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What it argues
Niall Ferguson published The Ascent of Money in 2008, with timing that turned out to be acute: the book appeared just as the global financial crisis was unfolding, making its subject matter suddenly urgent for readers who had barely thought about the mechanics of credit default swaps or mortgage securitization. The book is a history of financial innovation from ancient Babylon through the Renaissance, the birth of the bond market, the rise of stock companies, the insurance industry, the real estate market, and finally the globalized derivatives markets of the early twenty-first century.
Ferguson's argument is that financial history is not peripheral to human history but central to it. Wars are fought with money; empires are maintained with bond markets; political power follows financial power. The Medicis rose to prominence as bankers; the British Empire was financed through the most sophisticated sovereign bond market of its era; the United States Federal Reserve's actions in 2007–2008 reflected the institutional architecture laid down by earlier financial crises. Understanding the financial system is, on this account, essential to understanding how the modern world came to be.
What it gets right
- 1.
Financial history is central to world history: wars, empires, and revolutions have all been shaped by the capacity to raise, borrow, and deploy capital.
- 2.
Credit preceded coinage: the first financial instruments were Mesopotamian clay tablets recording debts in grain, antedating metal money by centuries.
- 3.
Bond markets transferred risk from individual investors to the state and then to global markets, enabling governments to fight wars and fund infrastructure at scales previously impossible.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Niall Ferguson is a British historian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is the author of more than a dozen books on economic and financial history, including The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire, Colossus, and Civilization. He also writes and presents documentary television series, several of which have accompanied his books. Ferguson is known for a willingness to engage with counterfactual history and for bringing financial and economic analysis to bear on political and military history. The Ascent of Money accompanied a major Channel 4 and PBS television documentary series of the same name.
