Ascent of Money A Financial History of the World

Published by Penguin, 2009, softcover, illustrated, index, 442 pages, condition: as new.

Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot. Call it what you like, it matters now more than ever. In "The Ascent of Money", Niall Ferguson shows that finance is the foundation of all human progress and the lifeblood of history. From the cash injection that funded the Italian Renaissance to the stock market bubble that sparked the French Revolution, from the bonds that fueled Britain's war effort to the Wall Street Crash and today's meltdown, this is the story of boom and bust as it's never been told before. Whether you're scraping by or rolling in it, there's no better time to understand the ascent of money.

Niall Ferguson is one of Britain's most renowned historians. He is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He has written fourteen books, including The House of Rothschild, Empire, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, The Great Degeneration and Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist. His many prizes include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013).

This is a very informative, and convincing book, about the history, and the need for money. I say that despite the fact that I disagree with the author's conviction that capitalism is one of humanity's greatest achievements, and that the price of progress is more than worth it, no matter who loses out. Also despite the fact that I have heard that the author is quite an arrogant individual. But this book is a thorough and comprehensive account of the various milestones that have taken place in the history of money. Above all it is a celebration of the achievements that have been made possible by money's capacity to leverage and create value - a value that some would say is illusory and false. But there is no doubt that the modern world as we know it would not exist without the lubricant and stimulant growth hormone money, for better or for worse.