
Chokepoints
American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $26.10
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Robert Petkoff
-
By:
-
Edward Fishman
About this listen
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"Deftly written, Chokepoints is a compelling and dramatic narrative about the new shape of geopolitics."—Daniel Yergin, The Wall Street Journal
"A timely, riveting world tour...[An] absorbing book."—The Economist
“Remarkable...One of the most important books on economic warfare ever written.”—Paul Kennedy, author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
The epic story of how America turned the world economy into a weapon, upending decades of globalization to take on a new authoritarian axis—Russia, China, and Iran.
It used to be that ravaging another country’s economy required blockading its ports and laying siege to its cities. Now all it takes is a statement posted online by the U.S. government.
In Chokepoints, Edward Fishman, a former top State Department sanctions official, takes us deep into the back rooms of power to reveal the untold history of the last two decades of U.S. foreign policy, in which America renounced the gospel of globalization and waged a new kind of economic war. As Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Ayatollah Khamenei wreaked havoc on the world stage, mavericks within the U.S. government built a fearsome new arsenal of economic weapons, exploiting America’s dominance in global finance and technology. Successive U.S. presidents have relied on these unconventional weapons to address the most pressing national-security threats, for good and for ill.
Chokepoints provides a thrilling account of one of the most critical geopolitical developments of our time, demystifying the complex strategies the U.S. government uses to harness the power of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Big Oil against America’s enemies. At the center of the narrative is an eclectic group of policy innovators: the diplomats, lawyers, and financial whizzes who’ve masterminded America’s escalating economic wars against Russia, China, and Iran.
Economic warfare has become the primary way the United States confronts international crises and counters rivals. Sometimes it has achieved spectacular success; other times, bitter failure. The result we live with today is a new world order: an economic arms race among great powers and a fracturing global economy. Chokepoints is the definitive account of how America pioneered this new, hard-hitting style of economic war—and how it’s changing the world.
©2025 Edward Fishman (P)2025 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Underground Empire
- How America Weaponized the World Economy
- By: Henry Farrell, Abraham Newman
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deeply researched investigation that reveals how the United States is like a spider at the heart of an international web of surveillance and control, which it weaves in the form of globe-spanning networks such as fiber optic cables and obscure payment systems.
-
-
Good summary
- By Medz on 01-28-25
By: Henry Farrell, and others
-
The Eurasian Century
- Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern Century
- By: Hal Brands
- Narrated by: Tim Fannon
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hal Brands argues that a better understanding of Eurasia's strategic geography can illuminate the contours of rivalry and conflict in today's world. The Eurasian Century explains how revolutions in technology and warfare, and the rise of toxic ideologies of conquest, made Eurasia the center of twentieth-century geopolitics—with pressing implications for the struggles that will define the twenty-first.
-
-
Worth the read.
- By Chip Eckert on 02-24-25
By: Hal Brands
-
King Dollar
- The Past and Future of the World's Dominant Currency
- By: Paul Blustein
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Prophecies that the dollar will lose its status as the world's dominant currency have echoed for decades—and are increasing in volume. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts claim that Bitcoin or other blockchain-based monetary units will replace the dollar. Foreign policy hawks warn that China's renminbi poses a lethal threat to the greenback. And sound money zealots predict that mounting US debt and inflation will surely erode the dollar's value to the point of irrelevancy.
By: Paul Blustein
-
Waste Land
- A World in Permanent Crisis
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are entering a new era of global cataclysm in which the world faces a deadly mix of war, climate change, great power rivalry, rapid technological advancement, the end of both monarchy and empire, and countless other dangers. In Waste Land, Robert D. Kaplan, geopolitical expert and author of more than twenty books on world affairs, incisively explains how we got here and where we are going.
-
-
Climate / Population Alarmism in a Mask
- By ElovesK on 02-07-25
By: Robert D. Kaplan
-
Abundance
- By: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all.
