The Ascent of Money

A Financial History of the World

By: Niall Ferguson

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: 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 revolutionaries, 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 back story behind all history.

Through Ferguson's expert lens familiar historical landmarks appear in a new and sharper financial focus. Suddenly, the civilization of the Renaissance looks very different: a boom in the market for art and architecture made possible when Italian bankers adopted Arabic mathematics. The rise of the Dutch republic is reinterpreted as the triumph of the world's first modern bond market over insolvent Habsburg absolutism. And the origins of the French Revolution are traced back to a stock market bubble caused by a convicted Scot murderer.

©2008 Niall Ferguson (P)2008 Tantor

A worthy use of a credit

This book is timely and packed with information. The author puts our current "situation" in a historical context that proves very illuminating. I will be re-listening to the whole thing.

A must read for anyone interested Money

Any additional comments?

This book could be named How Money Impacts History or Money is the root of Everything. Niall does a good job of taking the reader through history using many smaller sub stories. There are so many great insights on what money actually is, how it can be used, and how its invention is tied directly to the advancement of the human race.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the study of finances, history, or culture.

teaching moments

I learned much from this book! even with a graduate degree in finance, Ferguson helped me pull together many concepts and provided an integrated understanding.

Hoooston...

Two issues. One, it is 10 years old, and therefore dated in spots.

Second, it’s Houston not Hoooston, and apparently exogenous is pronounced completely differently by British folks. Lots of names and places pronounced funny.

Overall good, though a novice might have trouble separating opinion from fact. Worth the listen.

Fascinating but a slow start

A good history of finance. The author does a good job of using unique stories to demonstrate his overarching theme of how financial cycles have played out across history. The book starts slow and is a bit technical for an audio book. However the pace picks up as he approaches 2008. The book is only improved by hindsight and I wish he could add another chapter to cover the last 7years.

Fresh Perspective

Would you listen to The Ascent of Money again? Why?

This book quickly shows you that the real wizard behind the curtain is the world of finance. It explains and exposes why countries failed and succeeded, and how simple financial incentives have changed the course of human history. I would love to listen to this book again to better understand the lessons it has to teach.

Economics Can Be Interesting

Any additional comments?

It is not possible to understand Economics without understanding money. This book is a great place to start. And Niall Ferguson makes it interesting too!

An informative survey

Would you consider the audio edition of The Ascent of Money to be better than the print version?

No, because I found the reader unsatisfactory. However, with a different reader, I might prefer the audio edition.

What did you like best about this story?

It covers a large number of subjects, many vital and interesting. Unlike certain reviewers, I enjoyed hearing even about events that are familiar, such as the Enron fraud, because my memory is far from perfect and I always find new information I had ignored.

How could the performance have been better?

Could have been much better. I have trouble with Prebble's voice that lacks resonance and sounds muffled (at least on my Bose Soundlink), and also with his clip but too matter of fact way of reading. His British accent (something I don't mind in other readers) adds to rendering certain words hard to understand.

Any additional comments?

One constant frustration is that this book was written shortly before the 2008 financial debacle and I am always wanting to know what the author would say today. This is one book that I think would benefit much from a second edition.On the other hand, just on the basis of what Ferguson wrote, the 2008 collapse could have been anticipated (at least with hindsight). I actually believe that if I had read this book say in June of 2008, I would have been sufficiently alarmed to take some steps to cut losses (at the time I took no interest in financial matters and had never heard of subprime mortgages, a topic Ferguson covers well considering that he was writing in 2007). It makes it even more incomprehensible that not more people (I mean those involved in finances) were aware of the danger. Though Ferguson takes a largely objective and politically unbiased view, the information he gives does seem to support in part something like 'The Trillion Dollar Conspiracy' (I have little affinity for conspiracy theories, yet cannot deny some of the evidence marshaled by Marrs and others).A book that provides a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of money is Divid Graebber's Debt: The First 5000 Years. A truly great book.

Good but would be better to actually read it

This is a good overview of the history and evolution of money, banking and finance. I think it would be better as a book to read. Some of the material is a little dry even for someone like me who is fascinated by finance. The book is a little out of date and was written just as the recession of 2008 was beginning to emerge so some of the discussion seems be missing content had it been written post-2010 or so. If you are interested in this type of material, I definitely recommend it, but I would suggest you read it rather than listen.

Historical Lessons

Coupled with books like:

The History of Centralized Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind

The House of Rothschild

You see a deeper perspective of the current economical environment that has been building (or culminating) to this point since the late 1800s.