The Birth Of Modern Finance – Literary Reads

Have you ever wondered where our modern-day financial system came from? It was built on thousands of years of history and trial and error. Read on for our financial history recommendations!

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. Historian and Stanford University fellow Niall Ferguson makes the case that finance is an innovation on par with any technological marvel humanity has created. He casts a new light on familiar events like how the Renaissance was enabled by Italian foreign exchange dealers or how the French Revolution can be traced back to an earlier stock market bubble. It’s a great book that shows just how central finance is to underwriting humanity’s greatest achievements and worst failures.

Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Anthropologist David Graeber explores the origin of debt and the evolution of credit systems to finance the growth of agrarian empires like the Persians and Romans. Graeber is an anthropologist, so he takes a uniquely human-centered view of the institutions and systems a credit-oriented system imposes on the people working within it. These fascinating observations make the book a great option for a deep dive!

The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan. Arguably, the most powerful person in the world isn’t the President of the United States, it’s the Chairperson of the Federal Reserve. Alan Greenspan served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He led the Fed through the Savings and Loans Crisis and the Dotcom Bubble and, arguably, influenced the economic conditions that culminated in 2008’s Global Financial Crisis. But is the criticism fair? Journalist Sebastian Mallaby traces Greenspan’s rise to power over his career to offer deeper insight into the mysterious point where government and the economy meet.

Whether you read any or all of these books, you’ll learn about some important history of financial evolution. We hope you enjoy!