How do you get your dinner? That is the basic question of economics. When economist and philosopher Adam Smith proclaimed that all our actions were motivated by self-interest, he used the example of the baker and the butcher as he laid the foundations for 'economic man,' arguing that the baker and butcher didn't give bread and meat out of the goodness of their hearts. It's an ironic point of view coming from a bachelor who lived with his mother for most of his life—a woman who cooked his dinner every night.The economic man has dominated our understanding of modern-day capitalism, with a focus on self-interest and the exclusion of all other motivations. Such a view point disregards the unpaid work of mothering, caring, cleaning and cooking. It insists that if women are paid less, then that's because their labor is worth less.A kind of femininst Freakonomics, Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? charts the myth of economic man—from its origins at Adam Smith's dinner table, its adaptation by the Chicago School, and its disastrous role in the 2008 Global Financial Crisis—in a witty and courageous dismantling of one of the biggest myths of our time.

An illuminating and maddening examination of how gender bias has skewed innovation, technology, and history—now in paperback It all starts with a rolling suitcase. Though the wheel was invented some 5,000 years ago, and the suitcase in the 19th century, it wasn’t until the 1970s that someone successfully married the two. What was the holdup? For writer and journalist Katrine Marçal, the answer is both shocking and simple: because “real men” carried their bags, no matter how heavy. Mother of Invention is a fascinating and eye-opening examination of business, technology, and innovation through a feminist lens. Because it wasn’t just the suitcase. Drawing on examples from electric cars to tech billionaires, Marçal shows how gender bias stifles the economy and holds us back, delaying innovations, sometimes by hundreds of years, and distorting our understanding of our history. While we talk about the Iron Age and the Bronze Age, we might as well talk about the Ceramic Age or the Flax Age, since these technologies were just as important. But inventions associated with women are not considered to be technology in the same way as those associated with men. Mother of Invention is a sweeping tour of the global economy with a powerful message: If we upend our biases, we can unleash our full potential.

Dearest friends -- The cheerful skeptic (1711-1749) -- Encountering Hume (1723-1749) -- A budding friendship (1750-1754) -- The historian and the Kirk (1754-1759) -- Theorizing the moral sentiments (1759) -- Fêted in France (1759-1766) -- Quarrel with a wild philosopher (1766-1767) -- Mortally sick at sea (1767-1775) -- Inquiring into the Wealth of Nations (1776) -- Dialoguing about natural religion (1776) -- A philosopher's death (1776) -- Ten times more abuse (1776-1777) -- Smith's final years in Edinburgh (1777-1790) -- Hume's My Own Life and Smith's Letter from Adam Smith, LL. D. to William Strahan, Esq

"How the insights of an 18th century economist can help us live better in the 21st century. Adam Smith became famous for The Wealth of Nations, but the Scottish economist also cared deeply about our moral choices and behavior--the subjects of his other brilliant book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). Now, economist Russ Roberts shows why Smith's neglected work might be the greatest self-help book you've never read. Roberts explores Smith's unique and fascinating approach to fundamental questions such as: - What is the deepest source of human satisfaction? - Why do we sometimes swing between selfishness and altruism? - What's the connection between morality and happiness? Drawing on current events, literature, history, and pop culture, Roberts offers an accessible and thought-provoking view of human behavior through the lenses of behavioral economics and philosophy"--

Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, How to Change Your Mind, and This is Your Mind on Plants explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen in Cooked. "Having described what's wrong with American food in his best-selling The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006), New York Times contributor Pollan delivers a more optimistic but equally fascinating account of how to do it right. . . . A delightful chronicle of the education of a cook who steps back frequently to extol the scientific and philosophical basis of this deeply satisfying human activity." —Kirkus (starred review) Cooked is now a Netflix docuseries based on the book that focuses on the four kinds of "transformations" that occur in cooking. Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney and starring Michael Pollan, Cooked teases out the links between science, culture and the flavors we love. In Cooked, Pollan discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth—to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan’s effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements. A North Carolina barbecue pit master tutors him in the primal magic of fire; a Chez Panisse–trained cook schools him in the art of braising; a celebrated baker teaches him how air transforms grain and water into a fragrant loaf of bread; and finally, several mad-genius “fermentos” (a tribe that includes brewers, cheese makers, and all kinds of picklers) reveal how fungi and bacteria can perform the most amazing alchemies of all. The reader learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships. Cooking, above all, connects us. The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume large quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.

An analysis of the enormous changes in women's economic lives around the world, from the family to the labour market. Hoffman and Averett examine topics such as the effect of rising women's wages and improved labour market opportunities on marriage, the ways in which more reliable contraception has shaped women's adult lives and careers, and the forces behind the phenomenal rise in women's labour force activity. This fourth edition includes brand new chapters on gender in economics and race and gender in the USA. It incorporates the latest research findings throughout, many of which are featured in helpful call-out boxes, and illustrated with new graphs and figures. This is invaluable reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of economics, development and women's studies. The level of economic analysis is suitable for students with basic economics knowledge. New to this Edition: - New chapters on gender in economics and race and gender in economics - Fully updated with new data, policy examples and a new companion website with lecturer resources - Increased pedagogy, with over 30 new boxes

A Wall Street Journal and Washington Post Bestseller, Own It is a new kind of career playbook for a new era of feminism, offering women a new set of rules for professional success: one that plays to their strengths and builds on the power they already have. Weren’t women supposed to have “arrived”? Perhaps with the nation’s first female President, equal pay on the horizon, true diversity in the workplace to come thereafter? Or, at least the end of “fat-shaming” and “locker room talk”? Well, we aren’t quite there yet. But does that mean that progress for women in business has come to a screeching halt? It’s true that the old rules didn’t get us as far as we hoped. But we can go the distance, and we can close the gaps that still exist. We just need a new way. In fact, there are many reasons to be optimistic about the future, says former Wall Street powerhouse-turned-entrepreneur Sallie Krawcheck. That’s because the business world is changing fast –driven largely by technology - and it’s changing in ways that give us more power and opportunities than ever…and even more than we yet realize. Success for professional women will no longer be about trying to compete at the men’s version of the game, she says. And it will no longer be about contorting ourselves to men’s expectations of how powerful people behave. Instead, it’s about embracing and investing in our innate strengths as women - and bringing them proudly and unapologetically, to work. When we do, she says, we gain the power to advance in our careers in more natural ways. We gain the power to initiate courageous conversations in the workplace. We gain the power to forge non-traditional career paths; to leave companies that don’t respect our worth, and instead, go start our own. And we gain the power to invest our economic muscle in making our lives, and the world, better. Here Krawcheck draws on her experiences at the highest levels of business, both as one of the few women at the top rungs of the biggest boy’s club in the world, and as an entrepreneur, to show women how to seize this seismic shift in power to take their careers to the next level. This change is real, and it’s coming fast. It’s time to own it.