“Excellent… and written in a gripping style.” —The Economist During the upheavals of 2007–09, the chairman of the Federal Reserve had the name of one Victorian icon on the tip of his tongue: Walter Bagehot. Banker, man of letters, and inventor of the Treasury bill, Bagehot prescribed the doctrines that—decades later—inspired the radical responses to the world’s worst financial crises. Persuasive and precocious, he was also the esteemed editor of the Economist. He offered astute commentary on the financial issues of his day, held sway in political circles, made as many high-profile friends as enemies, and won the admiration of Matthew Arnold and Woodrow Wilson. Drawing on a wealth of historical documents, correspondence, and publications, James Grant paints a vivid portrait of the banker and his world.

The spirited and measured memoir of Walter Bagehot, had he left one

A classic study of the British constitution, paying special attention to how Parliament and the monarchy work. The author frequently draws comparisons with the American Constitution, being generally critical of the American system of government.

How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap? Shedding new light on novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontës, Trollope, and Collins, as well as the urban sociology of Henry Mayhew, Leah Price also uncovers the lives and afterlives of anonymous religious tracts and household manuals. From knickknacks to wastepaper, books mattered to the Victorians in ways that cannot be explained by their printed content alone. And whether displayed, defaced, exchanged, or discarded, printed matter participated, and still participates, in a range of transactions that stretches far beyond reading. Supplementing close readings with a sensitive reconstruction of how Victorians thought and felt about books, Price offers a new model for integrating literary theory with cultural history. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain reshapes our understanding of the interplay between words and objects in the nineteenth century and beyond.

James Grant’s enthralling biography of Thomas B. Reed, Speaker of the House during one of the most turbulent times in American history—the Gilded Age, the decades before the ascension of reformer President Theodore Roosevelt—brings to life one of the brightest, wittiest, and most consequential political stars in our history. The last decades of the nineteenth century were a volatile era of rampantly corrupt politics. It was a time of both stupendous growth and financial panic, of land bubbles and passionate and sometimes violent populist protests. Votes were openly bought and sold in a Congress paralyzed by the abuse of the House filibuster by members who refused to respond to roll call even when present, depriving the body of a quorum. Reed put an end to this stalemate, empowered the Republicans, and changed the House of Representatives for all time. The Speaker’s beliefs in majority rule were put to the test in 1898, when the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor set up a popular clamor for war against Spain. Reed resigned from Congress in protest. A larger-than-life character, Reed checks every box of the ideal biographical subject. He is an important and significant figure. He changed forever the way the House of Representatives does its business. He was funny and irreverent. He is, in short, great company. “What I most admire about you, Theodore,” Reed once remarked to his earnest young protégé, Teddy Roosevelt, “is your original discovery of the Ten Commandments.” After he resigned his seat, Reed practiced law in New York. He was successful. He also found a soul mate in the legendary Mark Twain. They admired one another’s mordant wit. Grant’s lively and erudite narrative of this tumultuous era—the raucous late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—is a gripping portrait of a United States poised to burst its bounds and of the men who were defining it.

This biography of Bernard Baruch considered to be renowned as the definitive story about the notorious financial wizard and presidential advisor. Baruch's political policies are discussed briefly, and James Grant includes a detailed account of Baruch's trading and investment gains and losses.

Many Americans believe that foreign military intervention is central to protecting our domestic freedoms. But Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall urge engaged citizens to think again. Overseas, our government takes actions in the name of defense that would not be permissible within national borders. Emboldened by the relative weakness of governance abroad, the U.S. government is able to experiment with a broader range of social controls. Under certain conditions, these policies, tactics, and technologies are then re-imported to America, changing the national landscape and increasing the extent to which we live in a police state. Coyne and Hall examine this pattern—which they dub "the boomerang effect"—considering a variety of rich cases that include the rise of state surveillance, the militarization of domestic law enforcement, the expanding use of drones, and torture in U.S. prisons. Synthesizing research and applying an economic lens, they develop a generalizable theory to predict and explain a startling trend. Tyranny Comes Home unveils a new aspect of the symbiotic relationship between foreign interventions and domestic politics. It gives us alarming insight into incidents like the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri and the Snowden case—which tell a common story about contemporary foreign policy and its impact on our civil liberties.

A biography of the revolutionary, founding father, and second president of the United States explores his origins as a son of Massachusetts who crafted himself into an uncompromisingly ethical politician and social reformer.

"Wall Street newsletters come and go, but Grant's Interest Rate Observer has gone on and on. It has enlightened, enriched and provoked Wall Streets most successful investors every two weeks for the past 25 years. Its thousands of readers treasure it not only for its insights and analysis, but also for its clarity and wit." "This special anniversary collection of Grant's articles traces the tumultuous events of Americas bubble era: from the dot-com boom of the late 1990s to the house-price levitation of the early 2000s to the subsequent worldwide mortgage collapse. The essays contained herein make up no armchair history, but a living record comprised in the heat of events. They chronicle what happened and why - and what, in editor Grant's best judgment, was likely to happen down the road."--BOOK JACKET.

"This is the story of silver's transformation from soft money during the nineteenth century to hard asset today, and how manipulations of the white metal by American president Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930s and by the richest man in the world, Texas oil baron Nelson Bunker Hunt, during the 1970s altered the course of American and world history. FDR pumped up the price of silver to help jump start the U.S. economy during the Great Depression, but this move weakened China, which was then on the silver standard, and facilitated Japan's rise to power before World War II. Bunker Hunt went on a silver-buying spree during the 1970s to protect himself against inflation and triggered a financial crisis that left him bankrupt. Silver has been the preferred shelter against government defaults, political instability, and inflation for most people in the world because it is cheaper than gold. The white metal has been the place to hide when conventional investments sour, but it has also seduced sophisticated investors throughout the ages like a siren. This book explains how powerful figures, up to and including Warren Buffett, have come under silver's thrall, and how its history guides economic and political decisions in the twenty-first century"--Publisher's description