Book picks similar to
Last Among Equals: Power, Caste & Politics in Bihar’s Villages by M.R. Sharan
non-fiction
politics
economics
policy-chops
Temple Tales: Secrets and Stories from India's Sacred Places
Sudha G. Tilak - 2019
These unique temples are not just places of worship, but living museums of architectural wonders, mind-boggling sculptures, graceful dances, colourful crafts and many other cultural activities. More than anything, they are treasure troves of lore and legend, teeming with tales of gods and goddesses, demons and devotees, plants and beasts, the magical and the mysterious – all just waiting to be discovered by you. Join Sudha G. Tilak as she takes you on an unusual journey to the country’s most sacred places, where the lines between fact and faith are blurred and stories come alive!
Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers
Cheryl Misak - 2020
Keynes deferred to him; he was the only philosopher whom Wittgenstein treated as an equal. Had he lived he might have been recognized as the most brilliant thinker of the century. This amiable shambling bear of a man was an ardent socialist, a believer in free love, and an intimate of the Bloomsbury set. For the first time Cheryl Misak tells the full story of his extraordinary life.
The Great Economists
Phil Thornton - 2014
It captures their key beliefs, explores their backgrounds, assesses their thinking and evaluates their legacy. It explains the schools of thought named after them and clearly shows how they influence our everyday lives.
23 Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism
Ha-Joon Chang - 2010
Thing 4: The washing machine has changed the world more than the Internet. Thing 5: Assume the worst about people, and you get the worst. Thing 13: Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer.If you've wondered how we did not see the economic collapse coming, Ha-Joon Chang knows the answer: We didn't ask what they didn't tell us about capitalism. This is a lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to question the assumptions behind the dogma and sheer hype that the dominant school of neoliberal economists-the apostles of the freemarket-have spun since the Age of Reagan.Chang, the author of the international bestseller Bad Samaritans, is one of the world's most respected economists, a voice of sanity-and wit-in the tradition of John Kenneth Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz. 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism equips readers with an understanding of how global capitalism works-and doesn't. In his final chapter, "How to Rebuild the World," Chang offers a vision of how we can shape capitalism to humane ends, instead of becoming slaves of the market.Ha-Joon Chang teaches in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge. His books include the bestselling Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. His Kicking Away the Ladder received the 2003 Myrdal Prize, and, in 2005, Chang was awarded the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.
Huddled Masses: The Voyage to Ellis Island
Kevin Jackson - 2018
Driven from their home countries by famine and persecution, they arrived at Ellis Island full of fear and hope, determined to claim their share of the American Dream.Among the first to pass through Ellis Island was young Israel Baline, a Russian Jew who at the age of just five had seen his homeland overrun by anti-Semitic violence. Forced to flee their village deep within the Russian Empire, the Baline family used their meagre life savings to cross Europe and buy a one-way steerage-class ticket to America. They landed at Ellis Island in 1893, only to find that the streets of New York were not quite paved with gold; the riches they had risked everything for would not be easily won.Israel Baline may have traded a rural slum for an urban one, but he was an American now. He would not stay impoverished for long. Blessed with talent, spurred by the will to succeed, Israel Baline would grow up to become—under another name—his adopted country’s most famous songwriter.
Release the Snyder Cut: The Crazy True Story Behind the Fight That Saved Zack Snyder's Justice League
Sean O'Connell - 2021
Movies like Black Panther, Wonder Woman, Joker, and Avengers: Endgame routinely break box office records and compete for Oscars. Yet, Zack Snyder's 2017 behemoth Justice League--a veritable sure bet at the Hollywood casino--tanked miserably, and the behind-the-scenes reasons for the movie's demise are fascinating.The true story behind Justice League's failure is only half of the juicy narrative, though. Snyder--who left the project months before filming concluded--still fans the flames that surround the rumor of a "Snyder Cut" of the film. This allegedly is the version of the story he wanted to tell before the studio, Warner Bros., pulled him off of the project. Hence, the "Snyder Cut."Pop-culture fans love a meaty mystery, and the controversy swirling around the lost Snyder Cut of Justice League has been captivating comic-book movie fans for years. Additionally, an army of passionate DC and Snyder fans are committed to getting the "Cut" released. They already have gone to incredible lengths to fight for the movie's opening, and have found strength, support, and charitable goals in their global "family" of Snyder Cut supporters. Their stories are remarkable, and the book is just as much about the dedicated fans who make up the Snyder Cut movement as it is about the unreleased film. Their efforts finally paid off with the recent announcement that Snyder's cut will be released in 2021 by Warner Bros. and HBO Max. Release the Snyder Cut tells the entire story.