-
-
Advice to the Democratic Party from Klein & Thompson
- By Betsy Fowler on 03-31-25
By: Ezra Klein, and others
-
Smart Money
- How Digital Currencies Will Shape the New World Order
- By: Brunello Rosa, Casey Larsen
- Narrated by: Richard Burnip
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the end of the Second World War, the US dollar has been the global reserve currency, which has ensured American dominance of the world economy. But no longer. More than a hundred countries are developing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), digital equivalents to cash that will utterly transform how we do business at home and abroad. Urgent, clear-eyed and groundbreaking, Smart Money shows us how CBDCs are going to impact all of our futures in ways that most of us have failed to even consider.
By: Brunello Rosa, and others
-
Underground Empire
- How America Weaponized the World Economy
- By: Henry Farrell, Abraham Newman
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deeply researched investigation that reveals how the United States is like a spider at the heart of an international web of surveillance and control, which it weaves in the form of globe-spanning networks such as fiber optic cables and obscure payment systems.
-
-
Good summary
- By Medz on 01-28-25
By: Henry Farrell, and others
-
The Eurasian Century
- Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern Century
- By: Hal Brands
- Narrated by: Tim Fannon
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hal Brands argues that a better understanding of Eurasia's strategic geography can illuminate the contours of rivalry and conflict in today's world. The Eurasian Century explains how revolutions in technology and warfare, and the rise of toxic ideologies of conquest, made Eurasia the center of twentieth-century geopolitics—with pressing implications for the struggles that will define the twenty-first.
-
-
Worth the read.
- By Chip Eckert on 02-24-25
By: Hal Brands
-
King Dollar
- The Past and Future of the World's Dominant Currency
- By: Paul Blustein
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Prophecies that the dollar will lose its status as the world's dominant currency have echoed for decades—and are increasing in volume. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts claim that Bitcoin or other blockchain-based monetary units will replace the dollar. Foreign policy hawks warn that China's renminbi poses a lethal threat to the greenback. And sound money zealots predict that mounting US debt and inflation will surely erode the dollar's value to the point of irrelevancy.
By: Paul Blustein
-
Waste Land
- A World in Permanent Crisis
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are entering a new era of global cataclysm in which the world faces a deadly mix of war, climate change, great power rivalry, rapid technological advancement, the end of both monarchy and empire, and countless other dangers. In Waste Land, Robert D. Kaplan, geopolitical expert and author of more than twenty books on world affairs, incisively explains how we got here and where we are going.
-
-
Climate / Population Alarmism in a Mask
- By ElovesK on 02-07-25
By: Robert D. Kaplan
-
Abundance
- By: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all.
-
-
Advice to the Democratic Party from Klein & Thompson
- By Betsy Fowler on 03-31-25
By: Ezra Klein, and others
-
Smart Money
- How Digital Currencies Will Shape the New World Order
- By: Brunello Rosa, Casey Larsen
- Narrated by: Richard Burnip
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the end of the Second World War, the US dollar has been the global reserve currency, which has ensured American dominance of the world economy. But no longer. More than a hundred countries are developing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), digital equivalents to cash that will utterly transform how we do business at home and abroad. Urgent, clear-eyed and groundbreaking, Smart Money shows us how CBDCs are going to impact all of our futures in ways that most of us have failed to even consider.
By: Brunello Rosa, and others
-
China's World View
- Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict
- By: David Daokui Li
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Writing in response to the growing anti-Chinese sentiment and alarmed by the threat of war, Dr. David Daokui Li pulls from his wealth of firsthand experience to demystify contemporary Chinese society and advocate for understanding between China and the West. In this urgently needed and fascinating book, he explains the inner workings of a rising superpower to help the world understand how it works-and how to work with it.
-
-
The spirit of this book is critically important.
- By Mike Turner on 06-21-24
By: David Daokui Li
-
House of Huawei
- The Secret History of China's Most Powerful Company
- By: Eva Dou
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the coast of southern China, an eccentric entrepreneur spent three decades steadily building an obscure telecom company into one of the world’s most powerful technological empires with hardly anyone noticing. This all changed in December 2018, when the detention of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies’ female scion, sparked an international hostage standoff, poured fuel on the US-China trade war, and suddenly thrust the mysterious company into the global spotlight.
