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The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World: 10th Anniversary Edition Paperback – October 27, 2009

by Niall Ferguson (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 2,419 ratings
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The 10th anniversary edition, with new chapters on the crash, Chimerica, and cryptocurrency

"[An] excellent, just in time guide to the history of finance and financial crisis." —The Washington Post

"Fascinating." —Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek

In this updated edition, Niall Ferguson brings his classic financial history of the world up to the present day, tackling the populist backlash that followed the 2008 crisis, the descent of "Chimerica" into a trade war, and the advent of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, with his signature clarity and expert lens.
 
The Ascent of Money reveals finance as the backbone of history, casting a new light on familiar events: the Renaissance enabled by Italian foreign exchange dealers, the French Revolution traced back to a stock market bubble, the 2008 crisis traced from America's bankruptcy capital, Memphis, to China's boomtown, Chongqing. We may resent the plutocrats of Wall Street but, as Ferguson argues, the evolution of finance has rivaled the importance of any technological innovation in the rise of civilization. Indeed, to study the ascent and descent of money is to study the rise and fall of Western power itself.
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  1. Print length
    496 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Penguin Books
  4. Publication date
    October 27, 2009
  5. Dimensions
    5.44 x 1.09 x 8.43 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0143116177
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0143116172
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Before regulators throw block trades, bond swaps, bridge financing, butterfly spreads and Black-Scholes out with the bathwater, they should find time to read Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money." —The Wall Street Journal

"[An] excellent, just in time guide to the history of finance and financial crisis." —The Washington Post

"Shrewdly anticipates many aspects of the current financial crisis, which has toppled banks, precipitated gigantic government bailouts and upended global markets." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Fascinating." —Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek

"Good old-fashioned narrative history, complete with heroes and villains, visionaries and scoundrels." —James Pressley, Bloomberg

About the Author

Niall Ferguson is one of the world's most renowned historians. He is the author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire, Colossus, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, High Financier, Civilization, The Great Degeneration, Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, and The Square and the Tower. He is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. His many awards include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013).

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books (October 27, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 496 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0143116177
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0143116172
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.44 x 1.09 x 8.43 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 2,419 ratings

About the author

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Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson

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Niall Ferguson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, former Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and current senior fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and founder and managing director of advisory firm Greenmantle LLC. The author of 15 books, Ferguson is writing a life of Henry Kissinger, the first volume of which—Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist—was published in 2015 to critical acclaim. The World's Banker: The History of the House of Rothschild won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History. Other titles include Civilization: The West and the Rest, The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die and High Financier: The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg. Ferguson's six-part PBS television series, "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World," based on his best-seller, won an International Emmy for best documentary in 2009. Civilization was also made into a documentary series. Ferguson is a recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Service as well as other honors. His most recent book is The Square and the Tower: Networks on Power from the Freemasons to Facebook (2018).

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
2,419 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the book incredibly informative and illuminating. They also say it's concise, full of fascinating details, and lighter in tone. Readers also mention that the author weaves interesting stories into the mix and provides a humorous perspective.

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ContentReadabilityEnjoyabilityPacing
120 customers mention "Content"102 positive18 negative

Customers find the book incredibly informative, with encyclopedia-like knowledge of financial history. They also describe the author as a very polished pop historian, and say the book provides the best introductory text on the history of money and war. Readers also appreciate the insightful analogy between biological evolution and human societies. They say the content is fun and easy to read for the layman, and starts with the initial development of money.

"...Namely his good and insightful analogy between biological evolution (Darwinian) and human societies. Yes, they are related...." Read more

"...details, and if you don't know anything about finance, it's incredibly informative...." Read more

"...The book is targeted at the layman, and it is a fun and easy read for someone with no financial background at all...." Read more

"The historical perspective was good, not the recent analysis. It felt like two books and the second half was a meandering stream of thoughts." Read more

103 customers mention "Readability"83 positive20 negative

Customers find the book concise, giving a good to the point overview. They also say the research and detail are extraordinary. Readers also mention that the book contains material that goes into more depth.

"...this is a small flaw in an otherwise very impressive and perfectly comprehensive summary of where money comes from and why understanding its ascent..." Read more

"...up the broad sweep of history with easy terms and lots of facts to portray a clear picture...." Read more

"...The Ascent of Money is full of fascinating details, and if you don't know anything about finance, it's incredibly informative...." Read more

"...history of finance than nowadays, and fortunately we have this clearly written and fascinating but scholarly work by Niall Ferguson...." Read more

70 customers mention "Enjoyability"66 positive4 negative

Customers find the book interesting, insightful, and entertaining. They also say the author is good at story telling and provides a humorous perspective.

