The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

Riveting read for anyone interested in finance and history (or best both!).

Misses out on 5* due to unfortunate dating (paperback updates written in 2008, bang in the middle of the greatest financial storm in 90 years) and a Eurocentric narrative.

The book builds around a solid thesis that neither finance (nor the Washington consensus) are the bad guys, rather a lack of them that causes a stunting of development (broadly speaking). The latter point especially is part if the reason of condemnation from those of a leftish flavour. I recall a lot of it in the blogosphere and newspapers around publication and the accompanying TV series. It is clear why he became associated with more rightwing perspectives, praising Milton Friedman effusively, though I see no political agenda, just historical reasoning - Keynes is also praised and commended consistently. He is balanced and informative on historical welfare state comparisons in particular (Japan, Germany, US, UK).

To be clear the actions of Pinochet are condemned. If the economic policy is defended. And Karl Marx is mentioned several times (I once read he was excluded in a Guardian piece).

Ferguson is a great writer, I particularly enjoyed the enjoyable and informative asides that tell a larger story - those of the Rothschild's and Jon Law (!) especially.

Fantastic explanations of both complex terms, and complex historical situations. A good example is how the racist 'red lining' of US mortgage districts helped lead to the sub-prime crisis via wild west money men, good intentions, derivatives CDOs and all the other fun opaque terms we know and love.

We are brought into modern times with fun and informative stories from the 80s and 90s hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds, a lovely juxtaposition of globalisation pre WW1 and today, also a good if dated section on China. This is the only dedicated section outside of a European and then Western narrative. And it's about them joining the world finance built. We are told the accounting and finance technologies existed elsewhere, why did history not develop the same way elsewhere?

The dating is unfortunate, forcing the writer to not comment much on the big financial story of our lives, requires another book -Adam Tooze and Martin Wolf are well regarded on the subject. Similarly points on US healthcare are outdated but remain laughably valid.

We end with something quite unexpected - a detailed analogy on financial markets and the theory of evolution. Most interesting! Remains a great read!