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    The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
    The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
    The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

    Written by Niall Ferguson

    Narrated by Simon Prebble

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Bread, cash, dough, loot, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, it's the sinews of war. To revolutionaries, it's the chains of labor. But in The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson shows that finance is, in fact, the foundation of human progress. What's more, he reveals financial history as the essential back story behind all history.

    Through Ferguson's 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 world's 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? What's 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 can't provide adequate protection against catastrophe. He also 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 world's biggest countries, India and China, from poverty to wealth in the space of a single generation-an economic transformation unprecedented in human history.

    Yet the central lesson of the financial history is that sooner or later every bubble bursts-sooner or later the bearish sellers outnumber the bullish buyers; and sooner or later greed flips into fear. And that is why, whether you're scraping by or rolling in it, there's never been a better time to understand the ascent of money.

    Editor's Note

    An informative jaunt…

    An entertaining, informative jaunt through the history of money, from its inception to the Great Recession. In this time of accelerated globalization, Ferguson’s work is a necessary guide through the economic basics.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 22, 2008
    ISBN9781400180332
    The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

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    Reviews for The Ascent of Money

    4.5/5

    132 ratings45 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Interesting enough but as I read/listened through I felt the lack of a theoretical/interpretational framework. Narrative history fair enough but all too easily edges into "one damn thing after another". The framework all comes along in a lump at the end with numerous concepts pretty much in list form and rather indigestible. some of his "pop history" analogies and phrasing can be annoying or trivialisiing, eg "Chimerica". Choice of topics also sometimes favours the sensational: eg, John Law is a colourful enough rogue but surely only a symptom of the absolutist distortions of the bourbon monarchy. What comes across strongly is how finance has become eve more complex to the point of incomprehensibility at least to this reader. i can just about keep up as far as consols and the Rothschilds, but once we get to the late 19th C and beyond it becomes bewildering. I wonder how much this is a weakness in the writing and how much a matter of reality. LTCM for example, as a bunch of Nobel economists went spectacularly down the toilet; did they understand how it all worked? or was their mistake to think they understood it? Soros, by this account, seems to have some grasp, not only of how to beat the market, but how it actually works: the effects of expectation upon expectation. What is not really examined is how, despite fluctuations, crashes and con men, the real economy does overall move forward. In the long run, we're not all dead; most of us are at least slightly better off.Ferguson does paint the dismal science in bright, if occasionally gaudy, colours, and tells good stories. He comes across as more intelligent and reasonable than one might expect from some of his political positions

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      This book is terrible. It is a list of capitalism's failures while simultaneiously claiming it has nothing to do with capitalism. From an objective standpoint it doesn't seem to have a central thesis or even any kind of point besides "Capitalism is great!".

