Draws on firsthand accounts of pitched sea battles, skillful negotiations, and diplomatic maneuvers to offer a complete history of Venice's centuries-long reign as a naval power and maritime trading empire.

"Half fable, half manifesto, this brilliant new take on the ancient concept of cash lays bare its unparalleled capacity to empower, enchant, and control us. Frederick Kaufman tackles the complex history of money, beginning with the earliest myths and wrapping up with Wall Street's byzantine present-day doings. Along the way, he exposes a set of allegorical plots, stock characters, and stereotypical metaphors that have long been linked with money and...

"With the goal of understanding China's future in a changing international landscape, this book offers a new picture of China's rise since the Age of Exploration and its historical impact on the modern world. The establishment of the Great Ming dynasty in 1368 was a monumental event in world history. A century before Columbus, Beijing sent a series of diplomatic missions across the South China Sea and Indian Ocean that paved the way for China's first...

Describes how English merchant adventurers, in search of new markets and trading partners, were the earliest founders of America, with profit as their primary motive.

This series chronicles the history of New York City from its beginnings in 1609 as a Dutch trading post, through the depression, on to the turbulent years of change in the following decades after WWII, to its present day status as one of the most important and influencial cities in the world. The final episode was created in response to the destruction of the World Trade Center.

"The relationship between the Roman Empire and its rival, the Parthian-Persian Empire, has long been viewed as bloody, hostile, and destructive. In fact, the truth is more complex. For more than seven hundred years, the Romans lived side by side by their eastern neighbors, sometimes at war, more often at peace, almost always trading with each other to their mutual benefit. The Roman Empire was wealthier and larger than the Persian Empire and its predecessor,...

Historian Matthew Parker discusses the history behind one of the greatest power struggles of the 17th to 19th centuries as Europeans made and lost immense fortunes growing and trading in sugar--a commodity so lucrative it became known as "white gold'--in the tiny Caribbean islands of Barbados, Jamaica, and the Leeward Islands.