Why Empires Fall: Rome, America, and the Future of the West

A new perspective on parallels between ancient Rome and the modern world, and what comes next &nbsp; "[A] provocative short book . . . with a novel twist."--The Economist &nbsp; Over the last three centuries, the West rose to dominate the planet. Then, around the start of the new millennium, history took a dramatic turn. Faced with economic stagnation and internal political division, the West has found itself in rapid decline compared to the global periphery it had previously colonized. This is not the first time we have seen such a rise and fall: the Roman Empire followed a similar arc, from dizzying power to disintegration. &nbsp; Historian Peter Heather and political economist John Rapley explore the uncanny parallels, and productive differences between ancient Rome and the modern West, moving beyond the tropes of invading barbarians and civilizational decay to unearth new lessons. From 399 to 1999, they argue, through the unfolding of parallel, underlying imperial life cycles, both empires sowed the seeds of their own destruction. Has the era of Western global domination indeed reached its end? Heather and Rapley contemplate what comes next.

History

Heather, Peter

Rapley, John

Americas

Yale University Press

Britannia and Other Tubular Bridges

Europe

Tempus Pub Ltd

It was the longest bridge in the world—a true wonder of the time—but within a year it had collapsed. The Tay Railway Bridge was to have been the pinnacle of a career spent building railways and bridges in England and Scotland. When the bridge came crashing down in December 1878, it brought down its designer Thomas Bouch as well. Bouch became famous when he developed the idea of roll-on/roll-off ferries for the Edinburgh and Northern Railway on the river Forth, but it was his Tay bridge and the proposed Forth Railway Bridge that brought him the fame he craved. With the loss of the Tay Bridge, he became a recluse and died in October 1880.

Thomas Bouch

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Tempus

Understanding Development

First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Business & Money

Economics

Routledge

Imagine one day you went to a cash-machine and found your money was gone. You rushed to your branch, where a teller said that overnight people had stopped believing in money, and it all vanished. Seem incredible? It happened, and it could happen again.Twilight of the Money Gods is the story of economics, told not as the science it strove to be, but as the religion it became. Over two centuries, it searched for the hidden codes which would reveal the path to a promised land of material abundance. While its prophets, from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman, concerned themselves with the human condition, its priesthood gradually grew remote from its followers, until it lost sight of their tribulations. Today, amid a crisis of faith in their expertise, we must re-imagine an economics for a new era - one filled with both danger and opportunity.

Twilight of the Money Gods: Economics As a Religion and How It All Went Wrong

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Simon Schuster Ltd

A comprehensive examination of the continually changing world of money, economic theory, and how we got things so wrong in the run-up the 2007 recession—and how we can rebuild confidence for our financial future. Imagine one day you went to a cash machine and found your money was gone. You rushed to your bank branch, where a teller said that overnight people had stopped believing in money, and it all vanished. Seem incredible? It happened, and it could happen again. Twilight of the Money Gods is the story of economics, told not as the science it strove to be, but as the religion it became. Over two centuries, it searched for the hidden codes which would reveal the path to a promised land of material abundance. While its prophets—from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman—concerned themselves with the human condition, its priesthood gradually grew remote from its followers, until it lost sight of their tribulations. Today, amid a crisis of faith in their expertise, we must re-imagine the topic of economics for a new era—one filled with both danger and opportunity.

Twilight of the Money Gods: Economics as a Religion and How it all Went Wrong

Simon Schuster(uk)

Understanding Development: Theory and Practice in the Third World

Lynne Rienner Pub

An introduction to the theory and practices of development in the third world, tracing the evolution of development theory over 40 years, and examining why so many of the benefits of development are still not shared by millions.

Globalization and Inequality: Neoliberalism's Downward Spiral

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Books by Rapley, John