Business Biographies & Histories
Showing 73–87 of 87 results
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Business Biographies & Histories
The Prime Ministers: Reflections on Leadership from Wilson to May
‘Fascinating, revealing and entertaining.’ John Humphrys’A pure pleasure to read.’ Polly Toynbee’Extraordinary.’ Kirsty WarkA landmark history of the men and women who have defined the UK’s role in the modern world – and what makes them special – by a seasoned political journalist.At a time of unprecedented political upheaval, this magisterial history explains who leads us and why. From Harold Wilson to Theresa May, it brilliantly brings to life all nine inhabitants of 10 Downing Street over the past fifty years, vividly outlining their successes and failures – and what made each of them special. Based on unprecedented access and in-depth interviews, and inspired by the author’s BBC Radio 4 and television series, Steve Richards expertly examines the men and women who have defined the UK’s role in the modern world and sheds new light on the demands of the highest public office in the land.
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Business Biographies & Histories
The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons in Creative Leadership from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
Business Biographies & HistoriesThe Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons in Creative Leadership from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
‘One of the best business books I’ve read in years.’ BILL GATESTHE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019_____________________________The CEO of Disney, one of Time’s most influential people of 2019, shares the ideas and values he embraced to reinvent one of the most beloved companies in the world and inspire the people who bring the magic to life. Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 2005, during a difficult time. Morale had deteriorated, competition was intense, and technology was changing faster than at any time in the company’s history. His vision came down to three clear ideas: Recommit to the concept that quality matters, embrace technology instead of fighting it, and think bigger―think global―and turn Disney into a stronger brand in international markets. Fourteen years later, Disney is the largest, most respected media company in the world, counting Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox among its properties. Its value is nearly five times what it was when Iger took over, and he is recognized as one of the most innovative and successful CEOs of our era.In The Ride of a Lifetime, Robert Iger shares the lessons he’s learned while running Disney and leading its 200,000 employees, and he explores the principles that are necessary for true leadership, including: Optimism. Even in the face of difficulty, an optimistic leader will find the path toward the best possible outcome and focus on that, rather than give in to pessimism and blaming. Courage. Leaders have to be willing to take risks and place big bets. Fear of failure destroys creativity. Decisiveness. All decisions, no matter how difficult, can be made on a timely basis. Indecisiveness is both wasteful and destructive to morale. Fairness. Treat people decently, with empathy, and be accessible to them. This book is about the relentless curiosity that has driven Iger for forty-five years, since the day he started as the lowliest studio grunt at ABC. It’s also about thoughtfulness and respect, and a decency-over-dollars approach that has become the bedrock of every project and partnership Iger pursues, from a deep friendship with Steve Jobs in his final years to an abiding love of the Star Wars mythology.“The ideas in this book strike me as universal” Iger writes. “Not just to the aspiring CEOs of the world, but to anyone wanting to feel less fearful, more confidently themselves, as they navigate their professional and even personal lives.”
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Business Biographies & Histories
The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons in Creative Leadership from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
Business Biographies & HistoriesThe Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons in Creative Leadership from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
‘One of the best business books I’ve read in years.’ BILL GATESTHE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019_____________________________The CEO of Disney, one of Time’s most influential people of 2019, shares the ideas and values he embraced to reinvent one of the most beloved companies in the world and inspire the people who bring the magic to life. Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 2005, during a difficult time. Morale had deteriorated, competition was intense, and technology was changing faster than at any time in the company’s history. His vision came down to three clear ideas: Recommit to the concept that quality matters, embrace technology instead of fighting it, and think bigger—think global—and turn Disney into a stronger brand in international markets. Fourteen years later, Disney is the largest, most respected media company in the world, counting Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox among its properties. Its value is nearly five times what it was when Iger took over, and he is recognized as one of the most innovative and successful CEOs of our era.In The Ride of a Lifetime, Robert Iger shares the lessons he’s learned while running Disney and leading its 200,000 employees, and he explores the principles that are necessary for true leadership, including: Optimism. Even in the face of difficulty, an optimistic leader will find the path toward the best possible outcome and focus on that, rather than give in to pessimism and blaming. Courage. Leaders have to be willing to take risks and place big bets. Fear of failure destroys creativity. Decisiveness. All decisions, no matter how difficult, can be made on a timely basis. Indecisiveness is both wasteful and destructive to morale. Fairness. Treat people decently, with empathy, and be accessible to them. This book is about the relentless curiosity that has driven Iger for forty-five years, since the day he started as the lowliest studio grunt at ABC. It’s also about thoughtfulness and respect, and a decency-over-dollars approach that has become the bedrock of every project and partnership Iger pursues, from a deep friendship with Steve Jobs in his final years to an abiding love of the Star Wars mythology.“The ideas in this book strike me as universal” Iger writes. “Not just to the aspiring CEOs of the world, but to anyone wanting to feel less fearful, more confidently themselves, as they navigate their professional and even personal lives.”
