● Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto
Barry Eichengreen
Review via Financial Times
The US dollar’s recent travails — it has fallen more than 10 per cent against other major currencies since the beginning of 2025 — have led to renewed questioning about its future. How long will it remain the world’s premier currency? What might it take to finally knock it off its perch? And, should it fall, what will replace it — a new dominant reserve currency, a basket of quasi-reserve currencies, perhaps even something from the cryptoverse? …
Eichengreen’s suspicion is that, if and when the US dollar in turn loses its mantle, the wounds will more likely be self-inflicted than exacted by a monetary foe. Among the possible fatal harms, he identifies heightened tariffs, America’s escalating fiscal woes, the undermining of Federal Reserve independence, more aggressive and widespread use of financial sanctions and a retreat from longstanding international alliances. The current US president has leaned — sometimes more than leaned — in all these directions.

● Ladder or Lottery: Economic Promises and the Reality of Who Gets Ahead
Gary A. Hoover
Summary via publisher (U. of California Press)
This book asks the reader a simple question: Is our economy a ladder or a lottery? Are people able to control their position on the economic spectrum by their actions? Some argue that, in our market-based economy, if you play by certain rules and make certain choices, you’ll achieve upward mobility no matter what economic position you were born into… Hoover shows how civil unrest is often directly related to broken society-level promises, exploring protest movements such as Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, the Arab Spring, and student debt forgiveness as case studies. He also predicts where future protests can be expected if results promised are not results delivered.

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