Customer Reviews

The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations that Created Modern Capital Markets

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This book is a kind of compilation of 20 chapters written by a number of different writers with each one being an expert in the time frame which they covered. The book was very informative about when and where in the world people started using money and financing to transact business. Starting in Mesopotamia with the first known transaction with interest around 1820BC. Then moving on through the Roman Empire and the first annuities to the first use of paper currency by the Chinese around 960AD. The origins of stocks and bonds are also covered along with many interesting facts about the fiancing that took place during the Revolutionary War. There is about 4,000 years of economic history represented in this book which a person interested in economics and history will find an interesting read.

William Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhort have provide readers with a most wonderful work. Though clearly a wonderful coffee table book, I had to remove it from there due to IT becoming the center of attention in the room. The content is completely well done with beautiful photos and flowing prose. For those interested in gaining a keener understanding of how value developed as the economic force we all contend with today, take a look at this great work! Very well done indeed!

The book details several particular financial instruments of note during the history of civilization and explains the importance of each one to the evolution of finance in general. The concept of interest, the (unfortunate) discovery of inflation, paper money, bonds, and stocks are covered. It's really an interesting read, though the history isn't entirely linear. I think the emphasis was on the advent of particular financial innovations more than just a straight story along a specific timeline.

This beautifully illustrated coffee table book takes readers on a journey through the history of finance, with scenic stops to view the details of Babylonian loan agreements, the calligraphy of Chinese contracts, the currencies of John Law and even King Leopold II's deathbed marriage to a prostitute. Numerous experts, including Niall Ferguson and Robert J. Shiller, contributed individual essays, so the style and general quality of the text varies from chapter to chapter. The cohesion of the overall content is to the credit of editors William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst. Currency-related art and photographs (more varied and noteworthy than you may think) dominates this cross section of financial history from the ancient Sumerians to the Silk Road to Versailles. getAbstract recommends this attractive volume to those interested in financial history and to any bank or brokerage that wants just the right book for visitors to peruse while waiting in the lobby.