Here are 100 books that The Way of a Serpent fans have personally recommended if you like
The Way of a Serpent.
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I was born in North Dakota and raised outside of Minneapolis in the 1980s and 1990s, a period marked by the ascendance of global trade and finance. I got hooked on reading, thinking, and talking about the politics of international economic relations in college. Sufficiently hooked, I guess, that I applied to graduate school to try and make it my vocation. My research and teaching to this point have focused on how key political and ideational forces in domestic and world politics – namely, international organizations, shared economic beliefs, social conventions, and material interests – shape the governance of globalized markets and the crafting of countries’ foreign economic policies.
Pistor’s book explains how global finance grew so large, powerful, and unstable. The short answer: elite lawyers did it.
Pistor argues that they did it by creatively devising legal instruments that could turn both tangible (land, for example) and intangible things (like intellectual property) into capital. When lawyers were able to make legal instruments enforceable around the world, capital could become truly global. Why did they do this? Simple: “minting” capital through creative lawyering is extraordinarily lucrative.
Before reading this book, I knew that elite contract lawyers were very well compensated, but I didn’t understand what they were doing and didn’t think of them as key players shaping the international economic order. Pistor’s book informed and corrected my thinking.
A compelling explanation of how the law shapes the distribution of wealth
What is it that transforms a simple object, an idea, or a promise to pay into an asset that creates wealth? Katharina Pistor explains how, behind closed doors in the offices of private attorneys, capital is created-and why this little-known activity is one of the biggest reasons for the widening wealth gap between the holders of capital and everybody else. A powerful new way of thinking about one of the most pernicious problems of our time, The Code of Capital explores the various ways that debt, complex financial…
I was trained in physics and applied mathematics, but my mother—a teacher of literature and history—secured a place for the humanities in my intellectual luggage, and I finally ended up in the social sciences. One of my first encounters with economics was John Nash’s theory of bargaining, illustrating how a wealthy person will gain more from a negotiation than a pauper, thus reinforcing inequality and leading to instability. Decades later, I returned to this problem and found that relatively little had still been done to analyze it. I believe that a combination of mathematical tools and illustrations from history, literature, and philosophy is an appropriate way of approaching the complex of inequality.
This is a rich sourcebook on the emergence of inequality in human prehistory and history.
The authors move effortlessly across cultures from the entire globe, basing their analysis on written records, where possible, or archeological data such as buildings, art, tools, and bones. They confirm my own view that inequality is ubiquitous and that there is a tendency for it to grow over time, irrespective of the environment.
Political or religious elites have always tried to expand their power at the expense of the common man or woman, using myths about divine descent or other means of persuasion, and the majority has more or less successfully resisted such attempts.
For an armchair social scientist like myself, this wealth of data is tremendously valuable.
Our early ancestors lived in small groups and worked actively to preserve social equality. As they created larger societies, however, inequality rose, and by 2500 bce truly egalitarian societies were on the wane. In The Creation of Inequality, Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus demonstrate that this development was not simply the result of population increase, food surplus, or the accumulation of valuables. Instead, inequality resulted from conscious manipulation of the unique social logic that lies at the core of every human group.
A few societies allowed talented and ambitious individuals to rise in prestige while still preventing them from becoming…
I was trained in physics and applied mathematics, but my mother—a teacher of literature and history—secured a place for the humanities in my intellectual luggage, and I finally ended up in the social sciences. One of my first encounters with economics was John Nash’s theory of bargaining, illustrating how a wealthy person will gain more from a negotiation than a pauper, thus reinforcing inequality and leading to instability. Decades later, I returned to this problem and found that relatively little had still been done to analyze it. I believe that a combination of mathematical tools and illustrations from history, literature, and philosophy is an appropriate way of approaching the complex of inequality.
A favorite message from the economic profession is that free trade is good for everyone, and that those who do not agree are either misguided or defending vested interests of their own. In this book, Williamson shows that this view is false.
The welfare gap between the West and the rest of the world developed during the 19th and 20th centuries in large part because of trade-induced division of labor that led to de-industrialization, increased inequality, and volatile revenues in the losing countries—factors that all contributed to retarding economic growth and social development in countries that are now poor.
More recently, the free movement of capital has had similarly negative effects on developing and emerging economies, a fact that is now recognized also in organizations such as the IMF.
How the rise of globalization over the past two centuries helps explain the income gap between rich and poor countries today.
Today's wide economic gap between the postindustrial countries of the West and the poorer countries of the third world is not new. Fifty years ago, the world economic order—two hundred years in the making—was already characterized by a vast difference in per capita income between rich and poor countries and by the fact that poor countries exported commodities (agricultural or mineral products) while rich countries exported manufactured products. In Trade and Poverty, leading economic historian Jeffrey G. Williamson traces…
I was trained in physics and applied mathematics, but my mother—a teacher of literature and history—secured a place for the humanities in my intellectual luggage, and I finally ended up in the social sciences. One of my first encounters with economics was John Nash’s theory of bargaining, illustrating how a wealthy person will gain more from a negotiation than a pauper, thus reinforcing inequality and leading to instability. Decades later, I returned to this problem and found that relatively little had still been done to analyze it. I believe that a combination of mathematical tools and illustrations from history, literature, and philosophy is an appropriate way of approaching the complex of inequality.
