In 1995 Bank of Scotland celebrated 300 years as Britain's oldest commercial bank. Voted 'most admired bank', respected by competitors, applauded by investors and trusted by customers, it looked forward to the next three hundred. Less than 15 years later it was bust, reviled as part of the spectacular collapse of HBOS, the conglomerate it had joined. One of the high-profile victims of the credit crunch, its spectacular fall caused seismic shock waves throughout the financial world. What we...

In 1938 John Lorne Campbell bought the Hebridean isle of Canna. He wanted to prevent it becoming a rich man's playground (like so many other islands and Highland estates), to preserve a part of traditional Gaelic culture and show that efficient farming methods could be compatible with wildlife conservation and sustainability. But his determination to get the island left him burdened by debt, and even after he gave it to the National Trust for Scotland in 1981 he still had to fight to secur...

It started and ended with a financial catastrophe. The Darien disaster of 1700 drove Scotland into union with England, but spawned the institutions which transformed Edinburgh into a global financial centre. The crash of 2008 wrecked the city's two largest and oldest banks – and its reputation. In the three intervening centuries, Edinburgh became a hothouse of financial innovation, prudent banking, reliable insurance and smart investing. The face of the city changed too as money transforme...

This is the definitive account of the Royal Bank of Scotland scandal.For a few brief months in 2007 and 2009, the Royal Bank of Scotland was the largest bank in the world. Then the Edinburgh-based giant - having rapidly grown its footprint to 55 countries and stretched its assets to £2.4 trillion under its hubristic and delinquent former boss Fred Goodwin - crashed to earth.In Shredded, Ian Fraser explores the series of cataclysmic misjudgments, ...

As a small boy in Epping Forest, Jack Straw could never have imagined that one day he would become Britain's Lord Chancellor. As one of five children of divorced parents, he was bright enough to get a scholarship to a direct-grant school, but spent his holidays as a plumbers' mate for his uncles to bring in some much-needed extra income. Yet he spent 13 years and 11 days in government, including long and influential spells as Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary. This is the story of how h...

'Robert Peston's compelling account of global financial meltdown is a must-read.' ObserverWhat can we learn from the 2008 recession? ITV's political editor explains the global economic mess and how to escape it - in his characteristically straightforward way.'How do we fix this mess? I don't know. But don't stop reading now. Perhaps if we have a clearer understanding of what went wrong, we'll have a better idea of what needs to...

Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing--and recovering--their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, "this time is different"--claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. With this breakthrough study, leading economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff definitively prove them wrong. Covering sixty-six cou...

In spite of its key role in creating the ruinous financial crisis of 2008, the American banking industry has grown bigger, more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever. Anchored by six megabanks whose assets amount to more than 60 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, this oligarchy proved it could first hold the global economy hostage and then use its political muscle to fight off meaningful reform. 13 Bankers brilliantly charts the rise to power of the ...

The product of over forty Bible scholars and seven years’ work, The NLT Study Bible is the most comprehensive study Bible ever created. The notes focus on bringing out the full meaning of the text, allowing the reader to understand the Bible more deeply than ever. Features include 25,900 study notes (over 820,000 words), maps, charts, illustrations, a word-study system, and much more.Feature details: Ten section introductions provide an overview of the lit...

Look for The Land of Sweet Forever, a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces by Harper Lee, coming October 21, 2025.Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American ReadHarper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred...

**#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “mercilessly entertaining” (Vanity Fair) instant classic “about the nature of identity and the terrible secrets that can survive and thrive in even the most intimate relationships” (Lev Grossman, Time “One of the Best Books of the Decade”)—now featuring never-before-published deleted scenesONE OF TIME'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME, ONE OF CNN'S MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE, AND ONE ...

Discover the ultimate chronicle of a nation.In this book, Alistair Moffat brings vividly to life the story of Scotland, from the dawn of prehistory through to the twenty-first century.Ambitious, richly detailed and highly readable, Scotland: A History From Earliest Times skilfully weaves together a dazzling array of fact and anecdote from a vast range of sources. The result is an imaginative, informative, balanced and varied portrait of Scotland,...