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The Ascent of Money
The Ascent of Money
Nov 29, 2024 10:50 PM

Author:Niall Ferguson

The Ascent of Money

Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot. Call if what you like, it matters now more than ever. In The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson shows that financial history is the back-story to all history.

From the banking dynasty who funded the Italian Renaissance to the stock market bubble that caused the French Revolution, this is the story of booms and busts as it's never been told before.

With the world in the grip of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, there's never been a better time to understand the ascent - and descent - of money.

'Beautifully written ... Breathtakingly clever' Sunday Telegraph

'A lucid and racy account of financial history' New Statesman

'A fine, readable and entertaining history' Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year

'The tales he tells of boom and bust, of triumph and disaster, of bubbles that inflate ... are the very essence of financial history' Bill Emmott, Financial Times

'An often enlightening and enjoyable tour through the underside of great events, a lesson in how the most successful great powers have always been underpinned by smart money' Robert Skidelsky, New York Review of Books

Reviews

'Like its three predecessors, A Club No More is a work of breathtaking scope and accomplishment.'

—— D J Taylor , Independent

Magisterial. Kynaston is compulsively readable on all the great city scandals of recent years. But apart from anything else, his final volume is worth reading as a social documentary of our times.'

—— Observer

The fifty or so years which are chronicled here in impressive detail were momentous ones for the City-an outstanding achievement.'

—— TLS

The four volumes of his City history of the last 200 years are a splendid achievement-invaluable.'

—— Howard Davies , The Times

It is a good story, superbly told by Kynaston, who holds together a very diverse narrative with considerable skill. Its greatest merit is that it can be read by specialist and non-specialist alike.

—— Financial Times

Like the earlier volumes, this book is rich in detail and splendidly entertaining-Kynaston relates these events with great verve.

—— Sunday Telegraph

David Kynaston chronicles these changes with elegance, detachment and wit, and striking flashes of perception-a masterpiece of sharp social observation.

—— Jonathan Sumption , Spectator

The business book of the year has to be Michael Woodford's Exposure

—— Rosamund Urwin , Evening Standard

The first westerner to work his way to the top of a Japanese corporation discovered a few months later a £950m secret eating away at its heart. ... when he blew the whistle [he] learned of potential plots to take his life.

—— Independent

In a world increasingly dominated by global multinationals, he just felt someone had to speak out

—— Sunday Times

He lost his job for his integrity

—— The Economist

Michael Woodford could have spent years turning a blind eye to the shady dealings of executives at Olympus. Instead he dove headfirst into allegations of corporate misconduct

—— Time

Michael Woodford has proven himself a hero, though he never wanted the battle. He risked everything

—— Clive Stafford Smith

A gripping chronicle by a corporate whistle-blower who achieved a stunning victory

—— Kirkus

He is one of the few foreign businessmen to have penetrated deep inside a Japanese corporation and to report back unflinchingly on what he saw. What he found was not pretty

—— Financial Times

In this riveting, well-written expose, Shaxson goes deep into the largely unexamined realm of offshore money. In the process, he reveals that this shadow world is no mere sideshow, but is troublingly central to modern finance, with the US and the UK as leaders. The resulting abuses are widespread, ranging from tax revenue stripping from African nations to individuals and corporations escaping enforcement and accountability. A must read for anyone who wants to understand the hidden reasons why financial services firms have become so powerful and impossible to reform

—— Yves Smith, creator of Naked Capitalism and author of Econned

They who sold us globalisation as a way of the whole world getting richer with fair rules, cheated us by letting the rich and powerful go "offshore". This gripping exposé should help end the scandal

—— Anthony Barnett, founder of openDemocracy

Possibly the most important political book that I have read since The Spirit Level

—— Stuart Weir, co-founder of Charter 88, former editor of the New Statesman

He has prised the lid off an important and terrifying can of worms

—— Martin Vander Weyer , Literary Review

Lively and well written book

—— Toby Young , Mail on Sunday

A welcome account of how the sun is never allowed to set on the British empire's old islands, whose fiscal pirates hoard the tax-free treasures of the rich

—— Geoffrey Robertson , New Statesman, Books of the Year

Shaxson delves into capitalism's secret nooks and tells us about how a culture of secrecy can perpetuate itself. Very interesting

—— William Leith , Evening Standard

A compelling read [...] an important and very much a live topic, it'll take you a few hours to read the book but it will be a worthwhile investment of time

—— Peter Magee , Bookbag

What makes this such a good read for the layman is that the author employs all his journalistic skill (he used to work at Reuters) to illustrate his arguments and uses real examples to real examples to illustrate complex issues

—— John Arlidge , Sunday Times

This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the world we live in

—— Brian Maye , Irish Times

This engrossing book about the offshore banking racket, with its eye-opening scrutiny of tax havens and the suited scoundrels who profit from them, will make you think again about the murkier side of the City...This first-rate forensic work ends with a plea that the closed City "must be abolished and submerged into a...fully democratic London"

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent

[An] informed polemic against finance capital

—— Oliver Kamm , The Times

Now more than a decade old, this is still the best introduction to the world of tax havens

—— Economist, *Summer Reads of 2022*
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