Selected Product:
| The History of Money
Paperback
Author: Jack Weatherford
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release Date: 1998-03-10
ISBN-10: 0609801724
ISBN-13: 9780609801727
List Price: $13.95
Average Customer Rating:
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Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
From primitive man's cowrie shells to the electronic cash card, from the markets of Timbuktu to the New York Stock Exchange, "The History of Money" explores how money and the myriad forms of exchange have affected humanity, and how they will continue to shape all aspects of our lives--economic, political, and personal National publicity .
Fantastic introduction to financial history
| Customer Rating: | This is a fantastic introduction to financial history. With equal weight given to the financial, political, historical, and anthropological aspects of money throughout multiple cultures and time periods, the net effect is an understanding of what drives monetary decisions the world over which relies on something other than "I need to get paid."
In this book, you will find enlightening references to key milestones in the development of money as the key facilitator of economic progress, including:
* Initial transition from totem objects to coins
* The long and inglorious history of currency debasement
* The development of bills-of-exchange and the first (and second) continental banking system
* The curious history of the dollar and cash in the US
* The westward progress of monetary capitals from Lydia to Greece to Rome to Tuscany to London to New York
* The transition between cash and near-cash to electronic money and its implication for future economic decisions
* The awkward and futile role of governments in slowing the growth of the money supply.
I highly recommend this to anyone. Whether a refresher history for money market professionals or an introduction for the simply curious, this is a quick and worth-while read that will open your eyes as to the surprisingly consistent development of monetary history. |
Very Educational
| Customer Rating: | | I had no idea this book would be so informative. Very good read, changed my perspective. |
A good high level history of the physical currency.
| Customer Rating: | | This book is great and quick overview of how money became the physical currency of modern times. Starting with trade of goods, and then to shells and cocoa beans, and then to minted coins and finally to the form of paper money across various countries. While the complaints about specific historical event being wrong maybe true, the social aspects are the importants points of the book. With America, in the early times of the nation, the decision to use a decimal system ultimately impacted how numbers were used for other subjects outside of currency. This changed science and business. This book is very good and filled with interesting tidbits of trivia around the history of money. |
Once again, shaky history
| Customer Rating: | | As many other reviewers noted, his history is shaky. Not only that, his anthropological knowledge and understanding of social fabric of many of the societies he reviewed are also weak. It seems that Mr. Weatherford wrote his book without always checking his sources, as if 'out of his head'. My personal favorite flop was his continuous insistence that Lydia was a country located by IONIAN sea. Has he checked his map? Ionian sea is on the other side of Greece and, naturally, modern Turkey in the region where Lydia was located has access to Aegean and Mediterranean seas. I am a little upset with writers who undertake to write sprawling historical analyses without having a solid historical base. He would have gotten a C- in my class. Still his style is entertaining and once you get used to inaccuracies and are willing to overlook them, then it could be an enjoyable read. |
I struggled my way thru this one
| Customer Rating: | I guess I only finished it becuase I always finish a book I start reading (especially if I paid for it).
It was so hard to read, the style is tiring, resembling a ranting inner dialogue more than a book on an economic category, even iof it is from a cultural and anthropological perspective!
At the end of the day I can say I know what Aztecs used for money (and how they tortured children to death as children's tears were considered some sort of "rain magic". damn, I REALLY DIDN'T WANT TO KNOW THAT!!!) and that coins were invented by Lydians (and a number of simiral pieces of information) but I also have a HEADACHE and am feeling frustrated and nauseated and extremely unhappy.
I don't think that is how you are supposed to feel after reading a book on history of money! I don't feel informed or enlightened at all.
Having read other people's reviews I guess accuracy of information presented (unless it refers to social or cultural aspects of money) might also be problematic?!
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