-
-
Excellent work
- By Suzi on 05-26-25
By: Eva Dou
-
Unit X
- How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War
- By: Raj M. Shah, Christopher Kirchhoff
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins, Raj M. Shah, Christopher Kirchhoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A vast and largely unseen transformation of how war is fought as profound as the invention of gunpowder or advent of the nuclear age is occurring. Flying cars that can land like helicopters, artificial intelligence-powered drones that can fly into buildings and map their interiors, microsatellites that can see through clouds and monitor rogue missile sites—all these and more are becoming part of America’s DIU-fast-tracked arsenal. Until recently, the Pentagon was known for its uncomfortable relationship with Silicon Valley and for slow-moving processes that acted as a brake on innovation.
-
-
Starts strong then goes political, common for left technocrats
- By Michael S. Rice on 05-24-25
By: Raj M. Shah, and others
-
The Nvidia Way
- Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant
- By: Tae Kim
- Narrated by: Michael Braun
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nvidia is the darling of the age of artificial intelligence: the company’s chips are powering the generative-AI revolution, and demand is insatiable. For all the current interest and attention, however, Nvidia is not of our time. Founded more than three decades ago in a Denny’s in East San Jose, for years it was known primarily in the then-niche world of computer gaming. In fact, the company’s leather-jacketed leader, Jensen Huang, is the longest-serving CEO in an industry marked by near constant turmoil and failure.
-
-
Don’t Buy This Book Be Forewarned
- By Susan Hess on 12-25-24
By: Tae Kim
-
Meltdown
- Greed, Scandal, and the Collapse of Credit Suisse
- By: Duncan Mavin
- Narrated by: Charles Armstrong
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Credit Suisse was a 166-year-old bastion of global banking. But a veneer of high-class service disguised a darker, much dirtier reality. From its sterile Zurich headquarters, Credit Suisse banked dictators and drug dealers, hid stolen Nazi gold, and helped corrupt bankers fleece the firm's own clients of billions of dollars. Its top executives oversaw a global operation that laundered money for autocrats; they hired spies to track one another through the cobbled streets of the Swiss financial capital; and they helped clients hide their money from the world's tax authorities.
By: Duncan Mavin
-
The War Below
- Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives
- By: Ernest Scheyder
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The War Below reveals the explosive brawl among industry titans, conservationists, community groups, policymakers, and many others over whether the habitats of rare plants, sensitive ecosystems, Indigenous holy sites, and other places should be dug up for their riches.
-
-
Misses its chance at greatness
- By B L on 09-16-24
By: Ernest Scheyder
-
Chip War
- The Quest to Dominate the World's Most Critical Technology
- By: Chris Miller
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing.
-
-
Great history, but could poor narration
- By Lily Wong on 10-26-22
By: Chris Miller
-
The Money Trap
- Lost Illusions Inside the Tech Bubble
- By: Alok Sama
- Narrated by: Raza Jaffrey
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Veteran Morgan Stanley banker Alok Sama thought he'd seen it all. Then he found himself chief dealmaker at the most influential technology investor in the world—SoftBank, the backer of Arm Holdings, Yahoo, Nvidia, TikTok, Uber, T-Mobile, Alibaba and WeWork. The Money Trap is Sama’s thrilling, stranger-than-fiction personal odyssey featuring his experiences alongside SoftBank’s iconic founder, Masayoshi Son, a visionary maverick who wants to be remembered as “the crazy guy who bet on the future” and whose mission is “happiness for everyone.”
-
-
All form, no substance
- By Nadav on 05-24-25
By: Alok Sama
-
Why War?
