The Richest East India Merchant


Book Description

Biography and business history of wealthy British merchant in India reveals much about the nineteenth-century Empire.




The Billionaire Raj


Book Description

A colorful and revealing portrait of the rise of India’s new billionaire class in a radically unequal society India is the world’s largest democracy, with more than one billion people and an economy expanding faster than China’s. But the rewards of this growth have been far from evenly shared, and the country’s top 1% now own nearly 60% of its wealth. In megacities like Mumbai, where half the population live in slums, the extraordinary riches of India’s new dynasties echo the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers of America's Gilded Age, funneling profits from huge conglomerates into lifestyles of conspicuous consumption. James Crabtree’s The Billionaire Raj takes readers on a personal journey to meet these reclusive billionaires, fugitive tycoons, and shadowy political power brokers. From the sky terrace of the world’s most expensive home to impoverished villages and mass political rallies, Crabtree dramatizes the battle between crony capitalists and economic reformers, revealing a tense struggle between equality and privilege playing out against a combustible backdrop of aspiration, class, and caste. The Billionaire Raj is a vivid account of a divided society on the cusp of transformation—and a struggle that will shape not just India’s future, but the world’s.




The India Policy Forum 2004


Book Description

A Brookings Institution Press and the National Council of Applied Economic Research publication The India Policy Forum (IPF) is a new annual publication dedicated to research on the contemporary Indian economy. It provides a forum for addressing the scope, speed, and desirability of economic reforms within India and their fundamental impacts on the country's social and economic welfare. The IPF aims to nurture a global network of scholars interested in India's economic transformation. A joint publication of the National Council of Applied Economic Research in India and the Brookings Institution in the United States, the IPF provides a bridge between researchers in India and abroad. This inaugural issue contains highlights from a conference held in New Delhi in March 2004. Topics include: • India's Trade Reform: Progress, Impact, and Future Strategy • Should a U.S.-India Free Trade Agreement Be Part of India's Trade Strategy? • Foreign Inflows and Macroeconomic Policy in India • India's Experience with the Implementation of a Pegged Exchange Rate • The Challenges for Capital Account Convertibility in India • Banking Reform in India




Andrew Carnegie Speaks to the 1%


Book Description

Before the 99% occupied Wall Street... Before the concept of social justice had impinged on the social conscience... Before the social safety net had even been conceived... By the turn of the 20th Century, the era of the robber barons, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) had already accumulated a staggeringly large fortune; he was one of the wealthiest people on the globe. He guaranteed his position as one of the wealthiest men ever when he sold his steel business to create the United States Steel Corporation. Following that sale, he spent his last 18 years, he gave away nearly 90% of his fortune to charities, foundations, and universities. His charitable efforts actually started far earlier. At the age of 33, he wrote a memo to himself, noting ..".The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In 1881, he gave a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland. In 1889, he spelled out his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society, in an article called "The Gospel of Wealth" this book. Carnegie writes that the best way of dealing with wealth inequality is for the wealthy to redistribute their surplus means in a responsible and thoughtful manner, arguing that surplus wealth produces the greatest net benefit to society when it is administered carefully by the wealthy. He also argues against extravagance, irresponsible spending, or self-indulgence, instead promoting the administration of capital during one's lifetime toward the cause of reducing the stratification between the rich and poor. Though written more than a century ago, Carnegie's words still ring true today, urging a better, more equitable world through greater social consciousness.




Rich Indians


Book Description

Long before lucrative tribal casinos sparked controversy, Native Americans amassed other wealth that provoked intense debate about the desirability, morality, and compatibility of Indian and non-Indian economic practices. Alexandra Harmon examines seven such instances of Indian affluence and the dilemmas they presented both for Native Americans and for Euro-Americans--dilemmas rooted in the colonial origins of the modern American economy. Harmon's study not only compels us to look beyond stereotypes of greedy whites and poor Indians, but also convincingly demonstrates that Indians deserve a prominent place in American economic history and in the history of American ideas.







Lives of Famous Indian Chiefs (Illustrated Edition)


Book Description

"Lives of Famous Indian Chiefs" is a collection of biographies of the influential and notable Native Americans such as King Philip, Pontiac, Black Hawk and Geronimo, just to name the few. The author also reviews different theories on the origin of Native Americans and their original homeland, prior to American continent. Contents: Cofachiqui, The Indian Princess Powhatan, or Wah-Un-So-Na-Cook Massasoit, The Friend of the Puritans King Philip, or Metacomet, The Last of the Wampanoaghs Pontiac, The Red Napoleon, Head Chief of the Ottawas and Organizer of the First Great Indian Confederation Logan, or Tal-Ga-Yee-Ta, The Cayuga (Mingo) Chief, Orator and Friend of the White Man. Also a Brief Sketch of Cornstalk Captain Joseph Brant, or Thay-En-Da-Ne-Gea, Principal Sachem of the Mohawks and Head Chief of the Iroquois Confederation Red Jacket, or Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha, "The Keeper Awake." The Indian Demosthenes, Chief of the Senecas Little Turtle, or Michikiniqua, War Chief of the Miamis, and Conqueror of Harmar and St. Clair Tecumseh, or "The Shooting Star," Famous War-chief of the Shawnees, Organizer of the Second Great Indian Confederation and General in the British Army in the War of 1812 Black Hawk, or Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, and His War Shabbona, or Built Like a Bear, The White Man's Friend, a Celebrated Pottawatomie Chief Sitting Bull, or Tatanka Yotanka, The Great Sioux Chief and Medicine Man Chief Joseph, of the Nez Perces, or Hin-Mah-Too-Yah-Lat-Kekt, Thunder Rolling in the Mountains, The Modern Xenophon Geronimo, or Go-Yat-Thlay, The Yawner, The Renowned Apache Chief and Medicine Man Quanah Parker, Head Chief of the Comanches, With, an Account of the Captivity of His Mother, Cynthia Anne Parker, Known as "The White Comanche" A Sheaf of Good Indian Stories From History Indian Anecdotes and Incidents, Humorous and Otherwise Whence Came the Aborigines of America?




Capital in the Twenty-First Century


Book Description

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In this work the author analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. He shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, the author says, and may do so again. This original work reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.




Killers of the Flower Moon


Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, from the author of The Wager and The Lost City of Z, “one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."—New York Magazine • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NOW A MARTIN SCORSESE PICTURE “A shocking whodunit…What more could fans of true-crime thrillers ask?”—USA Today “A masterful work of literary journalism crafted with the urgency of a mystery.” —The Boston Globe In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history. Look for David Grann’s latest bestselling book, The Wager!




The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (National Book Award Winner)


Book Description

A New York Times bestseller—over one million copies sold! A National Book Award winner A Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live. With a forward by Markus Zusak, interviews with Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney, and black-and-white interior art throughout, this edition is perfect for fans and collectors alike.