American Abundance
Author: Lawrence Kudlow
Publisher: Amer Heritage Custom Publishing Company
Published: 1997
Total Pages: 179
ISBN-13: 9780828111171
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The Land of Too Much
Author: Monica Prasad
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2012-12-31
Total Pages: 306
ISBN-13: 0674071549
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Land of Too Much presents a simple but powerful hypothesis that addresses three questions: Why does the United States have more poverty than any other developed country? Why did it experience an attack on state intervention starting in the 1980s, known today as the neoliberal revolution? And why did it recently suffer the greatest economic meltdown in seventy-five years? Although the United States is often considered a liberal, laissez-faire state, Monica Prasad marshals convincing evidence to the contrary. Indeed, she argues that a strong tradition of government intervention undermined the development of a European-style welfare state. The demand-side theory of comparative political economy she develops here explains how and why this happened. Her argument begins in the late nineteenth century, when America’s explosive economic growth overwhelmed world markets, causing price declines everywhere. While European countries adopted protectionist policies in response, in the United States lower prices spurred an agrarian movement that rearranged the political landscape. The federal government instituted progressive taxation and a series of strict financial regulations that ironically resulted in more freely available credit. As European countries developed growth models focused on investment and exports, the United States developed a growth model based on consumption. These large-scale interventions led to economic growth that met citizen needs through private credit rather than through social welfare policies. Among the outcomes have been higher poverty, a backlash against taxation and regulation, and a housing bubble fueled by “mortgage Keynesianism.” This book will launch a thousand debates.
Shrinking the Earth
Author: Donald Worster
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2016-01-08
Total Pages: 289
ISBN-13: 0199844968
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe discovery of the Americas around 1500 AD was an extraordinary watershed in human experience. It gave rise to the modern period of human ecology, a phenomenon global in scope that set in motion profound changes in almost every society on earth. This new period, which saw the depletion of the lands of the New World, proved tragic for some, triumphant for others, and powerfully affecting for all. In this work, acclaimed environmental historian Donald Worster takes a global view in his examination of the ways in which complex issues of worldwide abundance and scarcity have shaped American society and behavior over three centuries. Looking at the limits nature imposes on human ambitions, he questions whether America today is in the midst of a shift from a culture of abundance to a culture of limits--and whether American consumption has become reliant on the global South. Worster engages with key political, economic, and environmental thinkers while presenting his own interpretation of the role of capitalism and government in issues of wealth, abundance, and scarcity. Acknowledging the earth's agency throughout human history, Shrinking the Earth offers a compelling explanation of how we have arrived where we are and a hopeful way forward on a planet that is no longer as large as it once was.
Abundance
Author: Peter H. Diamandis
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2014-09-23
Total Pages: 432
ISBN-13: 145161683X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe authors document how four forces--exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion--are conspiring to solve our biggest problems. "Abundance" establishes hard targets for change and lays out a strategic roadmap for governments, industry and entrepreneurs, giving us plenty of reason for optimism.
Windfall
Author: Meghan L. O'Sullivan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2017-09-12
Total Pages: 480
ISBN-13: 150110795X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWindfall is the boldest profile of the world’s energy resources since Daniel Yergin’s The Quest, asserting that the new energy abundance—due to oil and gas resources once deemed too expensive—is transforming the geo-political order and is boosting American power. “Riveting and comprehensive...a smart, deeply researched primer on the subject.” —The New York Times Book Review As a new administration focuses on driving American energy production, O’Sullivan’s “refreshing and illuminating” (Foreign Policy) Windfall describes how new energy realities have profoundly affected the world of international relations and security. New technologies led to oversupplied oil markets and an emerging natural gas glut. This did more than drive down prices—it changed the structure of markets and altered the way many countries wield power and influence. America’s new energy prowess has global implications. It transforms politics in Russia, Europe, China, and the Middle East. O’Sullivan considers the landscape, offering insights and presenting consequences for each region’s domestic stability as energy abundance upends traditional partnerships, creating opportunities for cooperation. The advantages of this new abundance are greater than its downside for the US: it strengthens American hard and soft power. This is “a powerful argument for how America should capitalise on the ‘New Energy Abundance’” (The Financial Times) and an explanation of how new energy realities create a strategic environment to America’s advantage.
Americans and Their Land
Author: Anne Mackin
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 2006
Total Pages: 274
ISBN-13: 9780472115563
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People of Plenty
Author: David M. Potter
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2009-02-15
Total Pages: 245
ISBN-13: 0226676315
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAmerica has long been famous as a land of plenty, but we seldom realize how much the American people are a people of plenty—a people whose distinctive character has been shaped by economic abundance. In this important book, David M. Potter breaks new ground both in the study of this phenomenon and in his approach to the question of national character. He brings a fresh historical perspective to bear on the vital work done in this field by anthropologists, social psychologists, and psychoanalysts. "The rejection of hindsight, with the insistence on trying to see events from the point of view of the participants, was a governing theme with Potter. . . . This sounds like a truism. Watching him apply it however, is a revelation."—Walter Clemons, Newsweek "The best short book on national character I have seen . . . broadly based, closely reasoned, and lucidly written."—Karl W. Deutsch, Yale Review
Crisis of Abundance
Author: Arnold S. Kling
Publisher: Cato Institute
Published: 2006
Total Pages: 126
ISBN-13: 1930865899
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAmerica's health care troubles largely stem from a great success: modern medicine can do much more today than in the past. So what's the trouble? How to pay for it. In easily comprehensible prose, MIT-trained economist Arnold Kling explains better ways of financing health care for the poor, workers, the disabled, and the elderly. Kling predicts relying less on government and more on private savings would improve health outcomes. A must-read for health care reformers.
Armed with Abundance
Author: Meredith H. Lair
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Published: 2011
Total Pages: 315
ISBN-13: 0807834815
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPopular representations of the Vietnam War tend to emphasize violence, deprivation, and trauma. By contrast, in Armed with Abundance, Meredith Lair focuses on the noncombat experiences of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, redrawing the landscape of the war
Water
Author: Jeremy J. Schmidt
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2019-04-01
Total Pages: 320
ISBN-13: 1479853828
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn intellectual history of America's water management philosophy Humans take more than their geological share of water, but they do not benefit from it equally. This imbalance has created an era of intense water scarcity that affects the security of individuals, states, and the global economy. For many, this brazen water grab and the social inequalities it produces reflect the lack of a coherent philosophy connecting people to the planet. Challenging this view, Jeremy Schmidt shows how water was made a “resource” that linked geology, politics, and culture to American institutions. Understanding the global spread and evolution of this philosophy is now key to addressing inequalities that exist on a geological scale. Water: Abundance, Scarcity, and Security in the Age of Humanity details the remarkable intellectual history of America’s water management philosophy. It shows how this philosophy shaped early twentieth-century conservation in the United States, influenced American international development programs, and ultimately shaped programs of global governance that today connect water resources to the Earth system. Schmidt demonstrates how the ways we think about water reflect specific public and societal values, and illuminates the process by which the American approach to water management came to dominate the global conversation about water. Debates over how human impacts on the planet are connected to a new geological epoch—the Anthropocene—tend to focus on either the social causes of environmental crises or scientific assessments of the Earth system. Schmidt shows how, when it comes to water, the two are one and the same. The very way we think about managing water resources validates putting ever more water to use for some human purposes at the expense of others.
