Seven years after the financial crisis of 2008, financiers remain villains in the public mind. Most Americans believe that their irresponsible actions and complex financial products wrecked the economy and destroyed people's savings, and that bankers never adequately paid for their crimes.

But as Economist journalist Andrew Palmer argues in Smart Money, this much maligned industry is not only capable of doing great good for society, but offers the most powerful means we have for solving some of our most intractable social problems. From Babylon to the present, the history of...

This book features interviews with leading and upcoming British composers who use the same raw materials but produce classical music that takes very different forms. Uniquely, Andrew Palmer approaches the sometimes baffling world of contemporary music from the point of view of the inquisitive, music-loving amateur rather than the professional critic or musicologist. Readers can eavesdrop on conversations in which composers are asked a number of questions about their professional lives and practices, with the emphasis on the aesthetic sensibilities and psychological processes behind composing...

"Love makes its own happiness." ...or so Yvonne's fiance tells her, on the very night he is killed by the German blitz. Grief-stricken, Yvonne throws herself into her work for the Royal Air Force, trying desperately to forget her lost love. She hasn't counted on Edward Morrison, a Canadian pilot, the man who makes her believe in love again. And she hasn't counted on the fact that when the war is over at last, their most difficult trials will only have begun...."

Explores the ways poets address the difficult question of how to remember, and commemorate, those killed in the First World War and beyond.