Books like The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

01

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Michael Lewis · Economics

The Big Short is Michael Lewis's account of the 2008 financial crisis as seen through the eyes of a handful of contrarians who saw the collapse coming, bet against the American housing market, and were right.

Both dig into risk.

02

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

Peter L. Bernstein · History

Against the Gods is Peter Bernstein's intellectual history of how humanity learned to measure, quantify, and manage risk — a story he traces from ancient gambling in the Mediterranean through the development of modern probability theory, statistics, and financial derivatives.

Shares financial history and risk with The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World.

03

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson · Economics

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that the fundamental difference between rich and poor countries is not geography, culture, or bad luck.

A kindred economics read.

04

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari · History

Sapiens traces the full arc of human history from the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa roughly 70,000 years ago to the present.

A kindred economics read.

05

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Jared Diamond · Science

Guns, Germs, and Steel is Jared Diamond's attempt to answer a question posed to him by a Papua New Guinean politician named Yali: why did Europeans end up with so much cargo — wealth, technology, power — while other peoples had comparatively little?

A kindred economics read.

06

More Money Than God

Sebastian Mallaby · Economics

Sebastian Mallaby's history of hedge funds begins with Alfred Winslow Jones, who in 1949 invented the basic structure that still defines the industry: borrow money to buy what you think will go up, sell short what you think will go down, take a 20 percent cut of the profits.

Shares financial history and risk with The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World.

07

The End of Wall Street

Roger Lowenstein · Economics

The End of Wall Street is Roger Lowenstein's account of the 2008 financial crisis, from the early signs of trouble in the mortgage market through the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the government interventions, and the immediate aftermath.

Shares banking and risk with The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World.

08

The Price of Time

Edward Chancellor · History

The Price of Time is Edward Chancellor's history of interest rates — what they are, how they have been set, and what happens when they are persistently pushed below their natural level.

Shares financial history and risk with The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World.

09

Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity

ed. Michael Lewis · Economics

Panic is an anthology edited by Michael Lewis, collecting journalism, essays, and firsthand accounts about five major financial crises from 1987 to 2007: the Black Monday crash, the emerging markets panics of the 1990s, the Long-Term Capital Management collapse, the dot-com bust, and the early signals of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Both dig into risk.

10

The Misbehavior of Markets

Benoit Mandelbrot · Economics

Benoit Mandelbrot, the mathematician who discovered fractal geometry, spent decades arguing that standard financial theory systematically underestimates the riskiness of markets.

Both dig into risk.

11

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

Charles C. Mann · History

Where 1491 ends, 1493 begins.

Both dig into globalization.

12

America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve

Roger Lowenstein · History

The Federal Reserve was created in 1913, but the story of how it came into existence spans three decades and involves a level of political resistance, financial panic, and legislative maneuvering that makes the eventual outcome seem unlikely in retrospect.

Both dig into banking.