How Allen Klein, Morris Levy, and Nixon's Justice Department battled to bring down the world's greatest band

In Stateless Commerce, Barak Richman uses the colorful case study of the diamond industry to explore how ethnic trading networks operate and why they persist in the twenty-first century. How, for example, does the 47th Street diamond district in midtown Manhattan—surrounded by skyscrapers and sophisticated financial institutions—continue to thrive as an ethnic marketplace that operates like a traditional bazaar? Conventional models of economic and technological progress suggest that such primitive commercial networks would be displaced by new trading paradigms, yet in the heart of New York City the old world persists. Richman’s explanation is deceptively simple. Far from being an anachronism, 47th Street’s ethnic enclave is an adaptive response to the unique pressures of the diamond industry. Ethnic trading networks survive because they better fulfill many functions usually performed by state institutions. While the modern world rests heavily on lawyers, courts, and state coercion, ethnic merchants regularly sell goods and services by relying solely on familiarity, trust, and community enforcement—what economists call “relational exchange.” These commercial networks insulate themselves from the outside world because the outside world cannot provide those assurances. Extending the framework of transactional cost and organizational economics, Stateless Commerce draws on rare insider interviews to explain why personal exchange succeeds, even as most global trade succumbs to the forces of modernization, and what it reveals about the limitations of the modern state in governing the economy.

The first sustained, scholarly examination of the relationship between prosecutors and democracy from a cross-national, cross-disciplinary perspective. Written by a team of internationally distingushed contributors, this is an ideal resource for legal scholars and reformers, political philosophers, and social scientists.

Have you ever been forced to consider the fact of your mortality? If confronted with cancer, how would you feel? What would you say to the people you love? What would they say to you? No two people have the same answers to these questions, a lesson I learned well during a solo six-week, 5,000-mile cross-country bike ride I called Cycle of Lives. The trip started as a fundraiser in honor of my sister, June, who died of brain cancer. But long before I even set out on my endurance ride from L.A. to Florida to N.Y., I exhaustively interviewed fifteen people across the country whose lives had also been irrevocably changed by cancer—either as patients, survivors, loved ones, or caregivers. Hearing their moving stories, which were influenced by many different forms of past and present trauma, transformed my cycling odyssey into a journey of emotional self-discovery as I relived the chaos and emotional upheaval of cancer through them: from the man who found true love after losing his soulmate to cancer, to the elite athlete who had to reckon with his all-star body finally letting him down, to the medical oncologist who cares as much about her patients as she cares for them. Whether you or someone you care about is going through cancer or some other major trauma, I hope this thought-provoking collection of astonishing stories can help you, too.

Teen characters are able to answer the what if question in this suspense-filled speculative series.

Fiction. East Asian Studies. Illustrated by Max Currie. BABY, YOU'RE A RICH MAN follows the story of Kent Richman, a down-on-his luck, B-level variety star on Japanese television who is forced to go into hiding when he becomes the target of an escaped prisoner. Kent winds up at a Buddhist retreat where he embarks on a journey of mishap, paranoia, desperation, and self-discovery that leads to an illuminating showdown as he attempts to right the wrongs of his past. BABY, YOU'RE A RICH MAN offers a unique look into contemporary Japan and the ubiquitous struggle for a place to call home.