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      Ferguson’s unabashedly positive banking apology functions primarily to bolster those who want to believe that capitalism is good and as an indictment of the same system to those who question its efficacy and legitimacy. The book is exactly what I’d expect if Gordon Gekko wrote a series of articles on the history of banking for Slate.com: narrowly biased, unsympathetic to detractors, and triumphant as it marches through bankers steps as they inevitably grow larger and more powerful. Seemingly ignorant of Adam Smith’s theory on unintended consequences, ironically Ferguson quickly moves through the early Renaissance dissolution of usury prohibition as though the traditional prohibitions were completely baseless. Banking innovations are elevated as the engine of other innovations, as though innovation were an end unto itself, never pausing to think about what it means to decouple money from actual work and resources. Granted Ferguson completed writing in May 2008, but even so, his reduction of the world’s problems to individual’s ignorance of banking theory is laughable upon any reflection.
    • 5/5
      I was drawn to this book after watching BBC documentary from same author. There are lots of facts presented in understandable and logical manner. Great book for financial education. Last part, prologue, added recently is explaining problems running in monetary world during financial crisis of 2008 with fine explanations of mistakes people are doing in their research and analysis which is worth of book alone.I would like that author tried to incorporate Veblen thoughts more into this work although he is citing Veblen in this book. Veblen theories of conspicuous consumption would increase quality of explanations in chapters about houses and Chinamerica.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely wonderful read. Thorough, well written and researched. Highly recommended
    • 3/5
      I learnt a reasonable amount from this book, but I began to get troublingly lost in the later passages, and ended up not getting what I came for in terms of explication of the latest events in the world of money.
    • 1/5
      Not much of substance to be found here. Sounds more like a sales pitch for the abject status quo than an actual history of money
    • 3/5
      Adult nonfiction. pretty interesting, just too long for me to finish at the time (have a mess of other audio books to get through, and there was still a wait-list for this one).
    • 4/5
      The subtitle of the book "A Financial History of the World" is something of a misnomer, though Ferguson (also the author of a two-volume history of the Rothschild family) does cover quite a bit of ground, in time and space, discussing how money evolved, and then how other kinds of financial transactions (stocks, bonds, derivatives) evolved. In fact, there's quite a lot of discussion relating financial products to natural evolution. One interesting thing about the book (at least the hardcover edition) is that it came out in the early summer of 2008, before the crash that hit the financial markets later that year. There are a number of hints in the book that Ferguson (among others) saw something coming, though it's questionable whether he saw the crash. Generally, a pretty light read, and Ferguson does a decent job of explaining some abstruse terms in a more comprehensible fashion. For those interested, he tends to be lightly critical of the capitalist model; this is not an analysis from the left, a la Piketty. Those of you who are concerned about the angle an author takes, be warned. I did like the book, and do recommend it.
    • 3/5
      The anecdotal aspects of the book were appreicated, but obviously not conclusive. The financial theory remained just of out of reach and I often felt lost, or that I was being sold something. Despite my interior antipathies, I have always liked Ferguson. the accompanying PBS film challenged that devotion, but alas I plowed through the book with a dusting of enlightenment, which is all I hoped for, anyway.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book that delivers on its title. Great introduction to the how’s and whys of hedge funds, stocks, bonds etc. as well as financial systems that succeeded and failed in the past. This also adds another angle to view history by. There is also a TV tie in.
    • 5/5
      Time and again we make the same mistakes and that is what this Book brings to light.. The author has done a wonderful job in explaining The evolution of money anti financial markets
    • 2/5
      The author has enjoyed privileged access, as a well-schooled Harvard professor, to the finest peer-reviewed thinking drawn from historical records and economic data. He apparently uses very little of it. In this work, he chose to present an overview of financial practices, from the first forms of currency in Ancient Mesopotamia to the massive volumes of unregulated asset-backed securities trading conducted in the 1920's and 2000's. He touches only slightly on the high-tech financial manipulations of the enormous private banks using international markets, and the impact of technological “steroids”, by the private traders of the twenty-first century.In six chapters, Ferguson describes an evolution of finance – currency, credit, bonds, corporate stock, insurance, and real estate. He compares financial development to biological “natural selection”. While this is a helpful model, he uses it descriptively, and fails to provide prescriptive references or validation. For example, he fails to show us how the increasing “organization of specialized parts” model helps us understand how speculators removed $40 trillion from the U.S. Economy in 2008. It does, but he doesn’t. Irritatingly, Ferguson only appears to illuminate economic systems. He refuses to answer even the obvious Questions which burden even a lay audience today. What role can our Representatives in Congress play? Should tax payers bail out the private banks which manipulate “bubbles” or should Government stop funding the enormous profits of private banks and provide its own lending as a public service? Ferguson takes the time to explain various elementary financial concepts – known to virtually all consumers who have opened a bank account. He sticks to the “history” of the institutions without understanding the tools they use – the econometrics, the stochastics, the “rating” games and “financial product” sleight of hand. The history of the bond, equity, and real estate markets, across time and continents, is of course invaluable. Professor Ferguson describes the primitive and repeated mania which is behind many of the disasters of history. He places bank speculation at the heart of many of them. Financial “bubbles”are driven by speculation, greed, and the willingness of gamblers to take risks with money. There is an odd disconnect, however, within his procrustean “five stages” of financial bubbles: displacement, euphoria, mania, distress, and revulsion. To his credit, Ferguson at least spares us from excesses of “opinion”. He reports the events and sequences. The area of some exception is when Professor Ferguson describes European financiers as the source of modern wealth and prosperity. Banks clearly played formative roles in Italy in the late Middle Ages, and among the Dutch in the 17th century. John Law’s publicly-funded private bank – making vast investments in infrastructure using paper money to replace metal currency – enabled King Louis XV to bring the economy of France back from the ruin of Louis XIV. The growth of Great Britain's empire is at least partially attributed to the investments made by the Bank of England in 1694. The rise of a middle class is attributed to the efforts by Government to open up and protect markets and increase trading volumes.However, Professor Ferguson fails to even point us toward the answers to hard research questions. Does this work help answer The Questions our circumstances bring to the table? Clearly the financial “bubbles” documented in the book are for the most part deliberately created by plutocrats and bankers. Governments for the most part provide the data, and to a various and indeterminate extent are used by the bankers to exacerbate their manipulations. For example, look at John Law’s impact on France in the 1600s. The recovery of the world from the economic exhaustion in WWI and WWII, and the use of Keynesian theory. The fact that in the entire global history, there are no examples of a laissez-faire economy. Why is there no data available online from the 1929 Depression and its causes? Why are we not learning more from history and using the tools now available to analyze these events?
