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Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of our financial system, from its genesis in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance. What?s more, Ferguson reveals financial history as the essential backstory behind all history, arguing that the evolution of credit and debt was as important as any technological innovation in the rise of civilization. As Ferguson traces the crisis from ancient Egypt?s Memphis to today?s Chongqing, he offers bold and compelling new insights into the rise? and fall?of not just money but Western power as well.
NIALL FERGUSON Author of THE WAR OF THE WORLD THE ASCENT OF MONEY A FINANCIAL HISTORY of THE WORLD U.S. $29.95 Canada $33.00 Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, it's the sinews of war. To revolu- tionaries, it's the chains of labor. But in The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress. What's more, he reveals financial history as the essential backstory behind all history. The evolution of credit and debt was as impor- tant as any technological innovation in the rise of civilization, from ancient Babylon to the silver mines of Bolivia. Banks provided the material basis for the splendors of the Italian Renaissance while the bond market was the decisive factor in conflicts from the Seven Years' War to the American Civil War. With the clarity and verve for which he is known, Ferguson explains why the origins of the French Revolution lie in a stock market bubble caused by a convicted Scots murderer. He shows how financial failure turned Argentina from the world's sixth richest country into an inflation- ridden basket case—and how a financial revolution is propelling the world's most populous country from poverty to power in a single generation. Yet the most important lesson of the financial history is that sooner or later every bubble bursts —sooner or later the bearish sellers outnumber the bullish buyers, sooner or later greed flips into fear. And that's why, whether you're scraping by or rolling in it, there's never been a better time to understand the ascent of money. 1108 Niall Ferguson is one of Britain's most renowned historians. He is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. The bestselling author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire, Colossus and The War of the World, he also writes regularly for newspapers and magazines all over the world. He has written and presented four highly successful television documentary series for Channel 4: Empire, American Colossus, The War of the World and, most recently, The Ascent of Money. He, his wife and three children divide their time between the United Kingdom and the United States. Jacket painting: Lais Corinthiaca, 1526 (oil on limewood), by Hans Holbein the Younger, Offentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel, Switzerland/The Bridgeman Art Library The Penguin Press A MEMBER OF PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC. 375 Hudson Street, New York, N.Y. 10014 www.penguin.com | Printed in U.S.A. Praise for THE WAR OF THE WORLD Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West "A heartbreaking, serious and thoughtful survey of human evil that is utterly fascinating and dramatic superb narrative history." —Simon Sebag Montefiore, The New York Times Book Review "Wielding at once the encyclopedic knowledge of an accomplished scholar and the engaging prose of a master storyteller, Ferguson commendably brings fresh insights to a history by now familiar A tour de force." —San Francisco Chronicle "A fascinating read, thanks to Ferguson's gifts as a writer of clear, energetic narrative history." —James F. Hodge, Jr., The Washington Post Praise for EMPIRE: How Britain Made the Modern World "Ferguson is a wonderfully fluent writer, weaving telling details and vivid anecdotes seamlessly into his narrative . . Sure to be a chilling assertion to both those in Washington eager to deny imperial ambitions and those in the Arab world suspicious of America's motives." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times 'Fluently written, engaging, beautifully designed and spectacularly illustrated Empire is a model of how to do popular history." —The Economist "An entertaining, engaging romp through four centuries of British imperialism." —Los Angeles Times ISBN 978-1-59420-192-9 The Ascent of Money ALSO BY NIALL FERGUSON Paper and Iron The House of Rothschild The Pity of War The Cash Nexus Empire Colossus The War of the World NIALL FERGUSON The Ascent of Money A Financial History of the World The Penguin Press New York 2008 THE PENGUIN PRESS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R oRL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R oRL, England First published in 2008 by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 123456789 10 Copyright © Niall Ferguson, 2008 All rights reserved ISBN 978-1-59420-192-9 Printed in the United States of America Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. 