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Manhattan Institute books have an unmatched record of opening new intellectual frontiers and catalyzing change. Charles Murray’s Losing Ground reframed the dialogue about welfare and led to historic reform-legislation. Peter Huber’s Liability and Galileo’s Revenge, and Walter Olson’s The Litigation Explosion, sparked national debates on civil justice, junk science, and tort reform. Myron Magnet's The Dream and the Nightmare spotlighted the devastating impact of the Sixties’ “counterculture” on the underclass. In Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities, George Kelling and Catherine Coles articulated the policing strategies that reduced crime at record rates. We promote our books to the media opinion leaders, and the general public. Our authors get attention through reviews, speaking engagements, radio and television bookings, magazine and newspaper features, webcasts, and op-eds. The books’ messages resonate, typically, long after the initial hardcover printing -- underscoring not only the quality of the content, but the enduring power of books in the digital age.

“Books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever. No man and no force and take from the world the books that embody man’s eternal fight against tyranny. In this war, we know, books are weapons.” -- Franklin D. Roosevelt.

MANHATTAN INSTITUTE 2009 BOOKS

Robust financial markets support capitalism; they don't imperil it. But in 2008, Washington policymakers were compelled to replace private risk-takers in the financial system with government capital so that money and credit flows wouldn't stop, precipitating a depression. Washington's actions weren't the start of government distortions in the financial industry, Nicole Gelinas writes, but the natural result of 25 years' worth of such distortions. In the early eighties, modern finance began to escape reasonable regulations, including the most important regulation of all, that of the marketplace. The government gradually adopted a "too big to fail" policy for the largest or most complex financial companies, saving lenders to failing firms from losses. As a result, these companies became impervious to the vital market discipline that the threat of loss provides. Adding to the problem, Wall Street created financial instruments that escaped other reasonable limits, including gentle constraints on speculative borrowing and requirements for the disclosure of important facts.

The financial industry eventually posed an untenable risk to the economy -- a risk that culminated in the trillions of dollars' worth of government bailouts and guarantees that Washington scrambled starting in late 2008. Even as banks and markets seem to heal, lenders to financia companies continue to understand that the government would protect them in the future if necessary. This implicit guarantee harms economic growth, because it forces good companies to compete against bad. History and recent events make clear what Washington must do. First, policymakers must reintroduce market discipline to the financial world. They can do so by re-creating a credible, consistent way in which big financial companies can fail, with lenders taking their warranted losses. Second, policymakers can reapply prudent financial regulations so that markets, and the economy, can better withstand inevitable excesses of optimism and pessimism. Sensible regulations have worked well in the past and can work well again.

As Gelinas explains in this richly detailed book, adequate regulation of financial firms and markets is a prerequisite for free-market capitalism -- not a barrier to it.

Though economics as a discipline arose at the end of the eighteenth century, it has taken two centuries to reach scientific rationality. Previously, intuition, opinion, and conviction enjoyed equal status in economic thought. It is no wonder, then, that bad economic policies ravaged entire nations during the twentieth century.

In Economics Does Not Lie, noted French author Guy Sorman examines the state of economic affairs today. Virtually everywhere, the public sector has ceded to privatization and market capitalism with breathtaking results. Opening economies and promoting trade have helped reconstruct post-Communist Europe and lifted 800 million people out of poverty.

Economics Does Not Lie reveals that behind all this unprecedented growth is not only the collapse of socialism but also a scientific revolution in economics—one dimly understood by the public but increasingly embraced by policymakers. No longer does economics lie; no longer would Baudelaire write, "Economics is a horror." For the mass of mankind, economics has become a source of hope.

According to Sorman, the current crisis is no reason to forget what the free market has brought to the world. It would be a mistake to get rid of the free market in response to the economic downturn. This crisis can be explained and corrected with the tools of economic science far better than with ignorance or demagoguery.

The ongoing, rancorous public policy debate about immigration in the United States invokes issues and concerns present since the nation's founding. Are newcomers to the United States too different from the rest of us? Are they becoming more similar to us at an acceptable rate? In the long run, will American society be stronger or weaker for their presence? This book compares and contrasts the experiences of immigrants at several points in American history, ranging from the mid-19th century to the present day. The central premise is that an immigrant''s decision to become American is a form of investment; it imposes costs in the present and benefits in the future. Immigrants assimilate more rapidly and enthusiastically when the returns on this investment are high. Modern-day immigrants from Mexico and nearby countries in Central America face very high costs and uncertain benefits; this contrast with immigrants from other nations and other points in history explains much of what makes their experience distinct. Some voices in the immigration policy debate effectively seek to increase the costs of becoming American; such a strategy runs the risk of inhibiting the very behavior it seeks to promote.

The central point of the book is that despite the death of distance, the flat world and so forth, cities are more important and vibrant than ever. Witness both the rebirth of NYC and London and the critical role that gateway cities, like Bangalore, play in the third world. The reason for this is that globalization has increased the returns to being smart and you become smart by hanging around smart people. Cities—smart cities—make that possible. Because cities are so important, it is critical to understand them better and this is what the book does. Areas that the book covers: (1) Why didn't NYC die? The long arc of NYC history with its rise during the period of early 19th century globalization—its painful decline and comeback during the 1980s as a center of finance. The financial revolution represents an urban chain of ideas, where one innovator took advantage of an earlier innovation (e.g. Milken figures out how to sell riskier assets and Kravis figures out how to use those). (2) Cities gave us cheap clothing and food, and they innovated in arts, and religion and politics, while they were doing it. (3) Today, cities are about the innovation side. (4) Poor people come to cities because cities are good for poor people—and further subsidies to the urban poor will bring more poor people into urban areas. (5) People still live in the rust belt because housing is durable—we should not waste money trying to bring these places back. (6) Cities are thriving as places of consumption as well as production. (7) Land use restrictions are making cities (and suburbs) unaffordable. (8) Sprawl is providing affordable housing for middle income people, but (9) Cities are much better environmentally than suburban areas surrounded by trees. (10) Overall, policy conclusion is that urban areas don't need subsidies but do need a level playing field. They are very important for the future of our world.

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