The Ascent of Money

I really don't know what I was expecting out of this book. I think Amazon recommended it to me, and it just seemed like a no-brainer. You know how the very first chapter of any intro econ or finance book (or whatever) is always the easiest assignment of the year, because those few pages are always just some interesting back story and not real meaty? That's pretty much what I figured this book would be. For a while, I was right. But pretty soon it really opened up and became a lot more comprehensive than I expected.

This was much more a history book than a finance one. (The author is a historical writer, not a finance guru). It explains, in surprising detail, the emergence of: cash, bonds, stocks, insurance, and then finance bubbles and housing markets in general. The book was written right before the 2008 disaster really hit the fan (post Bear, pre Lehman), so it offered an interesting perspective that's hard to come across, someone writing about the 2008 "credit crunch" without making reference to the armageddon of that September.

I'm getting off topic, and don't really know how much I even have to say- but the book was great and better than I really expected. There are some really slow parts (ug, is insurance ever exciting?) but for the most part Ferguson focuses on a narrative that kept me engaged and interested, and overall it served as a great general history of finance. There was very little in this book that I already knew going into it, so... great ROI?