only in the 18th century that a cascade of innovations began to drive up prosperity in a lasting way around the world. To piece this fascinating saga together, Philip Coggan takes the reader inside medieval cottages and hi-tech hydroponic farms, prehistoric Chinese burial mounds and modern central banks. At every step of our journey, he finds that it was connections between people that created our wealth. Will the same openness continue to serve us in the 21st century?

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What happens in the City has never affected us moreIn this excellent guide, now fully revised and updated, leading financial journalist Philip Coggan cuts through the headlines, the scandals and the jargon to explain the nuts and bolts of the financial system.What causes the pound to rise or interest rates to fall? Which are the institutions that really matter? Why is it we need the Money Machine - and what happens when it crashes? Coggan provides clear and concise answers and shows why we should all be more familiar with a system we so intimately depend upon.

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