New Books in Finance

By Marshall PoeBusiness Science Social Sciences Investing

New Books in Finance episodes

October 02 Credit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and the Shaping of American Finance, 1873–1930 with Rebecca Kobrin (Harvard UP, 2026)
From a leading historian, the story of how entrepreneurial Jewish immigrants transformed commercial banking and enabled the economic and social advancement of Jews in America.

What are immigrants to do when business opportunities abound in their new home, but banks refuse essential financial support? How could they make the journey in the first place without helping hands? In this lively history, Rebecca Kobrin chronicles the turn-of-the-twentieth-century Jewish immigrants who stepped up by doing the lending themselves. Arriving from the Russian Empire and settling primarily in New York, they made livelihoods by assisting fellow Jews so they could purchase passage to the United States and, after arriving, obtain credit that other lenders would not dare provide.

Credit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and the Shaping of American Finance, 1873–1930 (Harvard UP, 2026) traces the novel practices of bankers who not only enabled the flourishing of American Jewry but also revolutionized the US financial industry. Drawing on previously unexamined archival materials in Russian, Yiddish, German, and English, Kobrin tells a story that is also crucial to the history of New York, as immigrant bankers’ financing of real estate transformed wide swathes of the city. Lenders drove a boom in the prices of tenement buildings, but heavy speculation eventually precipitated the downfall of immigrant banking. Kobrin notes in particular the case of the Bank of United States—a private lender catering primarily to Jewish businessmen—which the Federal Reserve refused to bail out from bankruptcy in 1930.

Immigrants’ grasping for credit, and the rise and fall of immigrant banks, gave way to a contemporary banking industry that, ironically, refuses credit to today’s immigrants. Kobrin reminds us that now, as before, the denial of credit pushes entrepreneurial Americans into unregulated money-lending and the trap of endless debt.
Rebecca Kobrin, author of Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora, is Russell and Bettina Knapp Associate Professor of American Jewish History at Columbia University, where she codirects the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies.
Geraldine Gudefin is a modern Jewish historian researching Jewish migrations, family life, and legal pluralism. She is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the National University of Singapore, and is completing a book titled An Impossible Divorce? East European Jews and the Limits of Legal Pluralism in France, 1900-1939.
The book can be purchased on the Harvard University Press website: Credit to the Nation. Use code CRE30 to receive a 30% discount.

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1 hr
September 03The Grant Writing Guide: A Road Map for Scholars
The Grant Writing Guide: A Road Map for Scholars (Princeton UP, 2023) is an essential handbook for writing fundable grants. This easy-to-use guide features writing samples, a glossary of important terms, answers common questions, and explains pitfalls to avoid. Dr. Betty Lai focuses on skills that are universal to all grant writers, not just specific skills for one type of grant or funder. She explains how to craft phenomenal pitches and align them with your values, structure timelines and drafts, communicate clearly in prose and images, solicit feedback to strengthen your proposals, and much more. This incisive book walks you through every step along the way, from generating ideas to finding the right funder, determining which grants help you create the career you want, and writing in a way that excites reviewers and funders.
This episode explores: how to align your values and interests with a grant opportunity;
why most of us will end up needing a grant; things you can learn from a grant proposal that succeeded, and from one that didn’t; what your grant reviewer really needs from you and why; and how to use the funder’s guidelines and terminology to your advantage.
Guest: Dr. Betty S. Lai is an associate professor in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, among others. Her work has been recognized with awards from the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Foundation.
Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is the producer of the both Academic Life podcast and the show’s weekly newsletter. She is a writing coach and developmental editor for academics.
Listeners to this episode may be interested in:
Where Does Research Begin

