The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World » (Large Print)

Niall Ferguson 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. He is the bestselling author of "The House of Rothschild" and "Colossus,"

SIMON PREBBLES, a British-born performer of considerable talent and experience, has built a successful career that spans the Atlantic. As a stage and television actor he has played in everything from soaps to Shakespeare, but it is as a veteran narrator of some 275 audio book titles that he has made his mark since coming to the U.S. in 1990. "Audiofile" magazine has named him a 'Golden Voices' and in 2004 he was named "Narrator of the Year" by " Publishers Weekly. He lives with his wife in New York.

Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance.

The Barnes & Noble Review

Money, says the song, makes the world go round. It can also threaten to stop it. Thus, a book that explains the origin and growth of money, banks, stock markets, and the exotic growth of the financial instruments and institutions that often bewilder even those who live by them, is a valuable thing. Despite the fact that Niall Ferguson finished writing The Ascent of Money in the late spring of 2008, while the international financial crisis was still gathering momentum, this is a highly relevant book. Not the least of its merits is that Ferguson shows how alert he was to the possibilities for disaster inherent in the loose credit and securitization of bad debt from which so much money was made before the crisis unfolded. His was an alertness made possible by a grasp of history; Ferguson thereby vindicates the utility as well as the beauty of his craft.

Introduction 1

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

Notes 363

List of Illustrations 399

Index 403