The Bad Boys of Bokaro Jail
Chetan Mahajan - 2014
From picking the best prison ward, befriending the people who can get him mobile phone access and upgraded food, and training for his upcoming marathon in the tiny prison yard, Chetan soon learns to work the prison system. In the process he makes unlikely friends, and discovers what India’s underbelly really looks like. A true story, The Bad Boys of Bokaro Jail, is thought provoking, amusing and touching. It will show you the Indian prison as you have never seen it before.
Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State
Yasheng Huang - 2008
This is not in dispute. By exactly what mechanism has China managed to grow so fast? There is more room for debate on this question. A widespread view is that private entrepreneurship, financial liberation, and political reforms played a minor role in explaining China's economic takeoff. Based on archival research and survey data, this book offers an alternative view: Private entrepreneurship, facilitated by access to capital and microeconomic flexibility, was at the center of China's takeoff in the 1980s. The political system, then as now, was authoritarian, but it was moving in a liberal direction. China lacked well-specified property rights, but it substantially improved security of proprietors. But given this initial success, how then to explain the substantial distortions in Chinese economy today? The key to getting the China story right is to recognize the existence of two Chinas - an entrepreneurial rural China and a state-controlled urban China. In the 1980s, rural China gained the upper hand, and the result was rapid as well as broad-based growth. In the 1990s, urban China triumphed when the Chinese state reversed many of the productive rural experiments of the previous decade. While this reversal does not show up in the GDP numbers, it shows up in the welfare implications of growth. Since the early 1990s, household income has lagged behind economic growth and the labor share of GDP has fallen. Social performance has deteriorated. The directional liberalism of China in the 1980s and the emerging India miracle today debunk the widespread notion that democracy is automatically anti-growth. As the country marks its 30th anniversary of reforms in 2008, China faces some of its toughest economic challenges and vulnerabilities. The long overdue political reforms are required to improve governance and accountability and to put China on a sustainable path of development.Professor Yasheng Huang teaches political economy international management at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He previously held faculty positions at the University of Michigan and at the Harvard Business School and as a consultant at the World Bank. He has published Inflation and Investment Controls in China (1996), FDI in China (1998), and Selling China (2003; Chinese version in 2005). His work on FDI in China has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Bloomberg, Businessworld, Le Monde, Economic and Political Weekly, and Economic Times, as well as in Chinese publications such as Nanfang Zhoumo, Nanfang Dushibao, Economic Observer, Global Entrepreneur, China Entrepreneur, Fortune Weekly, 21st Century Business Herald, Liangwang, and Xinhuanet. In addition to academic journal articles, he has written for Financial Times, Foreign Policy, and New York Times. In collaboration with other scholars, Professor Huang is conducting research on education and human capital in China and India, and non-performing loans, privatization, and entrepreneurship in China. At MIT, Professor Huang runs a "China Lab" and an "India Lab" that help entrepreneurial businesses in China and in India improve their management."Yasheng Huang is an insightful scholar of China's political economy. In this important book, he shows how China's rural economy took off in the 1980s, led by 'township and village enterprises' that were essentially private, only to be ignored in the 1990s by state-led development that focused on urban regions such as Shanghai. The 'Shanghai miracle,' he argues - and as any businessman who has worked there knows - was not the simple triumph of capitalism but of a stronger and more intrusive (and effective) state. If one wants to understand the policy origins of China's growing divide between rich and poor, urban and rural, one need look no further than this book." - William Kirby, Harvard University"Sure to generate a lively debate, Professor Huang's study provides a provocative and well-researched challenge to much current thinking on China's economic development. The widely shared gains of the 1980s have not been matched in more recent years. Danger signs include the stagnation in household incomes, growing inequality and illiteracy, and heightened governance problems. Huang argues that China will not be able to continue to grow unless the benefits of growth are widely shared through fundamental political and legal reforms." - Susan Rose-Ackerman, Yale Law School
Ghosts In Our Backyard - The Ramsays' real-life encounters with the supernatural
Alisha 'Priti' Kirpalani - 2021
Through their films and series they introduced India to churails that floated across the screen, ghouls that woke up from eerie graveyards, and houses that buzzed with ghosts.But few knew that behind the production drama, elaborate sets, and haunting showtunes, there was a more sinister story. For the Ramsays, the supernatural wasn't just stuck to the screens and camera - it creeped into their lives, too.Alisha Kirpalani, the granddaughter of FU Ramsay, has grown up on stories that question reality and bring a chill to the bone. In time, she, too, followed her family's footsteps and saw through the veil that separates this world and the Other.From the woman on the highway that Shyam Ramsay met to an eerie and persistent knocking that came from every house that Tanuja Ramsay lived in to Amit Ramsay's unwelcome dead visitor at Lamington House, the original home of the Ramsays, this book has the improbable, bizarre and spine-chilling all parading through its chapters.
