Acknowledgments
Special thanks are due to the faculty at the MBA program at Wake Forest in Charlotte for giving me the opportunity to teach the course on which this book is based. Special thanks also to the students in those classes who asked the good questions and were willing to extend their education beyond the mundane, and who twice awarded me the outstanding educator in last three years at the MBA program.
Thanks for the intellectual debts I owe to writers such as Stephen Ambrose, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jim Grant, Niall Ferguson, Jim Collins, John Steele Gordon, Michael Roberto, Steven Roach, Thomas Sowell, Robert Barro, Richard Neustadt and Ernest May, and the late Peter Bernstein. I enjoyed their writing and their ability to combine business and economics in exciting narrative. I also owe thanks to the authors of the many business school cases I have used over the years and that I have referenced here.
Thanks to my Economics team at Wells Fargo, who have worked with me on many of these issues over the years, including Sam Bullard, Tim Quinlan, Michael Brown, Azhar Iqbal, Sarah Watt, Tyler Kruse, and Peg Gavin.
Finally thanks to Adrianna Johnson at John Wiley & Sons for shepherding this effort and to editing efforts by Larry Rothstein, Kyle H. Lee, and Jeannette Brichaux.
J.E.S.