Most people, when asked to name a philosopher who wrote about inequality, would think of Rousseau. Condorcet was the last of the Encyclopédistes, young enough to experience the revolution in 1789—sadly, also one of its victims.
Unlike his philosopher colleagues, he participated actively in public policymaking, first in the Ministry of Finance, later as an elected member of the Legislative Assembly after the revolution. He chaired an organization working for the abolition of slavery. He argued for equal rights for women before Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft had published their more well-known pamphlets. He co-authored the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and also wrote a proposal for new constitution for France.
Most importantly, he realized the fundamental role of education as a means to reduce inequality and liberate mankind, and he even developed curricula for the various stages of a general…
A premium flagship range from Letts Educational, the brand leader in home study. The Premier series is specifically designed to be the most accessible and fresh series on the home study market and to work closely alongside the primary curriculum. The series strengthens numeracy, literacy and ICT skills from playschool right through to secondary school. Each book covers thirty topics to provide thorough revision and a solid learning foundation, and comes with twenty flashcards to give additional visual stimulus for key concepts.
I have been fascinated by the role of power dynamics and psychological games in relationships for as long as I can remember, frequently seeking out entertainment and exploring these topics to make sense of what was happening in the world around me. Now as a writer of 42 novels, many of my stories center around these themes and their consequences and complications, always from a point of view that empowers women. Dirty Filthy Rich Men, and its follow-up Dirty Filthy Rich Love, specifically focus on the difference between the devastating act of rape and consensual rape play, with the intention of validating women who are drawn to edgier fantasies in fiction.
This book is dark and Calvin Cutler is not a book boyfriend anyone should aspire to in real life. If you’re a reader attracted to non-consensual romances, Marino manages to cleverly keep the trope alive throughout the whole book, without resorting to sex slave scenarios. I couldn’t flip through the pages fast enough.
Calvin will do anything for me... except leave me alone.
We were strangers, as far as I knew. He saw me once, but didn’t introduce himself like he could have. Calvin Cutler. Nice to meet you. But there’s nothing nice about Calvin Cutler. He’s ruthless and single-minded, and he zeroed in on me—a hapless target for his dark and twisted appetites.
In the depths of Hell, I first looked into his sinful brown eyes, felt the greedy touch of his demanding hands for the first time. Not the last time, though. He wanted more. So much more. He wanted me,…
I’m completely obsessed with dark romance books! Seriously, after more than fifteen years of diving into these wild novels, I’ve uncovered so many gems that I can’t get enough of. I’m not here for stories about happy-go-lucky people; I want all the drama, all the angst, and all those swoon-worthy anti-heroes who make my heart race! These books are like a delicious escape, where every plot twist keeps me on my toes, and every character is delightfully flawed. It’s a rollercoaster ride of passion and drama. I love getting lost in the emotional chaos and gripping stories where anything can happen.
This is one of the most intense and gripping dark romances I've ever read. The story follows Caleb, a damaged man seeking revenge, and Livvie, the innocent girl he kidnaps. From the start, I was pulled into their twisted, complicated dynamic. It’s dark, raw, and pushes boundaries, but I couldn’t stop reading. Caleb is a character you both hate and feel for, while Livvie’s journey from fear to something more complex kept me glued to the pages.
He’s the morally greyest character, and I hated to love him, but that’s what made him unforgettable. This book will definitely leave a mark. Caleb will always be one of my favorite anti-heroes, making this an unforgettable dark romance that still stands as the best I’ve ever read.
Please heed all warnings. ****This is a series about captivity in a FICTIONAL and EROTICIZED setting. It contains very disturbing situations, dubious consent, strong language, and graphic violence.****
OVER 150,000 COPIES SOLD!
This edition of CAPTIVE IN THE DARK features a new cover that when combined with the other books in DARK DUET: Platinum Edition series makes a lovely addition to any bookshelf.
It is NO DIFFERENT in content from previous editions of the series.
CAPTIVE IN THE DARK (BOOK 1): Caleb is a man with a singular interest in revenge. Kidnapped as a young boy and sold into slavery…
A professor of Chinese and Japanese, Asian Studies, and Women’s Studies at Vassar College, my research has focused on the cross-cultural fertilization between Chinese and Japanese literary traditions and the influence of Daoist philosophy in East Asian Literature. I’ve published widely on the subject, including a book, Bashô and the Dao: The Zhuangzi and the Transformation of Haikai. I began research on the “comfort women”—victimsof Imperial Japan’s military sexual slavery during the Asia Pacific War (1931-1945)—in 2002when working with a Vassar student on her thesis about the “comfort women” redressmovement. Since then, I’ve worked closely with Chinese researchers and local volunteers, interviewing the eyewitnesses and survivors of the Japanese military “comfort stations” in China,and visiting the now-defunct sites.
