"A good read for anyone who wants to understand what actually determines whether a developing economy will succeed." —Bill Gates, "Top 5 Books of the Year"An Economist Best Book of the Year from a reporter who has spent two decades in the region, and who the Financial Times said "should be named chief myth-buster for Asian business."In How Asia Works, Joe Studwell distills his extensive research into the economies of nine countries—Japan, ...

“[O]ne of the most original and important books on Africa in years.”—Financial Times“Challenges outdated narratives and makes a compelling case for the continent's economic potential.”—Bill GatesFrom the acclaimed author of How Asia Works, an essential exploration of the engines of economic growth across AfricaThe culmination of twenty years spent studying Asian economics, Joe Studwell’s celebrated...

The author of How Asia Works follows the money. "Alarming . . . enlightening . . . Joe Studwell should be named chief myth buster for Asian business" ( Financial Times).Hong Kong and Southeast Asia are home to five hundred million people, yet their economies are dominated by only fifty families whose interests range from banking to real estate, shipping to sugar, gambling to lumber. At their peak, eight of the world's two dozen richest men were So...

"An entertaining, if cautionary, tale of Western business woes in China, stretching back seven hundred years" ( The Wall Street Journal ).In The China Dream, acclaimed business journalist Joe Studwell challenges the predictions that China will become an economic juggernaut on the world stage in the twenty-first century—and instead foresees an economic crisis. Tracing the most recent developments in China from Deng...

In the 1980s, countries across Asia stunned the world with meteoric economic growth—but when eyes turn to Africa today, it is often to lament corruption, violence, and poverty rather than to scout the next developmental frontrunners. Yet some African nations, even in the face of challenging geography and the crippling legacies of colonialism, have found remarkable success. In How Africa Works, Joe Studwell draws on extensive research and travel across the continent to explore what...

In the 1980s and 1990s many in the West came to believe in the myth of an East-Asian economic miracle, with countries seen as not just development prodigies but as a unified bloc, culturally and economically similar, and inexorably on the rise. In How Asia Works, Joe Studwell distills extensive research into the economics of nine countries—Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and China—into an accessible narrative that debunks Wester...

If talent is the leading indicator of whether a business is up or down, a success or a failure (and it is) . . . do you know how to accurately judge raw human talent? Understand a person's unique combination of traits? Develop that talent? Convert what supposedly are "soft" subjective judgments about people into objective criteria that are as specific, verifiable, and concrete as the contents of a financial statement?The talent masters do. They put people before numbers for the simp...

How do other countries create "smarter" kids?In a handful of nations, virtually all children are learning to make complex arguments and solve problems they've never seen before. They are learning to think, in other words, and to thrive in the modern economy.What is it like to be a child in the world's new education superpowers?In a global quest to find answers for our own children, author and Time magazine journalist Amanda Ripley follows three Americans em...

Are we driving off a digital cliff and heading for disaster, unable to focus, maintain concentration, or form the human bonds that make life worth living? Are media and business doomed and about to be replaced by amateur hour?The world, as Nick Bilton—with tongue-in-cheek—shows, has been going to hell for a long, long time, and what we are experiencing is the twenty-first-century version of the fear that always takes hold as new technology replaces the old. In fact, as Bilton shows...

America has been through the biggest financial crisis since the great Depression, unemployment numbers are frightening, median wages have been flat since the 1970s, and it is common to expect that things will get worse before they get better. Certainly, the multidecade stagnation is not yet over. How will we get out of this mess? One political party tries to increase government spending even when we have no good plan for paying for ballooning programs like Medicare and Social Security. The...

The twenty-first century has seen a rise in the global middle class that brings an unprecedented convergence of interests and perceptions, cultures and values. Kishore Mahbubani is optimistic. We are creating a new global civilization. Eighty-eight percent of the world's population outside the West is rising to Western living standards, and sharing Western aspirations. Yet Mahbubani, one of the most perceptive global commentators, also warns that a new global order needs new policies and a...

3D Robotics co-founder and bestselling author Chris Anderson takes you to the front lines of a new industrial revolution as today’s entrepreneurs, using open source design and 3-D printing, bring manufacturing to the desktop.In an age of custom-fabricated, do-it-yourself product design and creation, the collective potential of a million garage tinkerers and enthusiasts is about to be unleashed, driving a resurgence of American manufacturing. A generation of “Makers...