Chicago University Press

Empire was not fabricated in European capitals and implemented 'out there.' Imperial systems affected the metropole as well as the farthest outpost. This book shows how imperialism has been a shaping force not just in international politics but in the economies and cultures of today's world....

The recent financial crisis and the difficulty of using mainstream macroeconomic models to accurately monitor systemic risk have stimulated new analyses of how we measure economic activity and the development of more sophisticated models in which the financial sector plays a greater role. Markus Brunnermeier and Arvind Krishnamurthy have assembled...

Allan H. Meltzer's critically acclaimed history of the Federal Reserve is the most ambitious, most intensive, and most revealing investigation of the subject ever conducted. Its first volume, published to widespread critical acclaim, spanned the period from the institution's founding in 1913 to the restoration of its independence in 1951. Book I of...

Working simultaneously on two levels, 'Saladin' represents a different kind of biography - a portrait of a man who is said to have made an age, and the most complete account we have to date of an age that made the man. Originally published in France in 2008, this splendid [book] will now have a wider international readership thanks to this fluent...

When Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE, the force of the explosion blew the top right off the mountain, burying nearby Pompeii in a shower of volcanic ash. Ironically, the calamity that proved so lethal for Pompeii's inhabitants preserved the city for centuries, leaving behind a snapshot of Roman daily life that has captured the imagination of generations....

Established as a homeland for India s Muslims in 1947, Pakistan has had a tumultuous history that has unfolded in the vortex of dire regional and international conflicts. Beset by assassinations, coups, ethnic strife, and the breakaway of Bangladesh in 1971, the country has found itself too often contending with religious extremism and military...