The Wall

Modern social and political life is characterized not only by a passion for freedom and a desire for human contact, but also by the urge to shut down, to refuse freedom and the responsibility that goes with it, to barter it away in return for our security: this is the temptation of the wall, a temptation with which every modern society has to come to terms. Drawing on his experience as a psychoanalyst, Recalcati shows that the temptation of the wall is rooted in a deep psychological inclination: human beings have always drawn up borders and rejected the risks associated with being open to the outside world. But when these borders are turned into walls, they can only result in an impoverishment of the value of exchange and the loss of the dynamic plurality of a life shared with others.

Jerusalem is a child of the desert, a city precariously hovering on its brink, exposed to a bright, unrelenting sun. Its never-ending story continues to fascinate people. Jerusalem is not only an important historical and spiritual site but also a modern city, home and workplace to three quarters of a million people that draws attention as the Middle East's most controversial urban center. Yet the city we know today can actually only be understood against the background of the comprehensive and rapid changes which took place here in the second half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th centuries. Beyond the Wall is a new take on an old city, offering a unique and unusual perspective. As an original work of non-fiction, the book sheds light on some of the enigmas of Jerusalem’s more recent past, telling the tale of its growth from a provincial town somewhere in the Turkish Empire into a modern city during the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. It recalls the time when Turkish rule was declining and many different population groups became active in Jerusalem, founding their own neighborhoods, institutions, and businesses while they competed for influence—Jews and Arabs as well as the French, Germans, British, Russians, Austrians, Italians, and Americans, their consuls and clergy. The book also includes two chapters on Arab Jerusalem—a subject that is often neglected—and a preface by Teddy Kollek, who served as the city’s mayor for almost 30 years.

A Wall Street Insider's Guide to getting ahead in any highly competitive industry "Dave learned how to win in investment banking the hard way. Now he is able to share tools that make it easier for budding bankers and other professionals to succeed." —Frank Baxter, Former CEO of Jefferies and U.S. Ambassador to Uruguay "A must-read for anyone starting their career in Corporate America. Dave's book shares witty and valuable insights that would take a lifetime to learn otherwise. I highly recommend that anyone interested in advancing their career read this book." —Harry Nelis, Partner of Accel and former Goldman Sachs banker In  The Way of the Wall Street Warrior , 25-year veteran investment banker and finance professional, Dave Liu, delivers a humorous and irreverent insider’s guide to thriving on Wall Street or Main Street. Liu offers hilarious and insightful advice on everything from landing an interview to self-promotion to getting paid.  In this book, you’ll discover:  How to get that job you always wanted Why career longevity and “success” comes from doing the  least  amount of work for the  most  pay How mastering  cognitive biases  and understanding human nature can help you win the rat race How to make people  think  you’re the smartest person in the room without actually  being  the smartest person in the room How to make sure you do everything in your power to get paid well (or at least not get screwed too badly) How to turn any weakness or liability into an asset to further your career

Wall Street is where poker and modern finance?and the theory behind these «games»?clash head on. In both worlds, real risk means real money is made or lost in a heart beat, and neither camp is always rational with the risk it takes. As a result, business and financial professionals who want to use poker insights to improve their job performance will find this entertaining book a «must read.» So will poker players searching for an edge in applying the insights of risk-takers on Wall Street.

This is the business book we have been waiting for. Whilst we watch in horror as the consultants, the gurus and the management experts interfere with our jobs and lives with no apparent benefit, along comes this latest book from Geoff Burch that confirms that all our fears were true.This waspish, funny and often downright vicious expose of everything from marketing to HRM and even change management leaves no stone unturned and no taboo untrampled.But this is no mere hatchet job. Writing on the Wall exposes the stupidity of fashionable management fads, but by stripping the subject to the bone, the true secrets are uncovered. By facing the stark truth of poor products, difficult customers and mutinous staff, Burch is able to show, with bizarre examples such as the child with the squashed head, and hard hitting advice such as «smile or sling your hook», just how we can make success inevitable.

An in-depth look at the failure of Wall Street's «proven» financial models Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper into intricate and aesthetically attractive shapes. As such, it is the perfect metaphor for the Wall Street financial engineering model, which ultimately proved to be the underlying cause of the 2008 financial crisis. In Financial Origami, Brendan Moynihan describes how the Wall Street business model evolved from a method to transfer risk into a method for manufacturing risk. Along the way, this timely book skillfully dissects financial engineering and addresses how it's often a mechanism to evade regulatory constraints, provide institutional investors with customized products, and, of course, generate revenue for financial engineers. Reveals how Wall Street's financial engineering business model morphed into something destructive Highlights how the origami model worked well in the comparatively stable years of the early 2000s, when there was less risk to transfer Discusses how Wall Street began manufacturing risk by creating products that multiplied risk exposures and encouraged subprime lending With the collapse of Lehman Brother the Wall Street business model effectively broke. But there are many lessons to be learned from what has transpired, and Financial Origami will show you what they are.

This landmark global study makes us rethink what happened when the Cold War ended and our present era was born. The world changed dramatically as the Berlin Wall fell and protest turned to massacre in Tiananmen Square. Now, with deft analysis and a wealth of newly declassified archival sources, historian Kristina Spohr offers a bold and novel interpretation of the revolutionary upheaval of 1989 and, how in its aftermath, a new world order was forged without major conflict. The Post-Wall world, Spohr argues, was brought about in significant measure through the determined diplomacy of a small cohort of international leaders. They engaged in tough but cooperative negotiation and worked together to reinvent the institutions of the Cold War. Exploring this extraordinary historical moment, Spohr offers a major reappraisal of US President George H. W. Bush and innovative assessments of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and President Fran?ois Mitterrand of France. But the transformation of Europe must be understood in global context. Spohr elegantly weaves together the Western and Asian timelines to revelatory effect, by contrasting events in Berlin and Moscow with the story in Beijing, where the pro-democracy movement was brutally suppressed by Deng Xiaoping. Post Square, he pushed through China’s very different Communist reinvention. Meticulously researched and brilliantly original, Post Wall, Post Square provides an authoritative contemporary history of those crucial hinge years of 1989-1992 and their implications for our times. The world of Putin, Trump and Xi, with a fractious European Union, rogue states and the crisis of mass migration has its roots in the global exit from the Cold War.