Despite social and economic advances around the world, poverty and disease persist, exacerbated by the mounting challenges of climate change, natural disasters, political conflict, mass migration, and economic inequality. While governments commit to addressing these challenges, traditional public and philanthropic dollars are not enough. Here, innovative finance has shown a way forward: by borrowing techniques from the world of finance, we can raise capital for social investments today. Innovative finance has provided polio vaccines to children in the DRC, crop insurance to farmers in India,...

To understand business and its political, cultural, and economic context, it helps to view it historically, yet most business histories look no further back than the nineteenth century. The full sweep of business history actually begins much earlier, with the initial cities of Mesopotamia. In the first book to describe and explain these origins, Roberts depicts the society of ancient traders and consumers, tracing the roots of modern business and underscoring the relationship between early and modern business practice.

Roberts's narrative begins before business, which he defines as...

A Brief History of Entrepreneurship charts how the pursuit of profit by private individuals has been a prime mover in revolutionizing civilization. Entrepreneurs often butt up against processes, technologies, social conventions, and even laws. So they circumvent, innovate, and violate to obtain what they want. This creative destruction has brought about overland and overseas trade, colonization, and a host of revolutionary technologies--from caffeinated beverages to the personal computer--that have transformed society.

Consulting rich archival sources, including some that have...

Financial markets are noisy and full of half-baked opinions, innuendo, and misinformation. With deep insights about investor psychology, Book of Value shows how to apply tools of business analysis to sort through the deceptions and self-deceptions in financial markets. Anurag Sharma joins philosophy with practical know-how to launch an integrated approach to building high-performance stock portfolios.

Investors at all skill levels should learn to be mindful of their psychological biases so they may better frame investment choices. Book of Value teaches novices that investing...

We are crossing a new frontier in the evolution of computing and entering the era of cognitive systems. The victory of IBM's Watson on the television quiz show Jeopardy revealed how scientists and engineers at IBM and elsewhere are pushing the boundaries of science and technology to create machines that sense, learn, reason, and interact with people in new ways to provide insight and advice.

In Smart Machines, John E. Kelly III, director of IBM Research, and Steve Hamm, a writer at IBM and a former business and technology journalist, introduce the fascinating world of...

The past thirty years have seen dozens of otherwise successful investors try to improve education through the application of market principles. They have funneled billions of dollars into alternative schools, online education, and textbook publishing, and they have, with surprising regularity, lost their shirts.

In Class Clowns, professor and investment banker Jonathan A. Knee dissects what drives investors' efforts to improve education and why they consistently fail. Knee takes readers inside four spectacular financial failures in education: Rupert Murdoch's billion-dollar effort...

Businesses often find themselves trapped in a competitive dogfight, scratching and clawing for market share with products consumers view as largely undifferentiated. Conventional wisdom suggests that dogfights are to be expected as marketplaces mature, giving rise to the notion that there are "bad" industries where it is unlikely that any company can succeed.

But there are notable exceptions in which enlightened executives have changed the rules to grasp the holy grail of business: long-term profitable growth. Rather than joining the dogfights raging within their industry, companies such...

The launch of the Dutch East India Company in 1602 initiated Amsterdam's transformation from a regional market town into a dominant financial center. The Company introduced easily transferable shares, and within days buyers had begun to trade them. Soon the public was engaging in a variety of complex transactions, including forwards, futures, options, and bear raids, and by 1680 the techniques deployed in the Amsterdam market were as sophisticated as any we practice today.

Lodewijk Petram's eye-opening history demystifies financial instruments by linking today's products to yesterday's...

To compete with today's increasing globalization and rapidly evolving technologies, individuals and organizations must take their ability to learn--the foundation for continuous improvement, operational excellence, and innovation--to a much higher level. In Learn or Die, Edward D. Hess combines recent advances in neuroscience, psychology, behavioral economics, and education with key research on high-performance businesses to create an actionable blueprint for becoming a leading-edge learning organization.

Learn or Die examines the process of learning from an individual and...

Investing--the commitment of resources to achieve a return--affects individuals, families, companies, and nations, and has done so throughout history. Yet until the sixteenth century, investing was a privilege of only the elite classes. The story behind the democratization of investing is bound up with some of history's most epic events. It is also a tale rich with lessons for professional and everyday investors who hope to make wiser choices.

This entertaining history doubles as a sophisticated account of the opportunities and challenges facing the modern investor. It follows the rise of...