An intriguing collection of insider information on little known aspects of commonly used business techniques, instruments, policies, and personalities that influenced the rise of the world's most successful business system. Bulls, Bears, Boom, and Bust: A Historical Encyclopedia of American Business Concepts translates the language of business in an engaging, compelling way. From mercantilism to microchips, indentured servants to venture capitalists, William Penn to Bill Gates, this one-of-a-kind lexicon provides general readers with an accessible introduction to the vernacular of the American business community, while providing business professionals with a handy resource for quick authoritative answers. Divided into five chronological sections, Bulls, Bears, Boom, and Bust ranges from colonial times to the present, charting the dramatic history of business innovations and institutions in the United States. It contains over 200 topical entries that define business-related terms and explain their relevance to American business and economic history. In addition, each section provides information about the people behind the signature developments in American business (innovative thinkers and entrepreneurs, namesakes of familiar companies, key political figures).

This book covers the history of the stock exchange from the gold fields to the present day. The exchanges' beginnings in 1866, their development over the next 130 years, (including the boom and busts of the 1870s, the turn of the century and the 1980s), and their role in the New Zealand economy are examined. Published in hardback with black and white historical photographs, endnotes, bibliography, index, and glossary of terms.

This book offers a completely new and unique introduction to the economics of international relations. It treats all the traditional major themes of international relations theory while giving each a refreshing new twist with the incorporation of the influence of private power, particularly in the realm of war and peace. It reframes the history of the modern global economy and politics by thoroughly purging the myth of the market, a systematic blindness to private power. It not only draws on, but also illuminates major themes and empirical findings of comparative politics, business history, business strategy, business cycle theory, social evolutionary theory as well as the practical wisdom of traders and investors. Part one introduces the major concepts of competing theories of international relations, emphasizing a unique approach, corporatism. Part two introduces the critical importance dynamic and oppositional analysis of issues. Part three traces the rise of the modern world from the mercantilist period until the rise of modern corporate organizations and the demise of imperialism in the crucible of World War I. Part four begins with the origins of the contemporary dominance of business internationalism before and during World War II, then analyzes three major facets of the postwar era: the unification of much of Europe, the industrialization of the Third World, and the Cold War and its aftermath. The final chapter considers the present and future of a fairly peaceful yet economically unstable world. This book presents a refreshing and exciting portrayal of the global economy which challenges every major subject from money to markets to the business cycle. This book eschews the economics of dull averages to restore the drama of contending business forces, struggling for wealth and, in the process, influencing war and peace.

Written by an expert on financial analysis and capitalism, this book describes the widespread corruption and specific scandals that have occurred throughout history when ethically-challenged innovators and greedy scoundrels are unable to resist the dark side of corruption. Since the dawn of civilization, corruption has had a perpetual impact on the world's economies. In the modern, technology-enabled, global economy, the effects of those who manipulate free-market capitalism for their own gains regardless of methodology continue to be a problem, despite reforms instituted to attempt to discourage the most blatant practices. Business Scandals, Corruption, and Reform: An Encyclopedia contains more than 300 entries that describe the myriad aspects of corruption, business scandals, and attempts at reform, providing not only detailed information about specific accounting scandals and earnings manipulation but also a broad examination of the entire history of business corruption throughout human civilization. Reviewing all the major scandals from tulip mania in the early 17th century to the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 and beyond, the author illuminates how corrupt actors in business and the attempts to eliminate these types of abuses have been instrumental to the developing institutional framework of free-market capitalism.

This book aims at investigating from the perspective of the major economic dictionaries the notions of economic crisis and cycle. The project consists in giving an extensive summary of a number of significant entries on this subject, with an introductory essay to each entry placing them (and the dictionary to which they belong) in their context, giving some details on the author of the dictionary entry, and assessing the entry’s (and its author’s) contribution. The broad picture (including the history of these encyclopedic tools) will be examined in the introductory essays.

