INTRODUCTION

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the world is a book written

in 2008 by professor of Harvard Niall Ferguson, and later it was adapted
as television documentary. It reflects the history of money, credit and
banking. The book reflects the importance of money in the society and
how it is dealt in our modern 21st century; it showcases the rise of
money from trade and tracks its progression, development on the
society.

From its opening sentence Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre,
moolah, readies, the where-withal: call it what you like, money matters
- shows the importance of money and how it is an important element in
our day to day lives and how it controls each and every attribute of our
daily lives. Money is very much volatile and how this volatility affects a
common man, how the GDP of a country is affected and henceforth
how it affects the citizens of country. The regulation of monetary
policies affects the bank regulatory and pockets of common man. How
the money is rotated in the market and how it is earned or losses, is a
sheer reflection of mankind, or how man functions in the society. In this
book we get to see that the author has related every component of
money with the human behavior, for instance how the human behavior
changes when the policies of money related component changes.
Money amplifies our tendency to overreact, to swing from exuberance
when things are going well to deep depression when they go wrong.
 CONCLUSION
This book explores the long history of money how in ancient time it was
use for trading purposes and how it evolved through time and
contributed for our existence in world. The author related money as the
root cause of all evil. How the greed for money has cause much loss in
the history and still does in its own way, then in contrast it helps in our
progress also but then results in many wars as well. Author highlighted
the importance of credit and debit in progress and rise of any
civilization which is as important as any other discovery and innovation.
In ancient times the rise and fall of money led to rise and fall of
civilization, for example in 17th century the rise of stock market was
noticed which gave rise to French Revolution.

Author showcase the importance of finance in human existence and

compares the earlier barter system with money, and proves that money
has always been effective than the barter system that’s why money or
the currency system was later on adopted by every state and city in the
world.

Ferguson discusses the history of money lending, including the balance

of interest, the way courts are often involved, and the targeting of
creditors who are members of a minority group by a money-owing
majority group who were often rich.

In the conclusion, Ferguson looks at the overall evolution of money,

comparing it to Darwinian evolution and showing how it can be traced
back to ancient Mesopotamia with a consistent upward trajectory ever
since.