The Ascent of Money
Encyclopedia
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World is Harvard professor Niall Ferguson
's tenth book, published in 2008, and an adapted television documentary for Channel 4
(UK) and PBS
(US). It examines the long history of money
, credit
, and banking.
in the UK. It also aired on TVB Pearl
in Hong Kong
and ABC1
in Australia
. In the US, an edited two-hour version was aired in January 2009 by PBS
.
A newer, reorganized four-hour version with the original full title The Ascent of Money: The Financial History of the World was aired in July 2009 by PBS. Both versions can still be viewed online at the link below.
's pound of flesh to the loan shark
s of Glasgow
, from the "promises to pay" on Babylon
ian clay tablet
s to Medici banking system
. Professor Ferguson explains the origins of credit
and debt
and why credit networks are indispensable to any civilization.
become the realm of the masters of the universe? Through the rise of the bond market
in Renaissance Italy
. With the advent of bonds, war finance
was transformed and spread to north-west Europe and across the Atlantic. It was the bond market that made the Rothschilds
the richest and most powerful family of the 19th century.
s produce bubble
s and busts? Professor Ferguson goes back to the origins of the joint stock company
in Amsterdam
and Paris. He draws telling parallels between the current stock market crash and the 18th century Mississippi Bubble of Scottish
financier
John Law
and the 2001 Enron bankruptcy
. He shows why humans have a herd instinct when it comes to investment
, and why no one can accurately predict when the bulls might stampede.
. But faced with an unexpected disaster, the state has to step in. Professor Ferguson travels to post-Katrina
New Orleans to ask why the free market
can't provide adequate protection against catastrophe. His quest for an answer takes him to the origins of modern insurance in the early 19th century and to the birth of the welfare state
in post-war Japan
.
? An economic theory says that markets can't function without mortgages
, because it's only by borrowing against their assets that entrepreneur
s can get their businesses off the ground. But what if mortgages are bundled together and sold off to the highest bidder?
Ep. 6: Chimerica
Niall Ferguson investigates the globalisation of the Western economy and the uncertain balance between the important component countries of China and the US. In examining the last time globalisation took hold – before World War One
, he finds a notable reversal, namely that today money is pouring into the English-speaking economies from the developing world, rather than out.
Niall Ferguson
Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson is a British historian. His specialty is financial and economic history, particularly hyperinflation and the bond markets, as well as the history of colonialism.....
's tenth book, published in 2008, and an adapted television documentary for Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
(UK) and PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
(US). It examines the long history of money
History of money
The history of money spans thousands of years. Numismatics is the scientific study of money and its history in all its varied forms.Many items have been used as commodity money such as natural scarce precious metals, cowry shells, barley, beads etc., as well as many other things that are thought of...
, credit
Credit (finance)
Credit is the trust which allows one party to provide resources to another party where that second party does not reimburse the first party immediately , but instead arranges either to repay or return those resources at a later date. The resources provided may be financial Credit is the trust...
, and banking.
Documentary
The book was adapted into a six-part television documentary with the new full title Ascent of Money: Boom and Bust for Channel 4Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
in the UK. It also aired on TVB Pearl
TVB Pearl
TVB Pearl is one of the two free television services in Hong Kong that mainly broadcast in the English language, the other being ATV World. It is owned and operated by Television Broadcasts Limited, and together with its sister Cantonese language station TVB Jade, is broadcast from TVB City at 77...
in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and ABC1
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. In the US, an edited two-hour version was aired in January 2009 by PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
.
A newer, reorganized four-hour version with the original full title The Ascent of Money: The Financial History of the World was aired in July 2009 by PBS. Both versions can still be viewed online at the link below.
Ep. 1: Dreams of avarice
From ShylockShylock
Shylock is a fictional character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.-In the play:In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is a Jewish moneylender who lends money to his Christian rival, Antonio, setting the security at a pound of Antonio's flesh...
's pound of flesh to the loan shark
Loan shark
A loan shark is a person or body that offers unsecured loans at illegally high interest rates to individuals, often enforcing repayment by blackmail or threats of violence....
s of Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, from the "promises to pay" on Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
ian clay tablet
Clay tablet
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age....
s to Medici banking system
Medici bank
The Medici Bank was a financial institution created by the Medici family in Italy during the 15th century. It was the largest and most respected bank in Europe during its prime. There are some estimates that the Medici family was, for a period of time, the wealthiest family in Europe...
. Professor Ferguson explains the origins of credit
Credit (finance)
Credit is the trust which allows one party to provide resources to another party where that second party does not reimburse the first party immediately , but instead arranges either to repay or return those resources at a later date. The resources provided may be financial Credit is the trust...
and debt
Debt
A debt is an obligation owed by one party to a second party, the creditor; usually this refers to assets granted by the creditor to the debtor, but the term can also be used metaphorically to cover moral obligations and other interactions not based on economic value.A debt is created when a...
and why credit networks are indispensable to any civilization.
