Thomas Gresham was arguably the first true wizard of global finance. He rose through the mercantile worlds of London and Antwerp to become the hidden power behind three out of the five Tudor monarchs. Today his name is remembered in economic doctrines, in the institutions he founded and in the City of London's position at the economic centre of the earth. Without Gresham, England truly might have become a vassal state. His manoeuvring released Elizabeth from a crushing burden of debt and allowed for vital military preparations during the wars of religion that set Europe ablaze. Yet his deepest loyalties have remained enigmatic, until now. Drawing on vast new research and several startling discoveries, the great Tudor historian John Guy recreates Gresham's life and singular personality with astonishing intimacy. He reveals a calculating survivor, flexible enough to do business with merchants and potentates no matter their religious or ideological convictions. Yet his personal relationships were disturbingly transactional. He was a figure of cold unsentimentality even to members of his own family. Elizabeth I found herself at odds with Gresham's ambitions. In their collisions and wary accommodations, we see our own conflicts between national sovereignty and global capital foreshadowed. A story of adventure and jeopardy, greed and cunning, loyalties divided, mistaken or betrayed, this is a biography fit for a merchant prince.

In this volume, Charles Kindleberger makes a powerful case against the idea that any one model could be used to unlock the basic secret of economic history. It is essentially an exercise in methodology, addressed to economists and economic historians alike. He argues that too many economists discover a relationship or a uniformity in economic behaviour, develop a model, and use it to explain more than it is capable of, including, on occasion, all economic behaviour. These lectures discuss four 'laws' in economics to show how uniformities can illuminate economic history in particular aspects. They illustrate the view that the economist or economic historian seeking to test analysis against historical data should have a variety of different models, and not just one. The implication is that however scientific and technical the tools, choosing them carefully to fit particular circumstances is itself an art.

Reconceptualizes economic theory as a tool for understanding the Roman monetary system and its social and cultural contexts.

Originalism holds that the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted according to its meaning at the time it was enacted. In their innovative defense of originalism, John McGinnis and Michael Rappaport maintain that the text of the Constitution should be adhered to by the Supreme Court because it was enacted by supermajorities--both its original enactment under Article VII and subsequent Amendments under Article V. A text approved by supermajorities has special value in a democracy because it has unusually wide support and thus tends to maximize the welfare of the greatest number. The authors recognize and respond to many possible objections. Does originalism perpetuate the dead hand of the past? How can originalism be justified, given the exclusion of African Americans and women from the Constitution and many of its subsequent Amendments? What is originalism's place in interpretation, after two hundred years of non-originalist precedent? A fascinating counterfactual they pose is this: had the Supreme Court not interpreted the Constitution so freely, perhaps the nation would have resorted to the Article V amendment process more often and with greater effect. Their book will be an important contribution to the literature on originalism, now the most prominent theory of constitutional interpretation.