The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World.
This was a hard book to get into, the early pages on how banks came about were interesting, but as soon as the calculator came out and interest and returns were discussed, I found myself re-reading a lot to get even an idea of what it was about. The authour does a good turn in explaining these concepts to the mathematically challenged such as myself, but it's understanding the flow on effect where you get the benefit.
Like in Freakonomics where Economic Theory is applied to events and society, this is the same concept but with actual Economics. So applying Economic Theory to Economics is actually boring to me. Where's that irony gone again?
The historical nature of the book is fascinating and if you don't have an appreciation for how religions of all ilks have stuffed up our past, just look into the reason why money lenders were Jewish. Christians could not charge interest, because God said not too, but they could work with the Jews lending because they were all doomed to hell anyway. Well I'm paraphrasing, but essentially a difference in religious beliefs leads to a dominance for one side, which leads to racist views on Jewish people because of adherence to the firsts sides "christian" principle. Boggles the mind.
As the history accelerates to the last 200 years or so the pictures come together and tread familiar territory. World Wars, bonds, stock market crashes are all explained quite well in terms of Bubble/Burst/Bubble cycles and the book comes right up to the beginning of the GFC. Not the first, certainly not the last.
Also Globalisation was just as big in the late 19th century as it is today (albeit slower to move) but again, cycles turned it around and it's on the way back in again at least for a while.
An interesting read if you can get past the first quarter or so of the book.
Next Week: either a book about food, a book about boffins or something as yet unknown...
No comments:
Post a Comment