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Business Biographies & Histories
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Around the world in Britain, the United States, Asia and the Middle East, there are people with power who are cashing in on chaos; exploiting bloodshed and catastrophe to brutally remake our world in their image. They are the shock doctors.Exposing these global profiteers, Naomi Klein discovered information and connections that shocked even her about how comprehensively the shock doctors’ beliefs now dominate our world – and how this domination has been achieved. Raking in billions out of the tsunami, plundering Russia, exploiting Iraq – this is the chilling tale of how a few are making a killing while more are getting killed. ‘Packed with thinking dynamite … a book to be read everywhere’ John Berger ‘If you only read one non-fiction book this year, make it this one’ Metro Books of the Year ‘There are a few books that really help us understand the present. The Shock Doctrine is one of those books’ John Gray, Guardian ‘A brilliant book written with a perfectly distilled anger, channelled through hard fact. She has indeed surpassed No Logo’ Independent
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Business Biographies & Histories
The Slave Trade: History of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870
The Atlantic slave trade was one of the largest and most elaborate maritime and commercial ventures. Between 1492 and about 1870, ten million or more black slaves were carried from Africa to one port or another of the Americas.In this wide-ranging book, Hugh Thomas follows the development of this massive shift of human lives across the centuries until the slave trade’s abolition in the late nineteenth century.
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Business Biographies & Histories
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
Recounting the life and times of one of the most respected men in the world, The Snowball is the most fascinating financial success story of our time. Warren Buffett, the legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but finally has given Alice Schroeder unprecedented access to him and all those closest to his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies and wisdom. The result is this personally revealing and complete biography of ‘The Oracle of Omaha’, indispensable reading for those who wish to know the man behind the outstanding achievements.
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Business Biographies & Histories
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
‘A wonderful page-turner about a fascinating idea that should affect the way every thinking person thinks about the world around him’ Michael LewisIn this brilliant and original book, Malcolm Gladwell explains and analyses the ‘tipping point’, that magic moment when ideas, trends and social behaviour cross a threshold, tip and spread like wildfire. Taking a look behind the surface of many familiar occurrences in our everyday world, Gladwell explains the fascinating social dynamics that cause rapid change.’Hip and hopeful, THE TIPPING POINT is like the idea it describes: concise, elegant but packed with social power. A book for anyone who cares about how society works and how we can make it better’ George Stephanopoulos
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Business Biographies & Histories
The Undercover Economist
Who makes most money from the demand for cappuccinos early in the morning at Waterloo Station? Why is it impossible to get a foot on the property ladder? How does the Mafia make money from laundries when street gangs pushing drugs don’t? Who really benefits from immigration? How can China, in just fifty years, go from the world’s worst famine to one of the greatest economic revolutions of all time, lifting a million people out of poverty a month?Looking at familiar situations in unfamiliar ways, THE UNDERCOVER ECONOMIST is a fresh explanation of the fundamental principles of the modern economy, illuminated by examples from the streets of London to the booming skyscrapers of Shanghai to the sleepy canals of Bruges. Leaving behind textbook jargon and equations, Tim Harford will reveal the games of signals and negotiations, contests of strength and battles of wit that drive not only the economy at large but the everyday choices we make.
