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The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World |  | Author: Niall Ferguson
Publisher: Penguin Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Seller: TechBookstore
Rating:  162 reviews
Sales Rank: 20116
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 432
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.7
ISBN: 1594201927
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.09
EAN: 9781594201929
ASIN: 1594201927
Publication Date: November 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance.
Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, its the sinews of war. To revolutionaries, its the chains of labor. But in The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress. Whats more, he reveals financial history as the essential backstory behind all history.
Through Fergusons expert lens familiar historical landmarks appear in a new and sharper financial focus. Suddenly, the civilization of the Renaissance looks very different: a boom in the market for art and architecture made possible when Italian bankers adopted Arabic mathematics. The rise of the Dutch republic is reinterpreted as the triumph of the worlds first modern bond market over insolvent Habsburg absolutism. And the origins of the French Revolution are traced back to a stock market bubble caused by a convicted Scot murderer.
With the clarity and verve for which he is known, Ferguson elucidates key financial institutions and concepts by showing where they came from. What is money? What do banks do? Whats the difference between a stock and a bond? Why buy insurance or real estate? And what exactly does a hedge fund do?
This is history for the present. Ferguson travels to post-Katrina New Orleans to ask why the free market cant provide adequate protection against catastrophe. He delves into the origins of the subprime mortgage crisis.
Perhaps most important, The Ascent of Money documents how a new financial revolution is propelling the worlds biggest countries, India and China, from poverty to wealth in the space of a single generationan economic transformation unprecedented in human history.
Yet the central lesson of the financial history is that sooner or later every bubble burstssooner or later the bearish sellers outnumber the bullish buyers, sooner or later greed flips into fear. And thats why, whether youre scraping by or rolling in it, theres never been a better time to understand the ascent of money.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 162
A Concise Primer Markets and Economics August 28, 2010
B. Campbell (Richmond, VA USA)
This is a great book for someone who wants a concise primer on markets and economics. Topics covered include currency, banking, stocks and bonds, insurance and governemt programs, housing as well as the past and current economic crises. What it doesn't cover, it gives you enough background to research on information to research on your own.
For those who find the discussion of financial crises in this book interesting, I'd recommend following this book up with Carmen and Rogoff's excellent book "This Time It's Different, and perhaps Nicolas Taleb's "Fooled by Randomness"
For those trying to gain a deeper understanding of the motivations of people in economic systems (something that the author touches on briefly in Chapter 5), try out the first volume of Ludwig Von Mises seminal work, Human Action, which deals the concept of praxeology.
High on Money August 26, 2010
Robert Mosher (Virginia, USA)
A number of years ago, I fell in love with the three volumes of "History of Commerce" written by Fernand Braudel. The French historian's sweeping narrative of the rise and evolution of the many elements that became the foundation of the modern global economy overflowed with the details that can bring a dry story to life. While Niall Ferguson may or may not relish his name and his writing being linked to Fernand Braudel, but I often recalled that earlier work as I read the British historian's new single volume "The Ascent of Money, A Financial History of the World."
With a more modest ambition, Ferguson is able in just six chapters to recount the story of the adoption and evolution of money in its various forms, drawing on history, economic theory, political science, and behavioral psychology among other fields, to present his story of our world financial system. Beginning with the creation and evolution of money itself, both currency and coinage, he proceeds to discuss bonds, investment bubbles, risk management, real estate (especially domestic residential real estate), and the place and future role of the U.S. dollar in the world financial system.
With his book hitting the stores just as we entered the latest economic recession, Ferguson attempted perhaps unwisely to reframe his work without rewriting it and emphasize those aspects that related to the suspected root causes of this still ongoing crisis. His effort was not a failure but to a degree distracts the reader from the book's more general, fundamental relevance and value.
Compared to Braudel's delightful though admittedly encyclopedic approach, Ferguson's is a speed skater's version of the story and I believe both deserve a place in your library.
Good background July 30, 2010
In spritus
This book offers an opportunity to understanding what is really going on in today's global financial crisis.
An elegant summary of the most important aspect of money and monetary instruments.
After reading this book you will find yourself greatly enriched in the areas of contemporary economic understanding.
The book is blissfully free of formulas or self righteous agenda.
You will find yourself listening to the new on TV or reading the financial papers and increasingly shaking your head - it is amazing what a little understanding will do to make most news and opinions redundant.
A "must have" for those who want to survive the coming financial crisis part 2.
 Anticipation and dissapointment July 6, 2010
Matt Allen
Never have I so looked forward to a book, only to be thoroughly disappointed. I was looking forward to a life's work on the true history of money, and by extension, the development of trade, civilizations, nation states, etc. Yes, I was expecting a lot. What you get is a scattered bunch of individual anecdotes mixed with several "I told you so's" from which I learned little. In the end, I felt the true purpose of the book was only to pad the author's bank account. He would have been more honest if he had written a trashy romance novel. Hopefully, someone will see the value of what the title of the book suggests and take up the challenge of writing a true history on the subject.
For a History, not that great. June 28, 2010
Juan-Pablo Caceres
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I expected this book to give a good insight (as opposed to a comprehensive history due to its length) on how the monetary and financial systems developed throughout history. It is instead a series of historical anecdotes thematically combined on each chapter. Some of them are really informative (the ascent of the Rothschilds), others are downright superficial and inaccurate. The political and economic doctrines of the author are obvious in the reading of the book, as pointed out by other reviews. There are some instances that, however, exhibit lazy research and/or bias. The description of the economic policies during Pinochet's dictatorship and Friedman's Chicago Boys are one example. Any historian knows by now that the "miracle" was not such, and the long term economic prosperity in Chile really started by the less rigid doctrines of the Minister of Finance Hernán Büchi in the mid/late 1980' and by the democratic governments post-dictatorship. The rigid doctrinal policies of the Chicago Boys only generated one of the worst Chilean economic crisis in 1982.
This book is and easy read and has some interesting facts and stories, but lacks the depth and insight of a good historical book.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 162
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