- By: Richard Overy
- Narrated by: Dennis Kleinman
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why has war been such a consistent presence throughout the human past? A leading historian explains, drawing on rich examples and keen insight. Richard Overy is not the first scholar to take up the title question. In 1931, at the request of the League of Nations, Albert Einstein asked Sigmund Freud to collaborate on a short work examining whether there was "a way of delivering mankind from the menace of war." Published the next year as a pamphlet entitled Why War?, it conveyed Freud's conclusion that the "death drive" made any deliverance impossible.
-
-
War is Peace
- By Anonymous User on 01-23-25
By: Richard Overy
-
The Chile Project
- The Story of the Chicago Boys and the Downfall of Neoliberalism
- By: Sebastian Edwards
- Narrated by: Andrew Joseph Perez
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Chile Project, Sebastian Edwards tells the story of how the neoliberal economic model came to an end in 2021, when Gabriel Boric was elected president, vowing that "If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave." More than a story about one Latin American country, The Chile Project is a behind-the-scenes history of the spread and consequences of the free-market thinking that dominated economic policymaking around the world in the second half of the twentieth century—but is now on the retreat.
-
-
Combining history, ethnography, politic
- By John Murphy on 06-05-23
-
Conflict
- The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine
- By: David Petraeus, Andrew Roberts
- Narrated by: David Petraeus, Robert Fass
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two leading authorities—an acclaimed historian and the outstanding battlefield commander and strategist of our time—collaborate on a landmark examination of war since 1945. Conflict is both a sweeping history of the evolution of warfare up to Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, and a penetrating analysis of what we must learn from the past—and anticipate in the future—in order to navigate an increasingly perilous world.
-
-
The Story of My Life
- By Nice guy on 03-06-24
By: David Petraeus, and others
-
The Fed Unbound
- Central Banking in a Time of Crisis
- By: Lev Menand
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, was built for a monetary system composed primarily of investor-owned, government-chartered banks. But over the years, the erosion of banking law and the rise of alternative forms of money created outside of the banking system have pushed the Fed to take on more and more responsibilities to keep the economy out of recession, as it did during the 2008 crisis, and again during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it created $3 trillion to stop another financial panic.
-
-
Must read for people wanting to understand how the financial system works
- By Matthew Haddad on 07-17-22
By: Lev Menand
Critic reviews
"Deftly written, Chokepoints is a compelling and dramatic narrative about the new shape of geopolitics…[Fishman] has written an engrossing account of contemporary history. He provides a framework for understanding the battles to come as well as the growing challenges and risks facing companies that operate in the global economy…[A] timely guide to the fragmenting of the global economy and the rising tensions that go with it.”—Daniel Yergin, The Wall Street Journal
"A timely, riveting world tour....Edward Fishman, a former official at both the Department of State and the Department of the Treasury, describes how the American government's unglamorous economic arms have jumped into the middle of the country's geopolitical fights over the past two decades....[Chokepoints] contains a satisfying amount of dash and drama....It also makes for a cracking yarn....[An] absorbing book."—The Economist
“A masterful narrative of U.S. economic warfare in the 21st century….Fishman’s clear and thoughtful writing weaves the story together.”—Financial Times
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Underground Empire
- How America Weaponized the World Economy
- By: Henry Farrell, Abraham Newman
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deeply researched investigation that reveals how the United States is like a spider at the heart of an international web of surveillance and control, which it weaves in the form of globe-spanning networks such as fiber optic cables and obscure payment systems.
-
-
Good summary
- By Medz on 01-28-25
By: Henry Farrell, and others
-
King Dollar
- The Past and Future of the World's Dominant Currency
- By: Paul Blustein
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Prophecies that the dollar will lose its status as the world's dominant currency have echoed for decades—and are increasing in volume. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts claim that Bitcoin or other blockchain-based monetary units will replace the dollar. Foreign policy hawks warn that China's renminbi poses a lethal threat to the greenback. And sound money zealots predict that mounting US debt and inflation will surely erode the dollar's value to the point of irrelevancy.