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed reading this book. It is well written, and clearly explains many aspects of financial markets that are anything but simple. The key messages I took from this book are:1) Financial innovation and misdeeds are never far apart. For example, punitive interest rates charged by loan sharks, and those providing much-needed, and very successful, mirco-credit loans. Another example: the separation of ownership and control was a major factor in allowing corporate growth, but is also a major contributor to a lack of accountability and the excesses we’ve seen by some corporate managers. And one more: the ills of excess leverage and inappropriate pressure to borrow, coupled with the indisputable social and economic benefits of owner occupied housing.2) Poverty is not a function of rapaciousness but is a function of access to financial markets. .If you are interested in this topic and haven’t read Hernando De Soto’s Mystery of Capital, I recommend it. 3) Markets work. This from an author who is an historian, not an economist. Mr. Ferguson down plays, I think, the value of regulation. For the counter-argument, I recommend The Return of Depression Economics by Paul Krugman.
    • 4/5
      A good look at the history of finance and the role it has played in history since the development of bond markets. This isn’t as much of a big-idea book as James Burke’s Connections or Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, but it provides another valuable perspective on many historical events, so I’m shelving it next to those volumes. It also shows the benefits of financial markets when they operate well, which is a good counterbalance to some of the general outcry against capitalism as a reaction to the excesses of the bad deregulation in the 1980–2007 period.
    • 4/5
      Good in its covering of the major events and crises that hit the financial world; from Florence's Medici family to the 1929 Wall Street crash, the book explores financial events and how what happened often led to other unrelated events, many of which shaped the world we live in. Reading it you really get the feeling that we humans are often too eager to repeat the mistakes of history, as it draws parallels between todays financial crisis and those of days gone. A good read indeed.
    • 4/5
      Money Makes the World Go RoundThe latest book by Harvard professor and popular commentator Niall Ferguson is a historical look at the rise of finance. Ever wonder how the stock market came to be? Exactly how and why did the evolution of credit lead to the rise of civilizations? Could all the world's conflicts be explained by economics? These are the historical questions Ferguson poses and attempts to answer in "The Ascent of Money."Ferguson's primary purpose for the book is by using economic history to help explain the complexities of modern financial institutions. Why, might you ask is this important? Because the average person knows little to nothing about such simple financial facts such as the interest rate charged by their credit card. Never before, in this globalized, highly coupled world that we live in today, has financial knowledge and a fundamental understanding of financial institutions been more important than it is today. Everyone is affected by world markets, interest rates, and inflation one way or another.While I think Ferguson does an admirable job in explaining such complex subjects such as mortgage-backed securities or credit-default swaps, I still think that anyone who does not have a Econ 101 or Fin 101 will still have problems following these inherently difficult to understand topics. Ferguson's writing, thank goodness, does not contain the snobbery that sometimes comes across when he appears as a commentator.As for the historical content, I think Ferguson is a little selective in some of the topics he chooses. As one would expect, Lord Rothschild is used throughout the book as an example to explain the rise of debt worldwide. There are detailed accounts of the rise and fall of Argentina, the American Civil War, the French Revolution, and much more.Regarding Ferguson's philosophy. He appears to be a pragmatic neoliberal. He is a proponent of free-trade, but for example he writes that "of all the lessons to have emerged from this collective effort... inept or inflexible monetary policy in the wake of a sharp decline in asset prices can turn a correction into a recession and a recession into a depression." (p. 163). Ferguson takes exception with the Keynesians like Stiglitz and Krugman but while at the same time exploring the relative benefits of Milton Friedman's Chicago School "Washington Consensus". He describes Chile's economy as the shining star in Latin America following Pinochet while passing judgment over the massive human costs. And finally, he places the primary blame on Alan Greenspan for his "loose" monetary policy for the current crisis we find ourselves in.Some reviewers have critiqued the book for its lack of historical breadth, and to some extent I would agree. However, the book is already 350+ pages, and more historical examples would dilute Ferguson's arguments. As ambitious as it is to try to explain such a complicated subject, Ferguson is mostly on the mark. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to know more about the history of finance.
    • 3/5
      I was hoping for more of a history, especially ancient history. Sometimes, the book became a little too technical and assumed too much of the reader's understanding of money market terminology. But overall, a good read.
    • 2/5
      Touches on a bunch of financial events and crises through Western history, though rarely in enough depth to satisfy, with some attention to the role of imperialism/foreign investment, especially in China. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention, but I didn’t feel that the more complicated transactions were explained in a way that I could easily follow (though that may also simply be impossible). If you’re interested in how people keep making the same financial mistakes, might be worthwhile, but now I’m thinking I should read The Quants or something similar
    • 4/5
      Fun and scary at the same time. There are short stories from the history of finance scattered throughout, like the Medici, John Law and the Mississippi Company, and the Rothschilds. But much of the book is about the twentieth century, and much is necessarily a lesson in how finance works. I'm a little ignorant of finance and found it hard to follow in places. The discussion of inflation, which forms a large part of the book, is good. But the discussion of risk, once it goes beyond straightforward insurance, soon gets difficult to follow, mainly because it doesn't try to explain or hold your hand. I would not have followed much of the discussion on the global financial crisis if I had not read John Lanchester's "Whoops" recently.But it does shine in places, and he puts out some strong and controversial ideas towards the end - even if it is a popular book and he's being sensationalist, it's always good to see historians challenging themselves by trying to predict the future.
    • 5/5
      A reference book with great history and analysis. I highly recommend it to people interested in finance.
    • 3/5
      This is a nice survey of the world of finance. It's a collection of stories - lots of crashes, of course, starting with John Law in the 18th Century. We get to watch the Rothschilds get rich in the 19th Century. The timing of the book was a bit awkward - it seems he was writing in May of 2008. He did say that credit default swaps looked like a looming problem - itsn't that what brought down Lehman Brothers in October?The main problem with the book is that it doesn't have a thesis. It's a bunch of evidence that doesn't really go anywhere. The lack of evidence means that there is no real analysis of the evidence - there is no need to push down to the real nuts and bolts details. So the whole thing is a kind of broad brush survey without any solid substance.
    • 5/5
      I am a finance professional and I enjoyed the story telling and the research. This is a must read for everyone (irrespective of your profession).
    • 5/5
      I'm recommending we require all Eco/Fin majors by this and that we use chapters of it for all the appropriate classes. PBS has also made a documentary of it, so it'd be like using Commanding Heights.

