The American Civil War, for example, provides an education in government bonds and their crucial role in warfare. Along with money came debt, stocks, bonds, credit, insurance, and derivatives, which all get their due in “Ascent of Money.”įerguson ranges far and wide, uncovering monetary lessons from throughout the course of human history. They just found brutal ways of getting other people to cooperate with their wants and needs, relying on clubs instead of credit cards.Įnter money – ocean shells, clay tokens, coins, greenbacks and, eventually, the invisible virtual cash that lines our bank accounts today. But hunter-gatherers did not necessarily live happily ever after. In the beginning, Ferguson explains, there was no money. Yet despite occasional tough sledding, “The Ascent of Money” is an enjoyable read, thanks to Ferguson’s personable and perceptive voice and his keen ability to link the past to the present and vice versa. “The Ascent of Money” is not always easy reading.įerguson deftly intertwines the history of money with the story of human progress, profiling extraordinary personalities along the way, but there are places where even readers with some financial background may have trouble navigating the complicated explanations of monetary topics. Two-thirds of Americans, for instance, don’t understand how compound interest works, and just 14 percent of high school seniors knew that stocks are more likely than government bonds to make more money over 18 years. These ideas aren’t entirely original, but bestselling Scottish historian Niall Ferguson gives them new life in The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, an engaging and convincing exploration of humankind’s love affair with lucre, filthy and otherwise.įerguson’s goal is to educate a general audience in a world where many people are clueless about finances. And one more: The biggest fault of our financial system is not in the institutions, but in ourselves. Here’s another: The trouble with poor people is that they don’t have enough banks. Now there’s something you don’t hear every day outside the confines of Wall Street.

The ascent of money book