Customer Reviews

A History of Money: From Ancient Times to the Present Day

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This is one of my favorite books related to history and economics.

The former Professor Davies has given us a wonderful collection of stories about the original forms of money used and the evolution of money and financial institutions. This is a book that will appeal to a historian, anyone working in the financial sector, anyone interested in economic development or the development of economic and business institutions.

My favorites are the stories about primitive, commodity money, such as giant stones way too big to pack around or exotic teeth! My second favorite stories are those of the Goldsmiths of Engand, who were the first commercial bankers in western Europe. I encourage you to read this book and find your own favorite chapters.

This history of money is very thorough and detailed. There are good pages on Ancient Greece and Rome which are very interesting and rarely found in similar studies. Yet I found the book disappointing and rather pedestrian, hiding the forest behind the trees. It is very descriptive, with a lot of material about the development of banking regulations, which I found a bit boring. It's also very Anglo-centric: more than half the book is dedicated to British banking and monetary history.

For a "big picture" yet very clear history of money, I found Galbraith's book "Money, whence it came and where it went" much, much better - and much shorter. I also recommend "the Great Wave" by David Hackett Fischer, which, although not as rigorous, is a fascinating read.

Almost all English-language books on the history of money are extremely eurocentric. They are written as if the world outside of western Europe did not have an economy before Europeans colonized it. As far as I know, Glyn Davies has written the only monetary history book that dedicates more than a few token pages to non-Western and pre-modern economic history. It is perhaps the only book on the history of money with a truly global scope.