Akron Public Library

Is civilization teetering on the edge of a cliff? Or are we just climbing higher than ever? Most people who read the news would tell you that 2017 is one of the worst years in recent memory. We're facing a series of deeply troubling, even existential problems: fascism, terrorism, environmental collapse, racial and economic inequality, and more. Yet this narrative misses something important: by almost every meaningful measure, the modern world is better...

Examines how the wealthy classes have contributed to growing inequality in society and explains how the quest to increase wealth has hindered the country's economic growth as well as its efforts to solve its most pressing economic problems.

"The consequential age we are living in will be remembered as one of the great turning points in civilization. Once we turn, though, where will we be? That is the compelling question Al Gore sets out to answer by examining the drivers of global change, connecting the dots among the social, economic, and political forces shaping our present and future. A rising global consciousness is forcing people around the world, but especially Americans, to rethink...

"From the earliest forms of currency to the Industrial Revolution, and from the birth of the stock market to free-market capitalism and globalized trade, The Little Book of Economics brings economic theory and the work of key economists to life. Journeying through centuries of economic thought, it is the perfect pocket-sized guide to the subject." --

David S. Landes tells the long, fascinating story of wealth and power throughout the world: the creation of wealth, the paths of winners and losers, the rise and fall of nations. He studies history as a process, attempting to understand how the world's cultures lead to - or retard - economic and military success and material achievement. Countries of the West, Landes asserts, prospered early through the interplay of a vital, open society focused on...

""Bold, provocative...illuminates why we're having fewer babies, the middle class is stagnating, unemployment is shifting, and new powers are rising." - Adam Grant The world you know is about to end-will you be prepared for what comes next? A groundbreaking analysis from one of the world's foremost experts on global trends. Once upon a time, the world was neatly divided into prosperous and backward economies. Babies were plentiful, workers outnumbered...

The Essential Galbraith includes key selections from the most important works of John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the most distinguished writers of our time-from The Affluent Society, the groundbreaking book in which he coined the tern "conventional wisdom," to The Great Crash, an unsurpassed account of the events that triggered America's worst economic crisis. Galbraith's new introductions place the works in their historical moment and make clear their...