Young Catherine de' Medici is the sole heiress to the entire fortune of the wealthy Medici family. But her life is far from luxurious. After a childhood spent locked away behind the walls of a convent, she joins the household of the pope, where at last she can be united with her true love. But, all too soon, that love is replaced with an engagemen...more

It was a dynasty with more wealth, passion, and power than the houses of Windsor, Kennedy, and Rockefeller combined. It shaped all of Europe and controlled politics, scientists, artists, and even popes, for three hundred years. It was the house of Medici, patrons of Botticelli, Michelangelo and Galileo, benefactors who turned Florence into a global...more

Few figures in intellectual history have proved as notorious and ambiguous as Niccolo Machiavelli. But while his treatise "The Prince" made his name synonymous with autocratic ruthlessness and cynical manipulation, "The Discourses" (c.1517) shows a radically different outlook on the world of politics.In this carefully argued commentary on Livy's hi...more

For over half a century, financial experts have regarded the movements of markets as a random walk--unpredictable meanderings akin to a drunkard's unsteady gait--and this hypothesis has become a cornerstone of modern financial economics and many investment strategies. Here Andrew W. Lo and A. Craig MacKinlay put the Random Walk Hypothesis to the te...more

John Meriwether, a famously successful Wall Street trader, spent the 1980s as a partner at Salomon Brothers, establishing the best--and the brainiest--bond arbitrage group in the world. A mysterious and shy midwesterner, he knitted together a group of Ph.D.-certified arbitrageurs who rewarded him with filial devotion and fabulous profits. Then, in ...more

“Readers are unlikely to find a more readable explanation of how the financial system has changed since the 1980s and who came unstuck.” —Financial Times The still-unfolding financial story is terrifying. One by one, major corporations such as Enron, Global Crossing, and WorldCom are imploding all around us, prey to a greed-driven culture and...more

Barbarians at the Gate has been called one of the most influential business books of all time -- the definitive account of the largest takeover in Wall Street history. Bryan Burrough and John Helyar's gripping account of the frenzy that overtook Wall Street in October and November of 1988 is the story of deal makers and publicity flaks, of strategy...more