Project Management For Researchers

Find Your Argument

The Book Proposal Book

The Dissertation To Book Workbook

The Top Ten Struggles in Writing A Book Manuscript and What To Do About It

Make A Meaningful Life

Dealing With Rejection

Mindfulness

Facing Failure

Subatomic Writing

Becoming The Writer You Already Are
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Please join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 325+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!
This episode was originally published on Feb 2, 2023.
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56 min
August 28 Mark S. LeClair, "Foul Play in the Nonprofit Sector: Analyzing Corruption in US Charities" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)
It is quite easy to find corruption within nonprofits. This is particularly the case in the subsector of not-for-profits that are incorporated as traditional 501(c)(3) entities. With the continuing erosion of public confidence in charities, these institutions must act now, both individually and collectively, to bolster trust and ensure public support for nonprofits that has been a hallmark of American democracy.
This book explores the causes of malfeasance in the nonprofit realm. It examines how the current inadequate regulatory environment—together with inherent “agency” problems―can lead organizations astray as they turn away from fulfilling donor wishes to instead act in their own self-interest. The book highlights the distinction between “soft corruption” in the nonprofit sector and “hard corruption.” The former includes the misuse of donor funds that do not cross the line into illegality and the latter covers explicitly illegal misappropriation of contributions.
In Foul Play in the Nonprofit Sector: Analyzing Corruption in US Charities (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), economist Mark S. LeClair provides constructive overviews regarding charity evaluation. Is it truly fair to judge nonprofits on their financials? The financial figures so frequently dictate the value of a nonprofit, and this often isn’t the best way to judge a charity’s performance. The manuscript includes suggestions for internal sectoral changes and regulatory reforms that can deter corruption at nonprofits.
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41 min
August 26 Dimple Abichandani, "A New Era of Philanthropy: Ten Practices to Transform Wealth into a More Just and Sustainable Future" (North Atlantic Books, 2025)
Can philanthropy be an anti-racist, feminist, relational, and joyful
expression of solidarity? This book argues that it not only can be for
the future we seek and for philanthropy to achieve its greatest impact,
but it must be.
Nationally recognized philanthropic
leader Dimple Abichandani revolutionizes the precepts of modern
philanthropy. Offering 10 provocative practice shifts, A New Era of Philanthropy: Ten Practices to Transform Wealth into a More Just and Sustainable Future (North
Atlantic Books, 2025) engages readers with fresh answers to the
question of how philanthropy can meet this high-stakes moment. This book
picks up where key books like Decolonizing Wealth and Winners Take All
leave off, offering a guide for donors, foundations, and non-profit
leaders navigating philanthropy in urgent times. Clear-eyed, hopeful,
and responsive to the moment, this book helps us reimagine the purpose
and norms of modern philanthropy. It is an invitation to all of us who
believe these resources can contribute to a more just future: start here.
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50 min
August 18 Dan Du, "This World in a Teacup: Credit, Taste, and Power in the U. S.-China Tea Trade, 1784–1911" (U Nebraska Press, 2026)
Popular
history tells the story of how the tea boycott during the American
Revolution caused a transition in American taste from tea to coffee,
making the young country a coffee-drinking nation. In truth, Americans
did not give up their tea so easily, and the United States grew to be
the second-largest importer of tea from China. Diverging from British
black tea traditions, U.S. consumers preferred green tea, cultivated a
particular taste for Oolong tea, and invented the English Breakfast Tea
brand to market Chinese black tea.
This World in a Teacup: Credit, Taste, and Power in the U.S.-China Tea Trade, 1784–1911
(University of Nebraska Press, 2026) by Dr. Dan Du is the first book to
detail the American tea trade with China after the American Revolution
through the early twentieth century. Drawing on archival sources and
perspectives from both sides of the Pacific, Dr. Du offers new insights
to help understand fundamental developments in U.S.-China relations
within a global context. This World in a Teacup shows that, rather than
depending on hard-money transactions or a barter economy, a
sophisticated credit system buttressed American tea purchases in China:
Credit instruments such as promissory notes, bills of exchange, and
checks financed the transactions between Chinese and U.S. tea merchants,
crystallizing changing power dynamics in the global economy. This World in a Teacup
explains how the circulation of these credit instruments challenged the
conventional understanding of China’s economy as a primitive system and
how the power structure of American, British, and Chinese tea trade in
the credit economy reshaped American consumption patterns.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

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56 min
July 31 Devin Kennedy, "Coding Capitalism: Computers and the Remaking of the Postwar US Economy" (Columbia UP, 2026)
Long before Google, Amazon, or Microsoft, computer technology shaped how people worked, how markets operated,
and how businesses became big. After World War II, military officials
and their partners in industry looked to the newly invented electronic
computer as they sought to cut costs, speed up labor,
manage supply chains, and—they hoped—bring stability to the postwar
economy. Their efforts would shape early computer science and the first
applications of computer technology in manufacturing and business, with
profound consequences for workers and managers alike. By the 1960s,
practices originally developed to improve industrial efficiency were
being used by Wall Street, influencing how markets worked and even how
traders thought. Digital technology became central to finance, tying
together far-flung trading floors and automating decision making—with
alarming consequences, including the 1987 Black Monday crash.
In Coding Capitalism: Computers and the Remaking of the Postwar US Economy
(Columbia University Press, 2026), Dr. Devin Kennedy offers a new
history of the digital economy, showing how the computer emerged
from—and transformed—capitalism in the United States. He traces how
computer science and technology were made by industry, which molded
computation to manage factories, financial markets, and entire firms.
Drawing on the archives of businesses, computer researchers, regulators,
and financial institutions, Coding Capitalism retells the story of the postwar economy and the computer, revealing how mid-century
business laid the foundations of the digital world. Bridging business
and economic history with the history of science and technology, this
book uncovers the prehistory of big tech and demonstrates how capitalism has shaped computing since its invention.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