Ep. 2: Human bondage
How did financeFinance
"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...
become the realm of the masters of the universe? Through the rise of the bond market
Bond market
The bond market is a financial market where participants can issue new debt, known as the primary market, or buy and sell debt securities, known as the Secondary market, usually in the form of bonds. The primary goal of the bond market is to provide a mechanism for long term funding of public and...
in Renaissance Italy
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
. With the advent of bonds, war finance
War finance
The term war finance, a branch of defense economics, denotes a number of measures including fiscal and monetary initiatives to fund the expenditure of a war. Such measures, broadly classified in three categories, are levy of taxes, raising of debts, and creation of fresh money supply...
was transformed and spread to north-west Europe and across the Atlantic. It was the bond market that made the Rothschilds
Rothschild family
The Rothschild family , known as The House of Rothschild, or more simply as the Rothschilds, is a Jewish-German family that established European banking and finance houses starting in the late 18th century...
the richest and most powerful family of the 19th century.
Ep. 3: Blowing bubbles
Why do stock marketStock market
A stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...
s produce bubble
Stock market bubble
A stock market bubble is a type of economic bubble taking place in stock markets when market participants drive stock prices above their value in relation to some system of stock valuation....
s and busts? Professor Ferguson goes back to the origins of the joint stock company
Joint stock company
A joint-stock company is a type of corporation or partnership involving two or more individuals that own shares of stock in the company...
in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
and Paris. He draws telling parallels between the current stock market crash and the 18th century Mississippi Bubble of Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
financier
Financier
Financier is a term for a person who handles typically large sums of money, usually involving money lending, financing projects, large-scale investing, or large-scale money management. The term is French, and derives from finance or payment...
John Law
John Law (economist)
John Law was a Scottish economist who believed that money was only a means of exchange that did not constitute wealth in itself and that national wealth depended on trade...
and the 2001 Enron bankruptcy
Enron scandal
The Enron scandal, revealed in October 2001, eventually led to the bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation, an American energy company based in Houston, Texas, and the dissolution of Arthur Andersen, which was one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world...
. He shows why humans have a herd instinct when it comes to investment
Investment
Investment has different meanings in finance and economics. Finance investment is putting money into something with the expectation of gain, that upon thorough analysis, has a high degree of security for the principal amount, as well as security of return, within an expected period of time...
, and why no one can accurately predict when the bulls might stampede.
Ep. 4: Risky business
Life is a risky business – which is why people take out insuranceInsurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
. But faced with an unexpected disaster, the state has to step in. Professor Ferguson travels to post-Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
New Orleans to ask why the free market
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
can't provide adequate protection against catastrophe. His quest for an answer takes him to the origins of modern insurance in the early 19th century and to the birth of the welfare state
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
in post-war Japan
Japanese post-war economic miracle
The Japanese post-war economic miracle is the name given to the historical phenomenon of Japan's record period of economic growth following World War II, spurred mainly by Japanese economic policy, in particular through the Ministry of International Trade and Industry...
.
Ep. 5: Safe as houses
It sounded so simple: give state-owned assets to the people. After all, what better foundation for a property-owning democracy than a campaign of privatisation encompassing housingHouse
A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
? An economic theory says that markets can't function without mortgages
Mortgage loan
A mortgage loan is a loan secured by real property through the use of a mortgage note which evidences the existence of the loan and the encumbrance of that realty through the granting of a mortgage which secures the loan...
, because it's only by borrowing against their assets that entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
s can get their businesses off the ground. But what if mortgages are bundled together and sold off to the highest bidder?
Ep. 6: ChimericaChimericaChimerica is a neologism coined by Niall Ferguson and Moritz Schularick describing the symbiotic relationship between China and the United States, with incidental reference to the legendary chimera....
Niall Ferguson investigates the globalisation of the Western economy and the uncertain balance between the important component countries of China and the US. In examining the last time globalisation took hold – before World War OneWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, he finds a notable reversal, namely that today money is pouring into the English-speaking economies from the developing world, rather than out.
Episodes - Four-Hour Version
- Episode 1: From Bullion to Bubbles
- Episode 2: Bonds of War
- Episode 3: Risky Business
- Episode 4: Planet Finance
Reviews
- By Robert Skidelsky from The New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
External links
- The Ascent of Money at BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Active - Official US Website at PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
Online- Watch Online (US Only) at PBS Video
- Watch online (UK only) at 4oD