      Ferguson is a professor of history and business administration at Harvard. The book is indeed a history of finance and a history of the (Western) world through the lens of financial evolution. Published mid-2008, it gives a great overview of how we got to our current financial crisis and similarities to previous crises.

      From the invention of fiat money causing the French Revolution, to microfinance combating poverty today, Ferguson does a great job tying everything together. In latter chapters he quotes (but also challenges) others I've read over the years, like Joe Stiglitz and Thomas Perkins. He also hails the merits of behavior finance and decries the "short-term capital mismanagement" of the quants at LTCM in the 90s.

      Superbly done. 4.5 stars out of 5.
    • 3/5
      Good book but light on the "history" and very much focused on banking, events, and money transaction in the 1900's, early 2000's and mostly the USA; what was included was interesting, such as the development of insurance... the insuring of ships and tradegoods in the 1600/1700s... and how that progressed to what we call insurance today. However, I thought there would be more history so, personally, I was disappointed... but overall it was probably a good book for those looking to understand the author's views of the events between about 1920-2008 that shaped the mostly-USA-oriented market. It *does* mention foreign markets but seemed to always be in relationship to the USA.
    • 3/5
      This book has left me more confused about the world of finance than I was before I read it. I enjoyed the descriptions of the beginning of the insurance industry and the role of Italy and France in early banking. But as for hedge funds, swaps, futures and modern finance, I'm confused.
    • 2/5
      Mediocre content, horribly bad writing.
    • 5/5
      Very good account of history and its impact on today financially
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      The best explanation of the history and development of finance and financial instruments I have read, making complex derivatives as easy to understand as compound interest. Particularly interesting in its explanation of how most important world events since the Renaissance have had origins in financial decisions (eg want to know why the Confederates lost the war? At least one of the reasons was the decline of the Cotton Bond) and how financial instruments have generally been a power for good - perhaps the most continuous driver of positive change. Ferguson writes in a down to earth style and seems to enjoy the smashing of shibolleths. Property the best bet? The figures don't back it up. Third world the cause of most financial problems? Generally its the UK and Europe that have caused most trouble. Financial modeling as the key to smooth flawless market predictions? Never underestimate the human capacity for delusion and stupidity. Highly recommended