By: Paul Blustein
-
Smart Money
- How Digital Currencies Will Shape the New World Order
- By: Brunello Rosa, Casey Larsen
- Narrated by: Richard Burnip
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the end of the Second World War, the US dollar has been the global reserve currency, which has ensured American dominance of the world economy. But no longer. More than a hundred countries are developing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), digital equivalents to cash that will utterly transform how we do business at home and abroad. Urgent, clear-eyed and groundbreaking, Smart Money shows us how CBDCs are going to impact all of our futures in ways that most of us have failed to even consider.
By: Brunello Rosa, and others
-
The Eurasian Century
- Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern Century
- By: Hal Brands
- Narrated by: Tim Fannon
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hal Brands argues that a better understanding of Eurasia's strategic geography can illuminate the contours of rivalry and conflict in today's world. The Eurasian Century explains how revolutions in technology and warfare, and the rise of toxic ideologies of conquest, made Eurasia the center of twentieth-century geopolitics—with pressing implications for the struggles that will define the twenty-first.
-
-
Worth the read.
- By Chip Eckert on 02-24-25
By: Hal Brands
-
The Catalyst
- RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets
- By: Thomas R. Cech
- Narrated by: Joshua Saxon
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A gripping journey of discovery, The Catalyst moves from the early experiments that first hinted at RNA's spectacular powers, to Cech's own paradigm-shifting finding that it can catalyze cellular reactions, to the cutting-edge biotechnologies poised to reshape our health.
-
-
Captivating
- By Auinash Kalsotra on 09-16-24
By: Thomas R. Cech
-
Why Taiwan Matters
- A Short History of a Small Island That Will Dictate Our Future
- By: Kerry Brown
- Narrated by: Kerry Brown
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the bloody Chinese Civil War concluded in 1949, two Chinas were born. Mao’s Communists won and took China’s mainland; Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to Taiwan island. Since then, China and Taiwan have drifted into being separate political and cultural entities. Taiwan is now a flourishing democracy and an economic success story: just one of its companies produces over 90 per cent of the semiconductors that power the world’s economy. It is a free and vibrant society.
-
-
How little we actually understand about Taiwan
- By John F. Robenalt on 04-26-25
By: Kerry Brown
-
Underground Empire
- How America Weaponized the World Economy
- By: Henry Farrell, Abraham Newman
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A deeply researched investigation that reveals how the United States is like a spider at the heart of an international web of surveillance and control, which it weaves in the form of globe-spanning networks such as fiber optic cables and obscure payment systems.
-
-
Good summary
- By Medz on 01-28-25
By: Henry Farrell, and others
-
King Dollar
- The Past and Future of the World's Dominant Currency
- By: Paul Blustein
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Prophecies that the dollar will lose its status as the world's dominant currency have echoed for decades—and are increasing in volume. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts claim that Bitcoin or other blockchain-based monetary units will replace the dollar. Foreign policy hawks warn that China's renminbi poses a lethal threat to the greenback. And sound money zealots predict that mounting US debt and inflation will surely erode the dollar's value to the point of irrelevancy.
By: Paul Blustein
-
Smart Money
- How Digital Currencies Will Shape the New World Order
- By: Brunello Rosa, Casey Larsen
- Narrated by: Richard Burnip
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the end of the Second World War, the US dollar has been the global reserve currency, which has ensured American dominance of the world economy. But no longer. More than a hundred countries are developing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), digital equivalents to cash that will utterly transform how we do business at home and abroad. Urgent, clear-eyed and groundbreaking, Smart Money shows us how CBDCs are going to impact all of our futures in ways that most of us have failed to even consider.
By: Brunello Rosa, and others
-
The Eurasian Century
- Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern Century
- By: Hal Brands
- Narrated by: Tim Fannon
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hal Brands argues that a better understanding of Eurasia's strategic geography can illuminate the contours of rivalry and conflict in today's world. The Eurasian Century explains how revolutions in technology and warfare, and the rise of toxic ideologies of conquest, made Eurasia the center of twentieth-century geopolitics—with pressing implications for the struggles that will define the twenty-first.