Failing to Succeed: The Story of India’s First E-Commerce Company
K. Vaitheeswaran - 2017
Vaitheeswaran co-founded India’s first e-commerce company. Yet, years later, when e-commerce was exploding in India—despite enjoying first-mover advantage—Indiaplaza shut down. What went wrong? Lack of funding? Wrong strategies? Or was it ‘something else’?For the first time ever, Vaitheeswaran reveals that it was indeed something else—a set of inexplicable events that destroyed what could have been a profitable business (an extreme rarity among technology start-ups). He bares his extraordinary trials and tribulations while dealing with business failure and the impossible pressures that can threaten entrepreneurs in India. Coming at the back of stories of young start-ups raising billions of dollars in funding and creating unicorns in just a few years, as well as the recent setbacks in the e-commerce industry, Failing to Succeed delves deep into the dark side of starting up and its myriad pitfalls.Filled with interesting anecdotes, tongue-in-cheek observations, amazing customer insights, hard-hitting predictions and behind-the-scenes industry happenings, this book is an extraordinary unravelling of the challenges facing technology start-ups in India. It is a must-read for aspiring entrepreneurs, investors, industry professionals or business school students, and anyone interested in India’s start-up ecosystem.A powerful narration, Failing to Succeed is eventually about finding ways to move forward and succeed despite failures...
True Crime: 4 True American Crime Stories - Vol 1 (From police files of the 1920s to the 1950s)
Guy Hadleigh - 2013
Almost (but not quite), lost in the mists of time, these tales romp along with plenty of action and recreate the atmosphere of this exciting and dangerous era using the vernacular of the times.You may not have heard much about some of these bad guys, but they were real, ruthless hoodlums and all had their "15 minutes of fame", leaving trails of death and mayhem behind them. Most did not live to an old age, and those that did were probably in jail.Their escapades were daring and reckless and many paid the ultimate price in the end.Volume 1 contains* The Jekyll and Hyde Mob After a rash of robberies, lawmen of the Los Angeles Sheriff's office had killed off or jailed every gang of bank robbers in the county. However, three suave gentlemen continued to loot the banks in daring fashion, leaving the lawmen completely clueless.* The Whispering Bride Death cast its long, silent shadow over a sleepy New England town as Mrs.Wegner, a widow, waved good-bye to the last of the summer boarders. Little did she realize that she was waving good-bye forever, that death would soon claim her as its victim in the strange case of THE WHISPERING BRIDE.* The Red Bandit The desperation of a hunted man gave Oklahoma its greatest reign of terror when a youth, vowing never to serve a 75 year rap for robbery, set off a series of events that gave the authorities a veritable nightmare as they pursued their quest down the bloody trail of crime.* The Master Forgers Counterfeit checks - hundreds of them - were flooding Milwaukee in 1937 and 1938 until science scored a victory for the law!Order your copy today..!Scroll back up for instant download
The Richest Engineer
Abhishek Kumar - 2016
The rules provided in the book is not a get-rich-quick formula, but they do guide the reader to financial independence which can be achieved on nothing more than an average salary. Through fictional conversation between two friends, Vinay - the financial wizard and Ajay, his college mate, you will learn what has been stopping you from becoming rich and how you can change yourself to live the life that you have always dreamt of – a life of wealth, abundance and financial freedom.
Financial Fiasco: How America's Infatuation with Home Ownership and Easy Money Created the Economic Crisis
Johan Norberg - 2009
An accessible look at how the government promoted the housing bubble that it is now using for its own ends.
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
Ron Chernow - 1990
Acclaimed by The Wall Street Journal as "brilliantly researched and written," the book tells the rich, panoramic story of four generations of Morgans and the powerful, secretive firms they spawned. It is the definitive account of the rise of the modern financial world. A gripping history of banking and the booms and busts that shaped the world on both sides of the Atlantic, The House of Morgan traces the trajectory of the J. P. Morgan empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the crash of 1987. Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the private saga of the Morgans and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved. Based on extensive interviews and access to the family and business archives, The House of Morgan is an investigative masterpiece, a compelling account of a remarkable institution and the men who ran it, and an essential book for understanding the money and power behind the major historical events of the last 150 years.
California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It
Joe Mathews - 2010
Incessant budget crises plus a government paralyzed by partisan gridlock have led to demands for reform, even a constitutional convention. But what, exactly, is wrong and how can we fix it? In California Crackup, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul provide clear and informed answers. Their fast-paced and often humorous narrative deftly exposes the constitutional origins of our current political and economic problems and furnishes a uniquely California fix: innovative solutions that allow Californians to debate their choices, settle on the best ones, hold elected officials accountable for results, and choose anew if something doesn’t work.