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Contents Introduction i 1 Dreams of Avarice 17 2 Of Human Bondage 65 3 Blowing Bubbles 119 4 The Return of Risk 176 5 Safe as Houses 230 6 From Empire to Chimerica 283 Afterword: The Descent of Money 341 Acknowledgements 359 Notes 363 List of Illustrations 399 Index 403 v [...]... date back as long ago as 600 BC and were found by archaeologists in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (near Izmir in modern-day Turkey) These ovular Lydian coins, which were made of the gold-silver alloy known as electrum and bore the image of a lion's head, were the forerunners of the Athenian tetradrachm, a standardized silver coin with the head of the goddess Athena on one side and an owl (associated... South America, the Inca Empire, was also moneyless The Incas appreciated the aesthetic qualities of rare metals Gold was the 'sweat of the sun', silver the 'tears of the moon' Labour was the unit of value in the Inca Empire, just as it was later supposed to be in a Communist society And, as under Communism, the economy depended on often harsh central plan ning and forced labour In 1 5 3 2 , however, the. .. of the relationships within it are non-linear, even chaotic The ascent of money has never been smooth, and each new challenge elicits a new response from the bankers and their ilk Like an Andean horizon, the history of finance is not a smooth upward curve but a series of jagged and irregular peaks and valleys Or, to vary the metaphor, financial history looks like a classic case of evolution in action,... dying' in the financial world - one of those mass extinctions of species that have occurred periodically, like the end-Cambrian extinction that killed off 90 per cent of Earth's species, or the Cretaceous-Tertiary catas trophe that wiped out the dinosaurs? It is a scenario that many biologists have reason to fear, as man-made climate change 14 INTRODUCTION wreaks havoc with natural habitats around the globe... globe But a great dying of financial institutions is also a scenario that we should worry about, as another man-made disaster works its way slowly and painfully through the global financial system For all these reasons, then - whether you are struggling to make ends meet or striving to be a master of the universe - it has never been more necessary to understand the ascent of money than it is today If this... developed and emer ging markets, turning China into America's banker - the Com munist creditor to the capitalist debtor, a change of epochal significance At times, the ascent of money has seemed inexorable In 2006 the measured economic output of the entire world was around $ 4 7 trillion The total market capitalization of the world' s stock markets was $ 5 1 trillion, 1 0 per cent larger The total value of. .. worth a potosi', is still a Spanish expression meaning to be worth a fortune Pizarro's conquest, it seemed, had made the Spanish crown rich beyond the dreams of avarice Money, it is conventional to argue, is a medium of exchange, which has the advantage of eliminating inefficiencies of barter; a unit of account, which facilitates valuation and calculation; and a store of value, which allows economic transactions... that so many people know today The evo lution of credit and debt was as important as any technological innovation in the rise of civilization, from ancient Babylon to present-day Hong Kong Banks and the bond market provided the material basis for the splendours of the Italian Renaissance Corporate finance was the indispensable foundation of both the Dutch and British empires, just as the triumph of. .. transactions to be con ducted over long periods as well as geographical distances T o perform all these functions optimally, money has to be available, 23 THE ASCENT OF MONEY affordable, durable, fungible, portable and reliable Because they fulfil most of these criteria, metals such as gold, silver and bronze were for millennia regarded as the ideal monetary raw material The earliest known coins date... of the United States in the twentieth century was inseparable from advances in insurance, mortgage finance and consumer credit Perhaps, too, it will be a financial crisis that signals the twilight of American global primacy Behind each great historical phenomenon there lies a financial secret, and this book sets out to illuminate the most important of these For example, the Renaissance created such a . NIALL FERGUSON Author of THE WAR OF THE WORLD THE ASCENT OF MONEY A FINANCIAL HISTORY of THE WORLD U.S. $29.95 Canada $33.00 Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot: Call it what. The Cash Nexus Empire Colossus The War of the World NIALL FERGUSON The Ascent of Money A Financial History of the World The Penguin Press New York 2008 THE PENGUIN PRESS. Ecuador and Guatemala; Angola, Syria and Tunisia. The bank's total assets for the first time passed the $i trillion mark. 3 Yet Lloyd Blankfein is far from being the financial world& apos;s