mondojohnson

Niall Ferguson is a heavyweight historian, probably the best in my generational cohort (not that I can rattle off any others)… he wrote “The War of the World” and the opus “Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World”.

In “The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World” he turns his attention to the story of money and financial markets, from the days of clay tablets to the subprime lending crisis. He manages to do it very coherently in under 500 pages by demonstrating the inextricable relationship between financial evolution and social progress.

I know what you’re thinking: sounds like libertarian, Reaganomic religion: markets cure everything! But that is most definitely not Ferguson’s thesis, which is far more subtle and meta-political. Human civilization has undeniably benefited from the creation of abstractions such as credit, risk management and joint stock — and it has also suffered from the misuse or miscalculation of those technologies. Ferguson doesn’t deny that; he doesn’t have a political ax to grind.

I’d recommend this book for the financially semi-literate, like myself. If he could break it down for me, I’m sure he could for you.

Modern-day Iraq was pretty much invented by Winston Churchill after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

This is very informative, relevant and entertaining. Particularly interesting is the exploration of the “Lawrence of Arabia” myth… his autobiography is hugely embroidered, which I didn’t know. (Not surprising… to paraphrase Bart Simpson, “no offense, but what [I] don’t know could fill a warehouse….”) He was also a big sissy who was into Arab men; I can relate.

I finally got around to reading this, after meaning to for quite some time. It lives up to the hype: it is a truly sweeping account of how humans populated the globe and why some fared better than others.