This exhaustive four-volume set is the definitive reference on the history of trade in all time periods. It traces the historical and contemporary interaction of trade, commerce, and culture in fascinating detail.

"How did Ron Shaich, the visionary founder of Panera Bread, build a little bakery in St. Louis into 2,400 restaurants with 6 billion dollars in revenue and annual returns of 25 percent, outperforming Starbucks, Chipotle, and all others? By seeing the future and clearing a path to it, leading and innovating from the future back. Now, Shaich shares his story, starting with its humble entrepreneurial beginnings: the college-campus convenience store he...

Offering a spiritual approach to affluence, the author lists seven laws to be incorporated into consciousness to provide an understanding of money's nature and create wealth.

"With the goal of understanding China's future in a changing international landscape, this book offers a new picture of China's rise since the Age of Exploration and its historical impact on the modern world. The establishment of the Great Ming dynasty in1368 was a monumental event in world history. A century before Columbus, Beijing sent a series of diplomatic missions across the South China Sea and Indian Ocean that paved the way for China's first...

"From the author of 1491, the study of the pre-Columbian Americas, this new work is a history that explores the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs. More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed totally different suites of plants and animals. Columbus's voyages brought them back together, and marked the beginning of an extraordinary...

"New York Times bestselling author and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk shares hard-won advice on how to connect with customers and beat the competition. A mash-up of the best elements of Crush It! and The Thank You Economy with a fresh spin, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is a blueprint to social media marketing strategies that really works. When managers and marketers outline their social media strategies, they plan for the "right hook"--their next...

"A Wall Street Journal reporter travels the globe to tell the story behind the misleadingly simple phrase online shoppers increasingly take for granted: 'arriving today.' From factory laborers in Vietnam to longshoremen at the port of LA to truckers crawling our interstate highways to robots lurking in Amazon's 'dark warehouses,' here is an eye-opening investigation of the way online commerce is reshaping the globe, rewriting the rules of business,...

From Wall Street to Main Street, John Brooks, longtime contributor to the New Yorker, brings to life in vivid fashion twelve classic and timeless tales of corporate and financial life in America. What do the $350 million Ford Motor Company disaster known as the Edsel, the fast and incredible rise of Xerox, and the unbelievable scandals at General Electric and Texas Gulf Sulphur have in common? Each is an example of how an iconic company was defined...

Kidnapped by the crew of an Africa-bound ship, a thirteen-year-old boy discovers to his horror that he is on a slaver and his job is to play music for the exercise periods of the human cargo. Snatched from the docks of New Orleans, thirteen-year-old Jessie is thrown aboard a slave ship where he must play his fife so that captured slaves will "dance," and keep their muscles strong and their bodies profitable. Jessie is sickened by the horrible practices...