This book is essential reading on the “comfort women” issue. Originally published in Japanese in1995, it has inspired many readers to look more deeply into the history of Imperial Japan'swartime “comfort women.” I consulted this book frequently in my own research and writing about the subject. The book provides a wealth of documentary evidence and first-person testimonies, convincingly proving the Japanese military’s direct involvement in setting up andadministering the comfort stations. This English edition includes introductions by both the authorand the translator, making the story accessible for English-speaking readers.
The colorful handmade costumes of beads and feathers swirl frenetically, as the Mardi Gras Indians dance through the streets of New Orleans in remembrance of a widely disputed cultural heritage. Iroquois Indians visit London in the early part of the eighteenth century and give birth to the "feathered people" in the British popular imagination. What do these seemingly disparate strands of culture share over three hundred years and several thousand miles of ocean? Artfully interweaving theatrical, musical, and ritual performance from the eighteenth century to the present in London and New Orleans, Cities of the Dead takes a look at…
I am an engaged scholar fighting racism. As a person of color, an Asian American raised in Chinatown and a low-income Black neighborhood, the fight is personal. My parents and those before them suffered from and struggled against discriminatory immigration laws that fractured and separated family members. My research and publications as a university professor are tools for exposing and redressing racial injustices, producing and sharing knowledge that leads to reconciliation and restorative justice.
This book provides a grand sociological theoretical framework to explain how society creates and maintains persistent inequality through grouping.
The author does not anchor his explanation in individual biases and discriminatory acts, which are manifestations of larger fundamental structures and dynamics. The division and organization of the population into categories produce systemic group advantages and enable hierarchical exploitation.
Several organizational mechanisms within and between groups make categorical inequality durable. Race is one of the fundamental ways society is fragmented into enduring and unequal groups.
Charles Tilly, in this eloquent manifesto, presents a powerful new approach to the study of persistent social inequality. How, he asks, do long-lasting, systematic inequalities in life chances arise, and how do they come to distinguish members of different socially defined categories of persons? Exploring representative paired and unequal categories, such as male/female, black/white, and citizen/noncitizen, Tilly argues that the basic causes of these and similar inequalities greatly resemble one another. In contrast to contemporary analyses that explain inequality case by case, this account is one of process. Categorical distinctions arise, Tilly says, because they offer a solution to pressing…
I came into the world telling stories. From the age of four you could often find me surrounded by a little cluster of friends, amusing them with a story I was spinning on the spot. When I was nine, I began telling my sisters about a Martian who was living on Earth and who loved his comfy chairs. This Martian eventually became Alou, and it has been such a joy to share his world through my picture book Alou: The Martian Agent and its sequels. One thing I’m passionate about is sparking the potent imagination bottled up inside all our little ones and I hope my books can encourage that.
Make-believe was one of my favorite pastimes as a little girl. When I wasn’t writing a story, chances were, I was off with a sister in a world of imagination. And when I was there, it was as if my fancy was reality. I think that’s why I identify with this charming picture book so much. The main character’s potent imagination pulls his surroundings into his play reality. But the ending leaves us to ponder, along with Baby Ben’s mama…can his imagination conjure things into the tangible world? This translation from the original Swedish expertly converted the rhymes, and the pictures add so very much to the adventure. If you have a little adventurer in your life, this is a must-read!
Mihoko and Anne first met at the University of Miami, where Mihoko was a specialist in early modern England and Anne, in early modern Spain. Sharing their interests in gender studies, literature, and history, and combining their expertise, they team-taught a popular course on early modern women writers. Anne’s publications range from studies of women in Cervantes’ Don Quixote, female rogues, and religious women to early modern Habsburg queens. Mihoko has published on the figure of Helen of Troy in classical and Renaissance epic; and women and politics in early modern Europe, especially in the context of the many civil wars that upended the political and social order of the period.
Christina of Sweden, known today primarily through Greta Garbo’s portrayal of her in the 1933 film, became queen at age six when her father was killed in battle; she received the education of a prince, including the study of statecraft, for which she read the Latin biography of Elizabeth I. Initially deemed a boy at birth, Christina’s habit of crossdressing, her refusal to marry, and her romantic attachments to both women and men bespeak her ambiguous sexuality. Veronica Buckley’s biography does justice to this idiosyncratic and controversial figure who abdicated her throne, converted to Catholicism, and moved to Rome. Although she took Alexander the Great as her model and sought to rule Naples and Poland-Lithuania after her abdication, she revealingly recorded in her memoirs her thoughts concerning the predicament she faced as a female sovereign: “Women should never be rulers... Women who rule make themselves ridiculous one way or the…
The groundbreaking biography of one of the most progressive, influential and entertaining women of the seventeenth century, Christina Alexandra, Queen of Sweden.
In 1654, to the astonishment and dismay of her court, Christina Alexandra announced her abdication in favour of her cousin, Charles. Instrumental in bringing the Thirty Years War to a close at the age of 22, Christina had become one of the most powerful monarchs in Europe. She had also become notorious for her extravagant lifestyle.
Leaving the narrow confines of her homeland behind her, Christina cut a remarkable path across Europe. She acted as mediator in the…