"...The last chapter is insightful and informative, as is all his chapters...." Read more

"...this way, but each is told in fascinating detail and with a lively anecdotal wit that keep the subject from getting anywhere near the tedious mark...." Read more

"...of finances through the perspective of events and history was quite entertaining...." Read more

"...The book succeeds as a historical narrative and does not lay claim to technical economic exposition...." Read more

9 customers mention "Pacing"6 positive3 negative

Customers are mixed about the pacing of the book. Some find it very readable and timely, while others say the timing of the publication is unfortunate.

"Brilliant discussion and pacing...." Read more

"...Well timing of the publication is unfortunate...." Read more

"...Pleasantly written and fast moving without an over-burden of detail...." Read more

"AS POSTED, GOOD PRICE, FAST SHIPPING, GOOD WRAPPING: RECOMMENDED." Read more

Horrible product - just a scan version and difficult to read
1 Star
Horrible product - just a scan version and difficult to read
This product is not readable, I can’t return it. And definitely a fraud on my money
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Top reviews from the United States

David Keirsey
5.0 out of 5 stars Only the educated are free
Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2008
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Only the educated are free -- Epictetus

I think if your interested in how the world has worked, does work, and will work, you would benefit from reading this book. Ferguson has taken advantage some of his excellent previous work (e.g., The House of Rothschild, The Cash Nexus, Colossus, Empire) and created a well written account of the history of "money" - in all of its forms, from ancient times to May 2008 (hardback version).

I particularly like his dividing up of the subject in logical chapters: Chapter one is all about "cash"; Chapter two is "bonds"; Chapter three is "stocks"; Chapter four is "insurance"; Chapter five is "property"; Chapter six is about "currency" and (globalization and deglobalization). The last chapter is more about human and societal nature. The last chapter is insightful and informative, as is all his chapters.

So obviously I recommend the book, but since I doubt I can contact Dr. Ferguson personally, I will take this forum to quibble about some fine points that he does not realize he is unaware of. Namely his good and insightful analogy between biological evolution (Darwinian) and human societies. Yes, they are related. Actually, there is more here than meets the eye. Ferguson acknowledges that societal evolution is similar but not the same as Darwinian eucaryotic evolution. His comparison is pretty good. But there is Lynn Margulis' work at the procaryotic world (e.g., Mergers & Acquistions in societal terms) that one can use to understand a broader view of biological evolution, which has relevance to the standard neo-Darwinian dogma of Dawkins and Gould AND societal evolution at the corporate level (and the web) that Dr. Ferguson outlines so well in his book.

Otherwise it is a great read.
11 people found this helpful
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The Garden Interior
4.0 out of 5 stars Where Does Money Come From?
Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2014
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Where does money come from? Like many of the fundamental building blocks of civilization – agriculture, writing, numbers, commerce – it turns out that it comes from Mesopotamia. Around 5,000 years ago, transactions were recorded there on clay tablets, which were the earliest forms of money known to human civilization. This according to Niall Ferguson, the justly celebrated, English-educated Harvard history professor.

The world’s first coins were minted in the Greek empire in what is now Turkey, about 2,600 years ago. As it happens, as I write this, I have a 2,300-year-old Greek silver coin that I wear around my neck. It has a bee on the obverse and a deer on the reverse. It was minted at Ephesus in Anatolia 300 years before the Apostle John lived there and wrote his world-changing Gospel. Money has ancient roots and its rise is inextricably intertwined with the rise of human civilization, and Prof. Ferguson explores the entire grand story in this compelling, engaging and superbly readable history.

Ferguson has a remarkable and rare ability to take a difficult and even abstruse subject like the history of money and make it fascinatingly intelligible, even entertaining. This impressive book began life as a television series for Channel 4 in the UK and on PBS in the U.S. It draws to a close as the appalling Great Recession of 2008 is getting under way in earnest, a coincidence that underscores why understanding money and how it flows through the tissues and sinews of the global economy, is time well spent and of the first importance.