The encyclopedia takes a broad, multidisciplinary approach to the history of the period. It includes general and specific entries on politics and business, labor, industry, agriculture, education and youth, law and legislative affairs, literature, music, the performing and visual arts, health and medicine, science and technology, exploration, life on the Western frontier, family life, slave life, Native American life, women, and more than a hundred influential individuals.

It has been approximately nine years since Rob Nixon coined the term ‘slow violence’ to express the slow but deadly changes in the environment which cause the suffering of the poor. These environmental catastrophes take place so gradually and out of sight that they are often ignored. While Nixon dealt with the issues of slow violence in the Global South, this book argues that slow violence is not limited to this region, showing that poorer parts of America suffer from slow violence. Concentrating on Illinois and the Appalachian region, it reveals how slow violence occurs in these places and discusses the reflections of slow violence in various novels set in these locations.

Is global capitalism on its last legs? Is the era of American leadership over? Has the West begun a decline into a new Dark Age? Does American civilization deserve to survive? These are the unnerving questions raised by the Great Crash of 2009. This book presents a radically new answer, insisting that global society has only begun to realize its full potential. Author Howard Bloom argues that there’s a hidden mandate beneath the surface of capitalism: "It’s struggling to whisper and rumble its message to you and me. That hidden imperative can lift us from economic crisis, can make us a leader in the next-generation economy, and can dramatically upgrade our ability to empower our fellow human beings." Bloom sees crisis as opportunity, opportunity for the whole human race. In more than eighty short, fast chapters, insights appear suddenly, like the quick bursts of flashbulbs, taking the reader on a sweeping tour of human history, from the Stone Age to the present. Every chapter conveys a radically new way to see the astonishing mechanism we call "Western Civilization." Bloom marvels at how humans have turned toxic waste into food and fuel, trash into treasure, and garbage into gold. He shows how we've produced material miracles based on immaterial things—passion, persistence, and fantasy. He shows that what many regard as the end is just the beginning. The beginning of something you've never before imagined. The author explains why the secret to capitalism’s next great leap does not lie in new financial tricks, but in tapping things right under our noses in radically new ways—that is, tapping our imagination, our desire to feel useful, our desire to help others, and our desire to be recognized for contributing to the welfare of humanity. The key to next-generation capitalism lies in a big-picture view that's utterly unlike anything you've previously perceived. A big-picture view that will startle you. A big-picture view with which you can ignite the world, get a new handle on your life, and help transform society. This brilliant, inspirational work of daring ideas and breathtaking research offers more than hope. It offers unseen levels of understanding. Understanding that can literally redefine what it means to be a human being.

Nils T. Granlund (1882-1957) created the first movie preview, filmed the first commercial, was the first to broadcast a live sports event, and, as a popular radio personality, introduced the Jazz Age to America via his broadcasts from Harlem's Cotton Club. He is also acknowledged as the creator of the modern nightclub, introducing the high-kicking chorus line to the stages of Las Vegas. But though he was among the highest-grossing entertainers of the World War II era--famous enough to star as "himself" in several Hollywood films--he died virtually penniless, and today is all but forgotten. This work is a comprehensive biography of the man known as NTG, from his herding reindeer in Sweden to shepherding the most beautiful chorus girls on Broadway.

Alexander Pantages was 13 when he arrived in the U.S. in the 1880s, after contracting malaria in Panama. He opened his first motion picture theater in 1902 and went on to build one of the largest and most important independently-owned theater chains in the country. At the height of the Pantages Theaters' reach, he owned or operated 78 theaters across the U.S. and Canada. He amassed a fortune, yet he could not read or write English. In 1929 he was convicted of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old dancer--a scandal that destroyed his empire and reduced him to a pariah. The day his grandest theater, the Pantages Hollywood, opened in 1930, he lay sick in a jailhouse infirmary. His conviction was overturned a year later after an appeal to the California State Supreme Court, but the question remains: How should history judge this theater pioneer, wealthy magnate and embodiment of the American Dream?