Discover the world records that define our history and jump headfirst into the past using scientific data that reveals accurate and insightful answers to life’s biggest questions. What was history's biggest empire? Or the tallest building of the ancient world? What was the plumbing like in medieval Byzantium? The average wage in the Mughal Empire? Where did scientific writing first emerge? What was the bloodiest ever ritual human sacrifice? ​ We are used to thinking about history in terms of stories. Yet we understand our own world through data: cast arrays of statistics that reveal the workings of our societies. In Figuring Out the Past, radical historians Peter Turchin and Dan Hoyer dive into the numbers that reveal the true shape of the past, drawing on their own Seshat project, a staggeringly ambitious attempt to log every data point that can be gathered for every society that has ever existed. This book does more than tell the story of humanity: it shows you the big picture, by the numbers.

A view of how the countries of the world compare on everything from economic strength to energy consumption, industrial output to inflation, export trends to education standards, freezer ownership to financial institutions, CCF emissions to the cost of living and meat production to murder rates.

When faced with global instability and economic uncertainty, it is tempting for states to react by closing borders, hoarding wealth and solidifying power. We have seen it at various times in Japan, France and Italy and now it is infecting much of Europe and America, as the vote for Brexit in the UK has vividly shown. This insularity, together with increased inequality of income and wealth, threatens the future role of the West as a font of stability, prosperity and security. Part of the problem is that the principles of liberal democracy upon which the success of the West has been built have been suborned, with special interest groups such as bankers accruing too much power and too great a share of the economic cake. So how is this threat to be countered? States such as Sweden in the 1990s, California at different times or Britain under Thatcher all halted stagnation by clearing away the powers of interest groups and restoring their societies' ability to evolve. To survive, the West needs to be porous, open and flexible. From reinventing welfare systems to redefining the working age, from reimagining education to embracing automation, Emmott lays out the changes the West must make to revive itself in the moment and avoid a deathly rigid future.

A practical and accessible overview of the fundamentals of business finance -- now in its third edition. Managers are constantly expected to make decisions that reflect a full understanding of the financial consequences. In the absence of formal training, few people are prepared for the responsibilities of dealing with management reports, budgets, and capital proposals, and find themselves embarrassed by their lack of understanding. This book is a practical guide to understanding and managing financial responsibilities. Each chapter examines actual tasks managers have to do, from "how to assemble a budget," "how to read variances on a report," to "how to construct a proposal to invest in new equipment," exploring the principles that can be applied to each task, illustrating practical ways these principles are used, and providing guidance for implementation. Guide to Financial Management will help readers understand financial jargon, financial statements, management accounts, performance measures, budgeting, costing, pricing, decision-making, and investment appraisal. This third edition has been fully revised and expanded with detailed examples from 100 leading businesses around the world.