The Ascent of Money: A Comprehensive Look at Financial History Around the Globe

Sahil Srivastava: Most of the book is good, giving interesting information and shedding light upon the history of finance, various instruments etc, but towards the end, the chapters are full of excessive minutia and jargon about the 2008 financial crisis.

Canada on Oct 26, 2023

Papuna Papiashvili: Learning of finances through the perspective of events and history was quite entertaining. Although, the title rhymed like well-known ascent of man in essence I don’t have much to complain on this book. The only disappointment it went to publishing house in May 2008, pretty much has changed since then. So below I’ll list down some of the passages I found most noteworthy:
- Despite deeply rooted prejudice against the filthy lucre, money is the root of most progress – the ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man;
- If last 4 millennia witnessed the ascent of man the thinker, it seems we are living through the ascent of man the banker;
- Within medieval Spain abundance of silver also acted as a resource curse, like the abundant oil of Arabia, Nigeria, Persia, Russia and Venezuela of own time, removing the incentives for more productive economic activity, while at the same time strengthening rent-seeking autocrats at the expense of representative assemblies
- Money is worth only what someone else is willing to give you for it
- When human being started making records of their activities they did so not to write history, poetry or philosophy, but to...

United States on Aug 03, 2015

Mr. Stephen Parkin: Another interesting book from Mr Ferguson. I find myself disagreeing with some of his views.
I would point out the following .. p.85 has the German Jew, Nathan Rothschild , make the equivalent sum of £600 million in 1815 manipulating government bonds. P.319 has the Hungarian Jew, George Soros, making $1 billion by betting against Sterling.

Note that neither of these schemes produced one single penny of extra output, not one loaf of bread or pair of shoes.
These as with other schemes ,or should that be scams, such as derivatives or sub-prime bundles seem to be designed to suck money from the pockets of the many into the pockets of the few and of no benefit to society.

P.101 "Inflation,(wrote Milton Friedman, in a famous definition) is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it cannot occur without a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output."

The Nobel Prize committee has overlooked my paper on nonsense written by high-ranking academics, but I can think of at least three examples of inflation without any increase in the quantity of money.

1/ A cartel such as OPEC quadrupling the price of petroleum.
2/...

United Kingdom on May 20, 2014

Nicholas Casley: "Are you angry that the world is so unfair?" Thus asks Niall Ferguson at the beginning of his "financial history of the world" in six chapters. Normally, the hardback is bought instead of the paperback (if only so that I can more easily insert suitable press cuttings), but this is a review (written in May 2010) of the updated 2009 paperback edition. The paperback takes a little into account of the dramatic events that took place in the world's financial markets after the 2008 hardback was published. Ferguson believes that, "today's crisis is in some measure to be explained by ignorance of financial history - and not only among ordinary people" like you and me. Ferguson writes that, "One purpose of this book ... is to offer the lay reader an introduction to finance and, in particular, to financial history." Its chapters mirror but expand upon the content of the accompanying TV series.

In his introduction, Ferguson soon employs those witty turns of phrase that mark him out as a historian who has the power to communicate his ideas directly, although some of these phrases do border on the artificially contrived, such as "money is the root of most progress", and "the ascent of...

United Kingdom on May 31, 2010

Dmitriy Yermolayev: Niall Ferguson's "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World" provides one with the framework necessary to develop a sound understanding of money and capital markets. The release of the book in early 2008 was particularly timely, as the global financial crisis was gaining momentum.

Ferguson takes the reader though nearly 4000 years of relevant financial history. Each chapter is dedicated to the development of various financial tools and instruments, including: fiat money, credit, bonds, equity, insurance and real estate. He then proceeds to describe the meaning behind modern day buzz words, such as hedge funds, globalization, and computer investment models.

Again, the author's background in history leads one to believe that knowledge of financial history is necessary in order to avoid a financial crisis. Ferguson reaffirms this point by stating: "[t]o put it bluntly, the Nobel Prize winners had known plenty of mathematics, but not enough history."

To build on this, one can conclude that the efficient markets hypothesis did indeed fail to explain what history has shown in the past, simply put: all bubbles burst. The markets and rational investors...

United States on May 18, 2010

Serghiou Const: This reviewer does not challenge the sparkling intellect, erudition, and lucid writing of the author or the fact that he has produced a book that is as charming as it is informative and insightful. What he challenges is something hinted at but not elaborated by other reviewers namely the claim by the author to assign PARITY between Technological and Financial Innovation in their contribution to wealth creation. This claim is clearly unsustainable. It is not coincidental that all landmarks in the 'ascent of man' from the stone age to information technology and the internet are defined in technological, not financial terms.

Having commented at the beginning of this review on the quality of the book and the intellect of its author, in the ensuing I shall comment on its substance and on a couple of significant elements that emerge from the book considered in its totality.

The author takes as a point of departure the present financial crisis which he reviews until the middle of 2008 when he completed his search. He correctly attributes its basis on subprime mortgages and then spreading on other sectors of the American Economy driving it to recession and speculating that...

United Kingdom on Jan 26, 2009

therealus: Niall Ferguson again here brings us a history that is informative, entertaining and sobering. Being published in the midst of a global economic meltdown, for a book such as this, is a mixed blessing, as a step too far on the bearish side may make the author look like a doommonger, whilst being even slightly bullish might look blinkered. Ferguson, though, seems to manage to pull it off, though that equally is a spot evaluation. However, though it's clear where his loyalties lie in the pro/anti capitalism debate, the balance of the narrative tends nevertheless towards the various shocks delivered to the system rather than towards the prosperity delivered, albeit still strictly speaking to a relative minority of humanity, by markets and their lubricant, money.

As it turned out, some of the ground covered was familiar territory to me, bringing together strands of other books I've read recently, including Findlay and O'Rourke's Power And Plenty, Bentley's A Book Of Numbers, Schama's The American Future and even Lonely Planet Andalucia.

But some of it was new. He gives the origins of ghetto (a geto was a casting, and the original ghetto was in Venice's foundry district);...

United Kingdom on Dec 28, 2008