What will power look like in the century to come? Imperial Great Britain may have been the model for the nineteenth century, Richard Rosecrance writes, but Hong Kong will be the model for the twenty-first. We are entering the Age of the Virtual State -- when land and its products are no longer the primary source of power, when managing flows is more important than maintaining stockpiles, when service industries are the greatest source of wealth and expertise and creativity are the greatest natural resources.Rosecrance's brilliant new book combines international relations theory with economics and the business model of the virtual corporation to describe how virtual states arise and operate, and how traditional powers will relate to them. In specific detail, he shows why Japan's kereitsu system, which brought it industrial dominance, is doomed; why Hong Kong and Taiwan will influence China more than vice-versa; and why the European Union will command the most international prestige even though the U.S. may produce more wealth.

In The Futures, Emily Lambert, senior writer at Forbes magazine, tells us the rich and dramatic history of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, which together comprised the original, most bustling futures market in the world. She details the emergence of the futures business as a kind of meeting place for gamblers and farmers and its subsequent transformation into a sophisticated electronic market where contracts are traded at lightning-fast speeds. Lambert also details the disastrous effects of Wall Street's adoption of the futures contract without the rules and close-knit social bonds that had made trading it in Chicago work so well. Ultimately Lambert argues that the futures markets are the real "free" markets and that speculators, far from being mere parasites, can serve a vital economic and social function given the right architecture. The traditional futures market, she explains, because of its written and cultural limits, can serve as a useful example for how markets ought to work and become a tonic for our current financial ills.

Protect yourself from the next financial meltdown with this game-changing primer on financial markets, the economy—and the meteoric rise of carry. The financial shelves are filled with books that explain how popular carry trading has become in recent years. But none has revealed just how significant a role it plays in the global economy—until now. A groundbreaking book sure to leave its mark in the canon of investing literature, The Rise of Carry explains how carry trading has virtually shaped the global economic picture—one of decaying economic growth, recurring crises, wealth disparity, and, in too many places, social and political upheaval. The authors explain how carry trades work—particularly in the currency and stock markets—and provide a compelling case for how carry trades have come to dominate the entire global business cycle. They provide thorough analyses of critical but often overlooked topics and issues, including: •The active role stock prices play in causing recessions—as opposed to the common belief that recessions cause price crashes •The real driving force behind financial asset prices •The ways that carry, volatility selling, leverage, liquidity, and profitability affect the business cycle •How positive returns to carry over time are related to market volatility—and how central bank policies have supercharged these returns Simply put, carry trading is now the primary determinant of the global business cycle—a pattern of long, steady but unspectacular expansions punctuated by catastrophic crises. The Rise of Carry provides foundational knowledge and expert insights you need to protect yourself from what have come to be common market upheavals—as well as the next major crisis.

A news-breaking account of the global stock market's subterranean battles, Dark Pools portrays the rise of the "bots"--artificially intelligent systems that execute trades in milliseconds and use the cover of darkness to out-maneuver the humans who've created them. In the beginning was Josh Levine, an idealistic programming genius who dreamed of wresting control of the market from the big exchanges that, again and again, gave the giant institutions an advantage over the little guy. Levine created a computerized trading hub named Island where small traders swapped stocks, and over time his invention morphed into a global electronic stock market that sent trillions in capital through a vast jungle of fiber-optic cables. By then, the market that Levine had sought to fix had turned upside down, birthing secretive exchanges called dark pools and a new species of trading machines that could think, and that seemed, ominously, to be slipping the control of their human masters. Dark Pools is the fascinating story of how global markets have been hijacked by trading robots--many so self-directed that humans can't predict what they'll do next.

This volume examines the rise of the many different trading empires from the end of the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century.