-
-
Worth the read.
- By Chip Eckert on 02-24-25
By: Hal Brands
-
The Catalyst
- RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets
- By: Thomas R. Cech
- Narrated by: Joshua Saxon
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A gripping journey of discovery, The Catalyst moves from the early experiments that first hinted at RNA's spectacular powers, to Cech's own paradigm-shifting finding that it can catalyze cellular reactions, to the cutting-edge biotechnologies poised to reshape our health.
-
-
Captivating
- By Auinash Kalsotra on 09-16-24
By: Thomas R. Cech
-
Why Taiwan Matters
- A Short History of a Small Island That Will Dictate Our Future
- By: Kerry Brown
- Narrated by: Kerry Brown
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the bloody Chinese Civil War concluded in 1949, two Chinas were born. Mao’s Communists won and took China’s mainland; Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to Taiwan island. Since then, China and Taiwan have drifted into being separate political and cultural entities. Taiwan is now a flourishing democracy and an economic success story: just one of its companies produces over 90 per cent of the semiconductors that power the world’s economy. It is a free and vibrant society.
-
-
How little we actually understand about Taiwan
- By John F. Robenalt on 04-26-25
By: Kerry Brown
-
Goodbye Globalization
- The Return of a Divided World
- By: Elisabeth Braw
- Narrated by: Brigid Lohrey
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking account, Elisabeth Braw explores the collapse of globalization and the profound challenges it will bring to the West. Drawing on interviews with prominent executives and policymakers from around the world, Braw poses the difficult questions all businesses and economies will face-and traces the intricate story of globalization from the exuberant 90s to the embattled present.
-
-
Excellent Overview of Global Economic Trends
- By Ted Lapis on 05-04-25
By: Elisabeth Braw
-
Our Dollar, Your Problem
- An Insider's View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead
- By: Kenneth Rogoff
- Narrated by: Evan Sibley
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing in part on his own experiences, including with policymakers and world leaders, Kenneth Rogoff animates the remarkable postwar run of the dollar—how it beat out the Japanese yen, the Soviet ruble, and the euro—and the challenges it faces today from crypto and the Chinese yuan, the end of reliably low inflation and interest rates, political instability, and the fracturing of the dollar bloc.
By: Kenneth Rogoff
-
Trade Wars Are Class Wars
- How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace
- By: Matthew C. Klein, Michael Pettis
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trade disputes are usually understood as conflicts between countries with competing national interests, but as Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis show in this book, they are often the unexpected result of domestic political choices to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of workers and ordinary retirees. Klein and Pettis trace the origins of today's trade wars to decisions made by politicians and business leaders in China, Europe, and the United States over the past 30 years.
-
-
Narrator is robotic
- By dugmartssch on 05-22-20
By: Matthew C. Klein, and others
-
The Revolutionary Self
- Social Change and the Emergence of the Modern Individual 1770-1800
- By: Lynn Hunt
- Narrated by: Kate Udall
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The eighteenth century was a time of cultural friction: individuals began to assert greater independence and there was a new emphasis on social equality. In this surprising history, Lynn Hunt examines women's expanding societal roles, such as using tea to facilitate conversation between the sexes in Britain. In France, women also pushed boundaries by becoming artists, and printmakers' satiric takes on the elite gave the lower classes a chance to laugh at the upper classes and imagine the potential of political upheaval.
By: Lynn Hunt
-
Kaput
- The End of the German Miracle
- By: Wolfgang Münchau
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Kaput, Wolfgang Münchau argues that the weaknesses of Germany's economy have, in fact, been brewing for decades. The neo-mercantilist policies of the German state, driven by close connections between the country's industrial and political elite, have left Germany technologically behind over-reliant on authoritarian Russia and China—and with little sign of being able to adapt to the digital realities of the 21st century. It is an essential read for anyone interested in the future of Europe's biggest economy.
