Price Wars
How the Commodities Markets Made Our Chaotic World
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Narrated by:
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Ben Deery
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By:
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Rupert Russell
About this listen
A fascinating, groundbreaking exposé of how commodity traders in New York and London have destabilized societies all over the world, leaving the most vulnerable at the mercy of hunger, chaos, and war.
For Rupert Russell, the Brexit vote was only the latest shock in a decade full of them: the unstoppable war in Syria, huge migrant flows into Europe, beheadings in Iraq, children placed in cages on the U.S. border. In Price Wars, he sets out on a worldwide journey to investigate what caused the wave of chaos that consumed the world in the 2010s.
Russell travels to Tunisia, Iraq, Venezuela, Ukraine, East Africa, and Central America and discovers that unrest in all these places was triggered by dramatic and mysterious swings in the price of essential commodities. Deregulation of the commodities markets means that food prices can shoot up even in years of abundant harvests, causing hunger and protest. Oil prices and real-estate values can surge even when supplies are normal, enriching and emboldening dictators. It is this instability—fueled by banks and hedge funds in faraway New York and London—that has toppled regimes and unsettled the West.
Price Wars is a fascinating, original, and groundbreaking exposé of the power of the commodities markets to disrupt the world.
©2022 Rupert Russell (P)2022 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Price Wars is a totally original and stimulating read, part war zone reportage, part economic history, and buzzing with ideas about the way markets work that will change your understanding of the world we live in.”—Liaquat Ahamed, author of Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
"An illuminating, sobering and endlessly fascinating look at the root causes and hidden connections between financial markets and some of the developing world’s most wrenching crises. Fearlessly reported from conflict zones from separatist Ukrainian provinces to the Middle East, Russell compellingly draws a line between commodity manipulation on Wall Street and the chaos that fuels extremism and violence."—Joby Warrick, author of Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
"Price Wars is a thorough and compelling account of political instability generated by the hyper-financialization of commodities. It could not be more timely."—Zach D. Carter, author of The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes
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Since the 2008 financial crisis, the price of gold has skyrocketed - in three years, it has more than doubled from $800 an ounce to $1,900. This massive spike kicked off an unprecedented global gold-mining and exploration boom, much bigger than the Gold Rush of the 1800s. In Gold, acclaimed author Matthew Hart takes you on an unforgettable journey around the world and through history to tell the incredible story of how gold became the world's most precious commodity.
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in the eyes of the beholder
- By Andy on 12-10-13
By: Matthew Hart
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The Downfall of Money
- Germany’s Hyperinflation and the Destruction of the Middle Class
- By: Frederick Taylor
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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A hundred years ago, many theorists believed - just as they did at the beginning of our 21st century - that the world had reached a state of economic perfection, a never-before-seen human interdependence that would lead to universal growth and prosperity. Then, as now, the German mark was one of the most trusted currencies in the world. Yet the early years of the Weimar Republic in Germany witnessed the most calamitous meltdown of a developed economy in modern times.
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Highly recommended story of German hyperinflation
- By Lance on 09-21-15
By: Frederick Taylor
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A History of Modern Britain
- By: Andrew Marr
- Narrated by: David Timson
- Length: 29 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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A History of Modern Britain confronts head-on the victory of shopping over politics. It tells the story of how the great political visions of New Jerusalem or a second Elizabethan Age, rival idealisms, came to be defeated by a culture of consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification. In each decade political leaders think they know what they are doing but find themselves confounded. Every time the British people turn out to be stroppier and harder to herd than predicted.
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Masterful in focus, pace, content, performance
- By Philo on 11-10-16
By: Andrew Marr
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McMafia
- A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld
- By: Misha Glenny
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Misha Glenny's groundbreaking study of global organized crime is now the inspiration for an eight-part AMC crime drama starring James Norton (War and Peace), Juliet Rylance, and David Strathairn. In this fearless and wholly authoritative investigation of the seemingly insatiable demand for illegal wares, veteran reporter Misha Glenny travels across five continents to speak with participants from every level of the global underworld. What follows is a groundbreaking, propulsive look at an unprecedented phenomenon from a savvy, street-wise guide.
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Worthwhile Overview
- By Roy on 05-14-10
By: Misha Glenny
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The Billionaire Raj
- A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age
- By: James Crabtree
- Narrated by: Shridhar Solanki
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In megacities like Mumbai, where half the population live in slums, the extraordinary riches of India’s new dynasties echo the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers of yesterday. James Crabtree’s The Billionaire Raj takes listeners on a personal journey to meet these reclusive billionaires, fugitive tycoons, and shadowy political power brokers. Crabtree dramatizes the battle between crony capitalists and economic reformers, revealing a tense struggle between equality and privilege playing out against a combustible backdrop of aspiration, class, and caste.
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Engaging, authors politics could be reduced
- By Chris on 06-17-23
By: James Crabtree
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Enough
- Why the World's Poorest Starve in An Age of Plenty
- By: Roger Thurow, Scott Kilman
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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For more than 30 years, humankind has known how to grow enough food to end chronic hunger worldwide. Yet while the Green Revolution succeeded in South America and Asia, it never got to Africa. More than 9 million people every year die of hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases every yearmost of them in Africa and most of them children. More die of hunger in Africa than from AIDS and malaria combined. Now, an impending global food crisis threatens to make things worse.
