Not only has Ferguson been described as 'the most brilliant historian of his generation' by The Times, he's been rated as 'one of the world's 100 most influential people' by Time magazine.

From the first coins of ancient Mesopotamia to the rise of China and the credit crunch, via the Medicis of Renaissance Italy, the Scottish clergymen who created the first insurance company and the dynasty started by the first Nathan Rothschild, Ferguson provides a clear and masterful financial history of the world. He shows, for example, how the high-financial scam of a Scottish murderer resulted in the French Revolution, how the bond market settled the outcome of the American Civil War, and, chillingly, how a previous era of globalisation and prosperity was ended almost overnight by the surprise catastrophe of World War I.

Ferguson finished this book in May, but he hasn't been wrong-footed by the financial world going into complete meltdown since then. Quite the opposite — he anticipates the bursting of the credit bubble and even offers what is now an amazingly timely explanation of how it has happened.

Money. It's at the root not only of all evil

well... no it's the LOVE of money that is the root of all KINDS of evil...but otherwise... good clip

Money. It's at the root not only of all evil, but of just about every major development in the past 3,000 years of human history - wars, revolutions, social and technological progress, the lot.

I would add the lack of money to the assertion.