-
-
a narrow account of germanys troubles
- By Rachel Evan on 05-05-25
By: Wolfgang Münchau
-
Waste Land
- A World in Permanent Crisis
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are entering a new era of global cataclysm in which the world faces a deadly mix of war, climate change, great power rivalry, rapid technological advancement, the end of both monarchy and empire, and countless other dangers. In Waste Land, Robert D. Kaplan, geopolitical expert and author of more than twenty books on world affairs, incisively explains how we got here and where we are going.
-
-
Climate / Population Alarmism in a Mask
- By ElovesK on 02-07-25
By: Robert D. Kaplan
-
House of Huawei
- The Secret History of China's Most Powerful Company
- By: Eva Dou
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the coast of southern China, an eccentric entrepreneur spent three decades steadily building an obscure telecom company into one of the world’s most powerful technological empires with hardly anyone noticing. This all changed in December 2018, when the detention of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies’ female scion, sparked an international hostage standoff, poured fuel on the US-China trade war, and suddenly thrust the mysterious company into the global spotlight.
-
-
Excellent work
- By Suzi on 05-26-25
By: Eva Dou
-
Punishing Putin
- Inside the Global Economic War to Bring Down Russia
- By: Stephanie Baker
- Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From seizing superyachts to manipulating the global price of oil to trying to block the sale of military technology to Russia, we learn how the White House coordinated with top officials in London and Brussels to freeze a staggering $300 billion in foreign currency reserves accumulated in the West by Russia’s central bank. Mobilizing an army of white collar-crime investigators and experts on international law, Baker explores how the West has cracked down on illicit Russian money by targeting oligarchs, one superyacht at a time, and their enablers around the world.
-
-
Interesting in-depth storytelling
- By EBM on 10-01-24
By: Stephanie Baker
-
The Economic Weapon
- The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War
- By: Nicholas Mulder
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Economic sanctions dominate the landscape of world politics today. First developed in the early twentieth century as a way of exploiting the flows of globalization to defend liberal internationalism, their appeal is that they function as an alternative to war. This view, however, ignores the dark paradox at their core: designed to prevent war, economic sanctions are modeled on devastating techniques of warfare.
-
-
History of sanctions during the early 20th century
- By Mehdi Mollahasani on 03-05-22
By: Nicholas Mulder
-
Danger Zone
- The Coming Conflict with China
- By: Hal Brands, Michael Beckley
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Sino-American contest is driven by clashing geopolitical interests and a stark ideological dispute over whether authoritarianism or democracy will dominate the twenty-first century. But both history and China's current trajectory suggest that this rivalry will reach its moment of maximum danger in the 2020s. The Chinese challenge will most likely prove more manageable than many pessimists currently believe—but during the 2020s, the pace of Sino-American conflict will accelerate, and the prospect of war will be frighteningly real.
-
-
Quality control issues
- By Rock Island on 09-17-22
By: Hal Brands, and others
-
Beijing Rules
- How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World
- By: Bethany Allen
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An acclaimed journalist on contemporary China lays bare the country's two-decade quest for global dominance and how the Chinese Communist Party coopted what Western leaders have long considered their most powerful tool in the fight for liberal democracy—capitalism—to expand its influence worldwide.
-
-
everything is great except the last chapter
- By rce2md on 05-27-25
By: Bethany Allen
-
The Measure of Progress
- Counting What Really Matters
- By: Diane Coyle
- Narrated by: Harrie Dobby
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ways that statisticians and governments measure the economy were developed in the 1940s, when the urgent economic problems were entirely different from those of today. In The Measure of Progress, Diane Coyle argues that the framework underpinning today's economic statistics is so outdated that it functions as a distorting lens, or even a set of blinkers. When policymakers rely on such an antiquated conceptual tool, how can they measure, understand, and respond with any precision to what is happening in today's digital economy?
By: Diane Coyle
ComplicatedWorld
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
An economics textbook disguised as a thriller
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
detailed realistic as-is information on policy making and evolutions
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Amazing narrative of critical story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Interesting
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Engrossing and magical
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Sanctions are like antibiotics
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.