Money Mania

Money Mania is a sweeping account of financial speculation and its consequences, from ancient Rome to the Meltdown of 2008. Acclaimed journalist and investor Bob Swarup tracks the history of speculative fevers caused by the appearance of new profitable investment opportunities; the new assets created and the increasing self-congratulatory euphoria that drives them to unsustainable highs, all fed by an illusion of insight and newly minted experts; the unexpected catalysts that eventually lead to panic; the inevitable crash as investors scramble to withdraw their funds from the original market and any other that might resemble it; and finally, the brevity of financial memory that allows us to repeat the cycle without ever critically evaluating the drivers of this endless cycle. In short, it is the story of what makes us human.

This fun, fact-filled book about money also tickles the funny bone. Lots of jokes, riddles, and cartoon-style art will keep kids turning the pages as they learn about the history, manufacturing, and details of money. Also included are several really cool paper-folding projects (origami) using a dollar bill. Coin tricks are also explained. Up-to-date information about new coins and currency included.

Richard Matheson's bestselling novel, What Dreams May Come, the basis for the hit movie starring Robin Williams, touched numerous readers with its convincing portrait of life after death, based on years of research and personal reflection. Like that earlier book, The Path is a work of inspirational fiction that comes straight from Matheson's own deeply held beliefs about spirituality and true nature of existence. The story of one man's encounter with an enigmatic stranger who imparts to him ten lessons about the true reality of the soul; The Path is not so much a novel as a philosophical dialogue about life and the afterlife. Everyone who read What Dreams May Come and wants to know more about Matheson's personal philosophy should take a walk along . . . The Path. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Are you as close to God as you would like to be? Few Christians would claim to have fallen into overt sin, but many of us have allowed busyness, materialism, and the pursuit of pleasure to erode our spiritual lives. If you have been sidetracked from your journey with God, there is a pathway that leads home. Coming Home offers step-by-step guidance and encouragement to lead you back to your waiting Father. “Spiritual rain for your heart’s desert. Robert Jeffress is a world-class storyteller. Offers an easy to read, conscience-pricking pathway back to the heavenly Father who loves us.” --Bobb Biehl, President, Masterplanning Group International “For those who have strayed… Coming Home is worthy of your reading.” --Adrian Rogers, Host, “Love Worth Finding” “Robert Jeffress is right: living a God-honoring life is ‘no game for sissies.’ Both the culture in which we live and our own natural bent toward sin pull us away from the God we mean to follow. Coming Home points wandering believers back to a Father who not only waits, but welcomes us home again with open arms.” --Ed Young, Pastor, Second Baptist Church, Houston

First published in 1987, this is a reissue of the first book to offer a detailed comparison of two of the foremost stock exchanges in world before 1914. It is not only an exercise in comparative economic history but it also relates these institutions to wider world markets, thereby clarifying their functions and how they related to the general financial and economic framework. Students and researchers in economic and social history will welcome the reissue of this groundbreaking account of two historically important institutions in a crucial period of their development. Financial practitioners and others will also find much of interest here, in terms of both fascinating history and of insights into an era when a global market was rapidly evolving largely free of the twentieth-century distortions and hindrances introduced by wars, interventionist governments and exchange controls.

Ben-Yehuda presents an in-depth inquiry into the nature and patterns of political assassinations and executions by Jews in Palestine and Israel. Extensive empirical evidence is used to analyze the social construction of violent and aggressive human behavior, using a sociology of deviance perspective. Political assassinations and executions are placed within their particular cultural matrix to describe how this specific form of killing has been conceptualized as part of an alternative system of justice. "The taking of a human life is generally regarded as the ultimate evil. Given this fact, it is important to examine and understand how it is explained, justified, and cloaked in a 'vocabulary of motives.' Such acts are, in the author's words, 'socially constructed and interpreted,' dependent on the observer's location in a specific 'symbolic-moral universe.'Moreover, such acts (political assassination specifically) are manifestations of struggles that represent attempts to legitimate these world-views, rhetorical devices that serve to define 'boundary-markers' between such universes — moral crusades that attempt to validate one view vis-a-vis another. This general approach to political assassinations is original. Its application to assassinations by Israelis is original. The fact that the book is empirical marks it off from many speculations on the subject. A number of the author's findings make a distinct contribution.