Books like The Price of Time

01

A Random Walk Down Wall Street

Burton G. Malkiel · Economics

A Random Walk Down Wall Street is Burton Malkiel's argument that stock prices move in a way that is effectively unpredictable, that professional fund managers cannot consistently beat the market, and that the rational response for most investors is to buy and hold a diversified index fund.

A kindred history read.

02

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Michael Lewis · Economics

The Big Short is Michael Lewis's account of the 2008 financial crisis as seen through the eyes of a handful of contrarians who saw the collapse coming, bet against the American housing market, and were right.

Both dig into risk.

03

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman · Psychology

Thinking, Fast and Slow is Daniel Kahneman's account of the two cognitive systems that govern human thought.

A kindred history read.

04

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Nassim Nicholas Taleb · Philosophy

Antifragile is Nassim Nicholas Taleb's argument that the opposite of fragile is not robust or resilient — it is antifragile.

A kindred history read.

05

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

Peter L. Bernstein · History

Against the Gods is Peter Bernstein's intellectual history of how humanity learned to measure, quantify, and manage risk — a story he traces from ancient gambling in the Mediterranean through the development of modern probability theory, statistics, and financial derivatives.

Shares financial history and risk with The Price of Time.

06

More Money Than God

Sebastian Mallaby · Economics

Sebastian Mallaby's history of hedge funds begins with Alfred Winslow Jones, who in 1949 invented the basic structure that still defines the industry: borrow money to buy what you think will go up, sell short what you think will go down, take a 20 percent cut of the profits.

Shares financial history and risk with The Price of Time.

07

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

Niall Ferguson · Economics

Niall Ferguson published The Ascent of Money in 2008, with timing that turned out to be acute: the book appeared just as the global financial crisis was unfolding, making its subject matter suddenly urgent for readers who had barely thought about the mechanics of credit default swaps or mortgage securitization.

Shares financial history and risk with The Price of Time.

08

Americana

Bhu Srinivasan · History

Americana is Bhu Srinivasan's attempt to tell the history of American capitalism through its defining industries and the entrepreneurs who built them.

Both dig into capitalism.

09

Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation

Edward Chancellor · History

Edward Chancellor's 1999 history of financial speculation begins with seventeenth-century Holland and ends with the Japanese bubble of the 1980s and early signs of the dot-com excess that would peak after the book's publication.

Both dig into financial history.

10

Empire of Cotton: A Global History

Sven Beckert · History

Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton argues that cotton was not just the raw material of the Industrial Revolution but the commodity through which modern capitalism was invented.

Both dig into capitalism.

11

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

Shoshana Zuboff · History

Shoshana Zuboff spent years researching what she calls surveillance capitalism — a new economic logic in which human experience is turned into raw material for prediction products that are sold to businesses wanting to influence behavior.

Both dig into capitalism.

12

The Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels · History

Published in 1848 on the eve of a wave of European revolutions, The Communist Manifesto is a short political pamphlet that has shaped more history than almost any other document of its length.

Both dig into capitalism.