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53 min
July 30 Joe Ngai and Nick Leung, "The Next China Is Still China: An Insider's Playbook for Winning in the New Era" (Scribner, 2026)
What’s going on in the Chinese economy? China reported GDP growth of just 4.3% last quarter. Consumption is sluggish, exports are booming, electronics manufacturers and chipmakers are reporting huge profits as car sales slump.
Joe Ngai and Nick Leung dive into the Chinese economy in their latest book The Next China Is Still China: An Insider's Playbook for Winning in the New Era (Scribner, 2026), which came out earlier this year. The book is motivated by a question many executives asked amid new U.S. tariffs and COVID-driven supply shocks: Is there another economy that can replace China’s massive consumer market and deep manufacturing base? The answer: No.
Joe Ngai is a McKinsey senior partner and chairman of the firm’s offices in Greater China. Frequently seen on media such as CNBC and Bloomberg, he has been named one of Forbes China’s 100 Most Influential Chinese Leaders, and he has also appeared on Bloomberg Businessweek China’s “Person of the Year 2025” list.
Nick Leung is a McKinsey senior partner and member of McKinsey’s global board of directors. He is also a lead-director of the McKinsey Global Institute, the firm’s independent research arm, where he directs research on macroeconomics, global trade, and geopolitics.
You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.
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56 min
July 28 Adam Y. Liu, "Authoritarian Markets: The Politics of China's Banking Explosion" (Cornell UP, 2026)
Authoritarian Markets explores the political foundations of China's banking boom and its far-reaching impact on the Chinese economy.
In
1978 China had no commercial banks. Today it commands the world's
largest banking system, with assets equal to 40 percent of global GDP.
In Authoritarian Markets: The Politics of China's Banking Explosion
(Cornell University Press, 2026), Dr. Adam Y. Liu argues that this rise
was not the product of market reforms but of political bargains and
bureaucratic mobilization.
In
the 1990s, Beijing issued bank licenses as bargaining chips—securing
cooperation from local governments as it pushed through painful reforms.
The result was a sprawling, competitive banking market built not in spite of authoritarian rule but because of it.
Drawing
on interviews, spatial data, census records, surveys, and experiments,
Dr. Liu reveals how local state banks became both engines of China's
growth and incubators of its current economic risks. Eye-opening and
persuasive, Authoritarian Markets offers fresh insight into the political logic of market development in China and authoritarian states worldwide.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

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53 min
July 28 Paul Langley and Andrew Leyshon, "Fintech Capital: The Digital Transformation of Everyday Money and Finance" (Princeton UP, 2026)
How is finance changing in the contemporary world? In FinTech Capital: The Digital Transformation of Everyday Money and Finance (Princeton University Press, 2026), Paul Langley, a Professor of Economic Geography at Durham Universityand Andrew Leyshon, a Senior Fellow in the Centre for Economy, Policy and Place, Nottingham Trent University and Emeritus Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Nottingham,
chart the rise of a new form of capitalism in the digital age. Drawing
on detailed case studies from across the world, from familiar everyday
examples such as Klarna to continent-spanning institutions such as Standard Bank,
the book theorises the dynamics of this new moment in global
capitalism. Of interest across the social sciences, the book will be
essential reading for anyone seeking to understand money today.
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53 min
July 20 Brendan Greeley, "The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World's Most Powerful Money" (Crown, 2026)
America’s money is global money—nearly every nation in the world writes international contracts in dollars, and in 2023, central banks around the world held nearly $6.7 trillion in dollar reserves, three times any other currency. Today, the United States’ global hegemony rests largely on its ability to produce unlimited treasury bonds that are sold around the world, dollars that supported America’s explosive growth in the twentieth century and funded its massive wars in the twenty-first. American power and the American dollar have become synonymous.
Yet in this brilliant 500-year history The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World's Most Powerful Money (Crown, 2026), Brendan Greeley argues that America’s sovereignty over the dollar is an illusion—that the dollar had already empowered and destroyed nations long before it washed up on colonial shores, and that no country or king has or can ever truly control it. Reaching back to the dollar’s birth as the taler in the 15th-century silver mines of St. Joachimsthal, Greeley reveals how the dollar first thrived as a commodity for merchants and bankers—a big, silver coin that was trusted around the world, even as the miners who pulled it from the ground had trouble getting paid in that same silver. Greeley traces a captivatingly complex path across time and place, from the industrial collapse at the heart of Spain’s 17th-century silver empire, to the birth of American paper dollars in colonial Maryland, 19th-century New Orleans bank failures, and the small town of Hawarden, Iowa, which created its own dollars during the Great Depression. At every surprising turn, Greeley upends assumptions about global currencies and draws out the centuries-old tension between how dollars are manufactured and whom they actually serve.
Singular in its breadth, The Almighty Dollar dismantles the myth that America created or has ever truly controlled the dollar. Through meticulous research and vividly rendered stories of merchants, monarchs, and everyday people both past and present, Greeley shows how the dollar became America’s greatest export, spawning a vast financial industry that enriches the wealthy, even as the rest of the country’s industries suffer.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

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1 hr 20 min

About New Books in Finance

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This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.

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