Description
Book SynopsisThe essays in this volume are written by a distinguished and adventurous set of historians and economists who have been willing, in many cases, to step beyond their typical field of inquiry and explore the historical foundations of financial innovation. The essays are motivated by the need to place our current age of finanical revolution in historical perspective. The continuing process of financial innovation, as sophisticated as it may seem to most of the modern world, is in fact built on surprisingly few basic principles: the inter-temporal transfer of value through time, the ability to contract on future outcomes, and the negotiability of claims. This book traces the evolution of these basic principles of finance through 3,000 years of history - to the dawn of writing. The methodology that is used can be thought of as financial archaeology in the sense that the authors focus on primary survived financial documents to draw their conclusions such as clay tablets, notched sticks, sea
Trade Review"An all-embracing historical survey of the financial innovations that have changed the world...this remarkable book gives us an invaluable historical perspective on a terrifying age of financial revolution." THES, December 2005
"P0ssibly the first book designed for Wall Street coffee tables." * The Economist *
"Beautifully illustrated... Indeed, this is something of a