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It's Time For Us To Be More Compassionate
- By James on 07-18-10
By: Roger Thurow, and others
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Chinese Rules
- Mao's Dog, Deng's Cat, and Five Timeless Lessons from the Front Lines in China
- By: Tim Clissold
- Narrated by: Stephen Critchlow
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Exploring key episodes in that nation's long political, military, and cultural history, Clissold outlines five Chinese Rules, which anyone can deploy in on-the-ground situations with modern Chinese counterparts. These Chinese rules will enable foreigners not only to cooperate with China but also to compete with it on its own terms.
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Two books in one, one excellent one boring
- By Ed Sander on 09-08-17
By: Tim Clissold
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Capitalism
- A Ghost Story
- By: Arundhati Roy
- Narrated by: Vaishali Sharma
- Length: 2 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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From the poisoned rivers, barren wells, and clear-cut forests, to the hundreds of thousands of farmers who have committed suicide to escape punishing debt, to the hundreds of millions of people who live on less than two dollars a day, there are ghosts nearly everywhere you look in India. India is a nation of 1.2 billion, but the country's 100 richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of India’s gross domestic product.
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Courageous Reporting
- By Doug - Audible on 03-31-15
By: Arundhati Roy
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Since Yesterday
- The 1930s in America
- By: Frederick Lewis Allen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In this panorama, subtitled The 1930s in America, Frederick Lewis Allen combines an eye for the significant trivia of everyday existence with a facility for neatly dissecting the political monoliths of the era. Whether discussing the varieties of bathtub gin or elucidating Keynesian economics, Allen displays, in the words of Edward Weeks of The Atlantic, "a talent for terse and telling resume which is the envy of any historian."
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A Solid View of 1930s America
- By Jason Hutchens on 09-28-16
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Brazil
- The Troubled Rise of a Global Power
- By: Michael Reid
- Narrated by: Michael Healy
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Experts believe that Brazil, the world's fifth largest country and its seventh largest economy, will be one of the most important global powers by the year 2030. Yet far more attention has been paid to the other rising behemoths: Russia, India, and China. Often ignored and underappreciated, Brazil, according to renowned, award-winning journalist Michael Reid, has finally begun to live up to its potential but faces important challenges before it becomes a nation of substantial global significance.
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Good short history of Brazil, lame pronunciation
- By Bubu Mungani on 07-21-19
By: Michael Reid
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When Money Dies
- The Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation, and Hyperinflation in Weimar, Germany
- By: Adam Fergusson
- Narrated by: Antony Ferguson
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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When Money Dies is the classic history of what happens when a nations currency depreciates beyond recovery. In 1923, with its currency effectively worthless (the exchange rate in December of that year was one dollar to 4,200,000,000,000 marks), the German republic was all but reduced to a barter economy. Expensive cigars, artworks, and jewels were routinely exchanged for staples such as bread; a cinema ticket could be bought for a lump of coal; and a bottle of paraffin for a silk shirt....
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Useless details, missing the big points
- By Jean Le Lupi on 07-04-12
By: Adam Fergusson
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The Weaponisation of Everything
- A Field Guide to the New Way of War
- By: Mark Galeotti
- Narrated by: Mark Galeotti
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Hybrid war, grey-zone warfare, unrestricted war: Today, traditional conflict - fought with guns, bombs, and drones - has become too expensive to wage, too unpopular at home, and too difficult to manage. In an age when America threatens Europe with sanctions, and when China spends billions buying influence abroad, the world is heading for a new era of permanent low-level conflict, often unnoticed, undeclared, and unending.
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Clear, concise, and thought provoking
- By Dad / Husband (who rarely reviews) on 03-08-22
By: Mark Galeotti
What listeners say about Price Wars
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-17-22
Brilliantly chilling
This book reminded me the first time I swallowed my pride and put on a pair of readers at CVS. The sudden clarity of the world around me through those +1.25 readers was simultaneously enlightening (I can see!!!) and self deprecating (you moron, you've been squinting at your phone for how long?)
Well worth the read/listen, and Parts III & IV are essential for the times we're in... though to fully appreciate these pages, it'd help if you had a conscience.
Bravo Mr. Russell
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-24-22
PRICE WARS
So much information! Beautiful narration, and great listening to Rupert Russell’s stories and analysis. The world chaos and upheavals of the 20th century to the present are skillfully threaded together with one unifying theme. Won’t look at the world the same after reading this. So much to think about - would suggest written book also, (for none economists like me)- as will want to reference in future.
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- alan filipiak
- 03-27-22
thought provoking
easy to listen to and finish. different from other financial works. story is relevant to current financial and geopolitical landscape.
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- Jean B. Pijeau
- 01-28-24
Details of the impact of prices across countries and continents.
I was surprised how the actions of speculators creates artificial shortages of food commodities like rice and flour. Those perceived shortages increases global prices of food items. As result people in poorer countries starves. That usually cause the collapse of governments which are unable to maintain its social contract with its population. Artificial commodity prices are not good for consumers.
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- Monte Johnston
- 04-09-22
I really wanted to like it
Te author is a good journalist and has a great ability with metaphors to explain his topic. The problem with the book is that he makes the metaphors do too much and they don’t end up explaining anything.
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- Carl Forrest
- 01-10-24
Laughably biased reporting
I’m a fairly apolitical person but this book is Laughably biased reporting from the author. Little to no balance from looking at alternative views or perspectives. The author writes about the topic like a reporter who’s dangerously firm in their conviction while having little exposure to viewpoints counter to their own.
Do not recommend.
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