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Business Biographies & Histories
The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy
WINNER OF THE 2019 MADAME DE STAËL PRIZE AND THE 2018 LEONTIEF PRIZE FOR ADVANCING THE FRONTIERS OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT SHORTLISTED FOR THE FT & MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018Who really creates wealth in our world? And how do we decide the value of what they do? At the heart of today’s financial and economic crisis is a problem hiding in plain sight.In modern capitalism, value-extraction is rewarded more highly than value-creation: the productive process that drives a healthy economy and society. From companies driven solely to maximize shareholder value to astronomically high prices of medicines justified through big pharma’s ‘value pricing’, we misidentify taking with making, and have lost sight of what value really means. Once a central plank of economic thought, this concept of value – what it is, why it matters to us – is simply no longer discussed. Yet, argues Mariana Mazzucato in this penetrating and passionate new book, if we are to reform capitalism – radically to transform an increasingly sick system rather than continue feeding it – we urgently need to rethink where wealth comes from. Which activities create it, which extract it, which destroy it? Answers to these questions are key if we want to replace the current parasitic system with a type of capitalism that is more sustainable, more symbiotic – that works for us all. The Value of Everything reigniteS a long-needed debate about the kind of world we really want to live in.
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Business Biographies & Histories
Till the Cows Come Home: the bestselling memoir from a beloved presenter
Business Biographies & HistoriesTill the Cows Come Home: the bestselling memoir from a beloved presenter
THE UPLIFTING AND HEARTWARMING LOVE LETTER TO FAMILY AND THE GREAT OUTDOORS’Cox is a natural storyteller… she brings that authentic voice to bear in her memoir. The tone is so intimate, chatty and friendly, so you feel as though she could be sitting next to you’ Hannah Beckerman, Daily Express’endearing, engaging and very funny’ Mirror’Coxy’s memoir about growing up on a farm is as funny as you’d expect, genuinely touching and has some excellent 80s and 90s details. Her love of animals is infectious’ Alexandra Heminsley, Grazia’The book is like a big warm hug, full of local characters and misadventures’ Sophie Heawood, Observer’Made me laugh out loud…I loved it!’ Lynda La PlanteGlorious springtime, haystacks and a herd of cows can all be found in this Sunday Times Bestseller A funny and heart-warming love letter to childhood, family and growing up.Till the Cows Come Home is DJ and TV presenter Sara Cox’s wonderfully written, funny coming of age memoir of growing up in 1980s Lancashire. The youngest of five siblings, Sara grew up on her father’s cattle farm surrounded by dogs, cows, horses, fields and lots of ‘cack’. The lanky kid sister – half girl, half forehead – a nuisance to the older kids, the farm was her very own dangerous adventure playground, ‘a Bolton version of Narnia’. Her writing conjures up a time of wagon rides and haymaking and agricultural shows, alongside chain smoking pensioners, cabaret nights at the Conservative club and benign parenting. Sara’s love of family, of the animals and the people around them shines through on every page. Unforgettable characters are lovingly and expertly drawn bringing to life a time and place. Sara later divided her childhood days between the beloved farm and the pub she lived above with her mother, these early experiences of freedom and adventure came to be the perfect training ground for later life.This funny, big-hearted and often moving telling of Sara Cox’s semi rural upbringing is not what you’d expect from the original ladette, and one of radio’s most enduring and well loved presenters.