Ferguson begins with the earliest forms of money and the origins of banking, then moves on to bonds and the creation of debt structures. After that comes a fascinating chapter on bubbles and on the rise of insurance to ameliorate risk. These are followed by chapters on real estate and the massive modern globalization trends that have created the bipolar financial world that he calls Chimerica, organized around the enormous economies of China and the US. It sounds rather dry to list the chapter topics this way, but each is told in fascinating detail and with a lively anecdotal wit that keep the subject from getting anywhere near the tedious mark. One criticism: Ferguson’s afterword should have been an opportunity for a brilliant look-back on the financial crisis of 2008, but instead it is a rather rambling discourse on whether markets are truly evolutionary. It lacks the acuity and clarity of the rest of the book and would better have been left out, I thought. But this is a small flaw in an otherwise very impressive and perfectly comprehensive summary of where money comes from and why understanding its ascent is important to each one of us.
6 people found this helpful
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Papuna Papiashvili
5.0 out of 5 stars liked it a lot
Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2015
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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 do business;
- The intangible character of the most money today is perhaps the best evidence of its true nature;
- Money is not metal, it is trust inscribed. And it does not seem to matter much where it is inscribed on silver, on clay, on paper, on a liquid crystal display;
- World’s most successful capitalist economy seems to be built on a foundation of easy economic failure;
- Bankruptcy, unalienable right almost on a par with life, liberty and pursuit of happiness - today’s bankrupt tomorrow’s successful entrepreneur; (Ford)
- BONDS-The ability to finance war through a market for government debt was, like so much else in financial history and invention of Italian Renaissance;
- M. Friedman: inflation is monetary phenomenon, but hyperinflation is always political;
- The highest recorded inflation rate in history was in Hungary in July 1946 when increased by 4.19 quintillion per cent (419 followed by sixteen zeros);
- On Argentina’s default-many economists left to ponder why any sovereign debtor ever honours its commitments to foreign bondholders;
- About stocks- in essence, the price people are prepared to pay for a piece of a company tells you how much money they think the company will make in the future;
- Stock markets are mirrors of human psyche – like homo sapiens, they can become depressed. They can suffer complete breakdown. Yet hope or is it amnesia? 0 always seems able to triumph over such bad experiences.
- The returns on stocks are less predictable and more volatile then the return on bonds and bills – superior return on stocks an equity risk premium;
- If stock markets followed normal distribution or bell curve an annual drop of 10 per cent or more would happen only once every 500 years, whereas on the Dow Jones it happened once very five years;
- Case of Mississippi company and Enron-the resemblance between John Law and Kenneth Lay;
- In 70s British welfare state it seemed had removed incentives without which capitalist society could not function: the carrot of serious money for those who strove and the stick of hardship for those who slack;
- Financial revolution has divided the world in two: those who are hedged and who are not (property, pension and insurance are bet on one market; you don’t want to leave in New Orleans in 2006);
- Property no matter how much you own is a security only to the person who lends you money-the land cant run away. As the case of Duke Buckingham proved in modern world regular income mattered more than inherited titles despite the acres;
- The story of creation of fennie mae and Freddie mac – FD Roosevelt – how he pioneered the idea of property owning democracy – good antidote for red revolution;
- The concept of mortgage backed securities know as collateralized mortgage obligation – dawn of new era in American financial history 1983
- In securitized market just like in space no one can hear you; as the interest you pay most likely goes to someone who has no idea you exist;
- S&P and FTSE would make seven fold your investments in 20 years, when putting 100k in US on 4k, or property market would only triple – but you cant live inside a stock market index;
- There are at least three considerations to take into mind when comparing housing with other forms of capital asset;
- No income no job or asset – NINJA clients;
- Signs of trouble since February 2007 when HSBC admitted heave losses on US mortgages – subprime butterfly had flipped its wings and triggered a global hurricane;
- 2008 proves houses are not a uniquely safe investment;
- Real security comes from a steady income;
- Key to financial security is a properly diversified portfolio;
- House bubble – irrational exuberance about the bricks and mortar and the capital gains they could yield;
- Market: It’s not present expectations that correspond to future events but future events that are shaped by the present expectations;
- In crises markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent;
- Kahnmeman and Tversky – risk aversion for positive prospects and risk seeking for negative ones – a lost has about two and a half time the impact of a gain of the same magnitude;
- We buy promises by paying with promises for them;
- Taking evolutionary view of finance – size does not matter much in finance as in nature (for survival);
- Basel I and Basel II rules;
- Hedge funds are Galapagos islands of finance.
23 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Humberto M.
5.0 out of 5 stars Verdaderamente excelente
Reviewed in Mexico on May 20, 2022
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Como cultura general se me hizo un libro maravilloso. Lo único que debo decir es que si no saben de finanzas, se les va a hacer muy complejo el libro. No es que sea técnico, pero si necesitas unas buenas bases, sobre todo si no eres estadounidense. A mí me gusto bastante.
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Davide Aresu
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, insightful.
Reviewed in Italy on August 18, 2021
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Really good book, though it could be a little shorter
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Cliente Kindle
5.0 out of 5 stars Mais atual do que nunca
Reviewed in Brazil on June 20, 2020
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Nada mais imperfeito e instável quanto a moeda; o humano, também.
Niall Ferguson, sempre extremamente esclarecedor, nos ilustra um quadro de que a moeda veio para ficar, e nada mais natural do que choques financeiros.
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Manel C.
5.0 out of 5 stars Magnífico viaje por la historia del mundo financiero
Reviewed in Spain on September 29, 2017
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Magnífico viaje por la historia del mundo financiero, desde una perspectiva distinta a la económica tradicional. Explicaciones claras y amenas. Lectura más que recomendable.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Educational and easy to read
Reviewed in Australia on January 27, 2023
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Need to be financial educated to protect your wealth
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