Category Archives: Books

HBCU Money™ Business Book Feature – The Foundation: A Great American Secret

Posted on August 14, 2016 by | Leave a comment

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Private foundations have been the dynamo of social change since their invention at the beginning of the last century. Yet just over 10 percent of the public knows they even exist; and for those who are aware of them, as well as even those who seek grants from them, their internal workings remain a complete mystery. Joel Fleishman knows the sector like few others, and in this groundbreaking book he explains both the history of foundations—with their fledgling beginnings in the era of the robber barons seeking social respectability—through to the present day. This book shows how, why foundations matters, and how the future of foundations can provide a vital spur to the engine of the American, and the world’s, economy—if they are properly established and run.

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HBCU Money™ Business Book Feature – The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power

Posted on August 7, 2016 by | Leave a comment

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Amazon.com Review

Daniel Yergin’s first prize-winning book, Shattered Peace, was a history of the Cold War. Afterwards the young academic star joined the energy project of the Harvard Business School and wrote the best-seller Energy Future. Following on from there, The Prize, winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, is a comprehensive history of one of the commodities that powers the world–oil. Founded in the 19th century, the oil industry began producing kerosene for lamps and progressed to gasoline. Huge personal fortunes arose from it, and whole nations sprung out of the power politics of the oil wells. Yergin’s fascinating account sweeps from early robber barons like John D. Rockefeller, to the oil crisis of the 1970s, through to the Gulf War.

From Publishers Weekly

Energy consultant Yergin limns oil’s central role in most of the wars and many international crises of the 20th century. “A timely, information-packed, authoritative history of the petroleum industry, tracing its ramifications, national and geopolitical, to the present day,” said PW. Photos. Author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This book does not require recent events in the Persian Gulf to make it an essential addition for most public libraries as well as all college libraries. Written by one of the foremost U.S. authorities on energy, it is a major work in the field, replete with enough insight to satisfy the scholar and sufficient concern with the drama and colorful personalities in the history of oil to capture the interest of the general public. Though lengthy, the book never drags in developing its themes: the relationship of oil to the rise of modern capitalism; the intertwining relations between oil, politics, and international power; and the relationship between oil and society in what Yergin calls today’s age of “Hydrocarbon Man.” Parts of the story have been told as authoritatively before, e.g., in Irvine Anderson’s Aramco: The United States and Saudi Arabia ( LJ 7/81), but never in as comprehensive a fashion as here.
– Joseph R. Rudolph Jr., Towson State Univ., Md.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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HBCU Money™ Business Book Feature – Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future

Posted on July 24, 2016 by | 1 comment

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Winner of the 2015 FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award
A New York Times Bestseller
Top Business Book of 2015 at Forbes
One of NBCNews.com 12 Notable Science and Technology Books of 2015

What are the jobs of the future? How many will there be? And who will have them? We might imagine—and hope—that today’s industrial revolution will unfold like the last: even as some jobs are eliminated, more will be created to deal with the new innovations of a new era. In Rise of the Robots, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Martin Ford argues that this is absolutely not the case. As technology continues to accelerate and machines begin taking care of themselves, fewer people will be necessary. Artificial intelligence is already well on its way to making “good jobs” obsolete: many paralegals, journalists, office workers, and even computer programmers are poised to be replaced by robots and smart software. As progress continues, blue and white collar jobs alike will evaporate, squeezing working- and middle-class families ever further. At the same time, households are under assault from exploding costs, especially from the two major industries—education and health care—that, so far, have not been transformed by information technology. The result could well be massive unemployment and inequality as well as the implosion of the consumer economy itself.

In Rise of the Robots, Ford details what machine intelligence and robotics can accomplish, and implores employers, scholars, and policy makers alike to face the implications. The past solutions to technological disruption, especially more training and education, aren’t going to work, and we must decide, now, whether the future will see broad-based prosperity or catastrophic levels of inequality and economic insecurity. Rise of the Robots is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what accelerating technology means for their own economic prospects—not to mention those of their children—as well as for society as a whole.

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HBCU Money™ Business Book Feature – Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics

Posted on March 6, 2016 by | Leave a comment

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Shortlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award.

Get ready to change the way you think about economics.

Richard H. Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans―predictable, error-prone individuals. Misbehaving is his arresting, frequently hilarious account of the struggle to bring an academic discipline back down to earth―and change the way we think about economics, ourselves, and our world.

Traditional economics assumes rational actors. Early in his research, Thaler realized these Spock-like automatons were nothing like real people. Whether buying a clock radio, selling basketball tickets, or applying for a mortgage, we all succumb to biases and make decisions that deviate from the standards of rationality assumed by economists. In other words, we misbehave. More importantly, our misbehavior has serious consequences. Dismissed at first by economists as an amusing sideshow, the study of human miscalculations and their effects on markets now drives efforts to make better decisions in our lives, our businesses, and our governments.

Coupling recent discoveries in human psychology with a practical understanding of incentives and market behavior, Thaler enlightens readers about how to make smarter decisions in an increasingly mystifying world. He reveals how behavioral economic analysis opens up new ways to look at everything from household finance to assigning faculty offices in a new building, to TV game shows, the NFL draft, and businesses like Uber.

Laced with antic stories of Thaler’s spirited battles with the bastions of traditional economic thinking,Misbehaving is a singular look into profound human foibles. When economics meets psychology, the implications for individuals, managers, and policy makers are both profound and entertaining.

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HBCU Money™ Business Book Feature – Panic on Wall Street: A History of America’s Financial Disasters

Posted on December 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

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From the Publisher

Here is a book dealing with a subject endemic to many Eastern and Western countries — financial panic. Covering 12 of the most harrowing moments in American financial history from 1792 to 1962, it demonstrates that Wall Street and the public are at once the heroes, villains, and victims of past panics.

From the Inside Flap

… The episodes depicted were dramatic, had an impact on Americans of the time, and have generally been neglected by other financial historians. Some of the most notable are the Western Blizzard of 1857, the Great Crash of 1929, and the Kennedy Slide of 1962. Not all were catalysts for depressions, but they illustrate the complexity of such events and that the causes are varied: political, military, economic, and even psychological. This book is fascinating reading for anyone who fears that we could suffer through another financial panic.

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