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Business Biographies & Histories
Tom Hartley: The Dealmaker
The car world is full of fascinating characters, but few have a story to tell quite as remarkable and inspirational as Tom Hartley. Walking out of school at the age of 11, unable to read or write, Hartley set up his own business buying and selling cars. From that moment on he defied logic and ripped up the rule book on his way to the top. Today he runs one of the most successful independent family-run luxury, performance and classic car businesses in the world, and has built up an unrivalled reputation as ‘The Dealmaker.’ Tom has been at the top for over 40 years, survived and thrived through four recessions, and overcome three life threatening illnesses. In his own brutally honest words Hartley tells his gripping story of a boy from a traditional Romany family who swapped the classroom for the cut-throat world of Glasgow’s car auctions, buying and selling his first car at the age of 12. Having decided to drive himself around illegally, he was only 15 when he had his first car crash, and they don’t come more spectacular than writing off a Ferrari Dino – nothing has ever been normal in the world of Tom Hartley! Hartley had made his first million by the age of 17, but soon suffered major setbacks as his business went bust, and he found himself at risk of losing his sight without major surgery. Hartley started all over again, living in a mobile home with his wife and working from the back of a car. He had gone from hero to zero, but his burning desire to be the best saw him climb his way back to the top. His ability to clinch deals in some of the most bizarre places has become legendary, like buying a car in a sauna, while stuck in a traffic jam on a motorway, and even in a swimming pool! Family has played a key part in the Tom Hartley story, his wife has been at his side all the way, and his two sons have followed closely in their father’s footsteps. Indeed Tom’s belief in family is one of the inspiring messages that comes through. Hartley’s inspirational story is about the unshakeable belief in his own abilities, from a precocious schoolboy who had a dream, and then through sheer hard work and a burning desire to make the dream come true. This is not just a book for car enthusiasts but for anyone who has dared to dream. It’s a story that will inspire and motivate, and proves you can make the wildest dream come true if you want it badly enough. Tom’s remarkable story is written with the collaboration of Journalist Ken Gibson, for 24 years, award winning Motoring Editor of The Sun Newspaper.
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Business Biographies & Histories
Trade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace
Business Biographies & HistoriesTrade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace
A provocative look at how today’s trade conflicts are caused by governments promoting the interests of elites at the expense of workersTrade disputes are usually understood as conflicts between countries with competing national interests, but as Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis show, they are often the unexpected result of domestic political choices to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of workers and ordinary retirees.Klein and Pettis trace the origins of today’s trade wars to decisions made by politicians and business leaders in China, Europe, and the United States over the past thirty years. Across the world, the rich have prospered while workers can no longer afford to buy what they produce, have lost their jobs, or have been forced into higher levels of debt. In this thought-provoking challenge to mainstream views, the authors provide a cohesive narrative that shows how the class wars of rising inequality are a threat to the global economy and international peace-and what we can do about it.
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Business Biographies & Histories
Twenty Years of talkSPORT
Celebrating the forthcoming 20th anniversary of the launch of the UK’s favourite sports radio station, `Twenty Years of talkSPORT’ gives an amazing behind the scenes, warts and all, look at the station and its presenters and brilliantly captures the funniest stories from the early days right through the World Cups and European Championships to its move into plush new studios in 2019. It is a hilarious and highly entertaining read, featuring contributions from all your favourite presenters on the station over the past twenty years, including Alan Brazil, Ally McCoist, Jim White, Richard Keys, Andy Gray, Adrian Durham, Darren Gough, Laura Woods, Mark Saggers, Andy Goldstein, Paul Hawksbee and Andy Jacobs.
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Business Biographies & Histories
Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER’Listen out for Rutger Bregman. He has a big future shaping the future’ Observer’A more politically radical Malcolm Gladwell’ New York Times’The Dutch wunderkind of new ideas’ GuardianIn Utopia for Realists, Rutger Bregman shows that we can construct a society with visionary ideas that are, in fact, wholly implementable. Every milestone of civilisation – from the end of slavery to the beginning of democracy – was once considered a utopian fantasy. New utopian ideas such as universal basic income and a fifteen-hour work week can become reality in our lifetime.From a Canadian city that once completely eradicated poverty, to Richard Nixon’s near implementation of a basic income for millions of Americans, Bregman takes us on a journey through history, beyond the traditional left-right divides, as he introduces ideas whose time has come.
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Business Biographies & Histories
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty
Shortlisted for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2012.Why are some nations more prosperous than others? Why Nations Fail sets out to answer this question, with a compelling and elegantly argued new theory: that it is not down to climate, geography or culture, but because of institutions. Drawing on an extraordinary range of contemporary and historical examples, from ancient Rome through the Tudors to modern-day China, leading academics Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson show that to invest and prosper, people need to know that if they work hard, they can make money and actually keep it – and this means sound institutions that allow virtuous circles of innovation, expansion and peace.Based on fifteen years of research, and answering the competing arguments of authors ranging from Max Weber to Jeffrey Sachs and Jared Diamond, Acemoglu and Robinson step boldly into the territory of Francis Fukuyama and Ian Morris. They blend economics, politics, history and current affairs to provide a new, powerful and persuasive way of understanding wealth and poverty.
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