The History of Money by Jack Weatherford (PDF)

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“If you’re interested in the revolutionary transformation of the meaning and use of money, this is the book to read!”—Charles R. SchwabCultural anthropologist Jack Weatherford traces our relationship with money, from primitive man’s cowrie shells to the electronic cash card, from the markets of Timbuktu to the New York Stock Exchange. The History of Money explores how money and the myriad forms of exchange have affected humanity, and how they will continue to shape all aspects of our lives—economic, political, and personal. “A fascinating book about the force that makes the world go round—the dollars, pounds, francs, marks, bahts, ringits, kwansas, levs, biplwelles, yuans, quetzales, pa’angas, ngultrums, ouguiyas, and other 200-odd brand names that collectively make up the mysterious thing we call money.”—Los Angeles Times

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐In “The History of Money” anthropologist Jack Weatherford does exactly as promised, delivering a fast-paced, 2,600 year narrative of money.Weatherford breaks the story into three more-or-less equal thirds. Phase One, “Classic Cash,” traces the history of money from the first known coined currency in the western Anatolian kingdom of Lydia in 640 BC to the exploitation of the silver and gold mines in the Americas by the Spanish and Portuguese beginning in the 1500s. It is the only section that reads as history in a chronological sense and it is, I think, the best one.Weatherford argues that “Money constitutes the focal point of modern world culture” and it has done so since classical times. The coinage of the first money in Lydia unleashed a revolution in commerce that transformed the Greek world, he says. The ancient Greeks would use money to create a commercial civilization that spread to urban design, politics, religion and intellectual pursuits. “This new social network founded on commerce and money gave rise to a new political system,” he says, one based on wealth.The Romans created “the world’s first empire organized around money … promoted the use of money and organized all of its affairs around the new commodity.” But Roman civilization failed in the long run mainly, the author suggests, because that system of money was mismanaged. Unlike Athens or Sardis, “Rome produced very little of anything nor did it serve as a major mercantile crossroads of commerce.” The city was simply an importer of wealth from its expanding empire, but conquest and pillage proved capable of financing the empire for only so long. By the reign of Trajan (98 to 117), the cost of conquest had surpassed the value of riches it brought into the empire. Meanwhile, vast sums of Roman specie flowed east to pay for a never-ending stream of luxury items. “Step by step, the imperial government took over the direct administration of the economy … Rome had become another state administered economy, an empire without money and markets.” The classical money economy collapsed not to return for another thousand years.The Renaissance reintroduced money back into civilized society. Major advances were made in the management and measurement of money. In 1202, Leonardo Fabonacci introduced the use of Arabic numerals and in 1487 Luca Pacioli described double entry bookkeeping. Meanwhile, modern forms of banking emerged on the scene, first in the form of the Knights Templar in the 1200s and then, after the Knight’s decimation by the French King Philip IV in 1310, the northern Italian banking families led by the Medicis of Florence. “With the rise of Italian banking and the Renaissance,” Weatherford writes, “a new type of civilization began to emerge.”It would take the massive inflow of gold and silver from the New World to complete the process. From 1500 until 1800, the mines of the Americas provided 70% of the world’s output of gold and 85% of its silver. The gold alone was valued at over $36 billion. The immediate result was a price revolution, a 400% increase in prices in mainland Europe, but also a much wider distribution of coined money than ever before. “Just as the banking revolution had increased the amount of money in circulation and brought merchants from all over Western Europe into a single commercial and financial system the increase in silver coins brought the lower classes into the system.”Phase Two, “Paper Money,” lacks the chronological structure of the first and suffers because of it. The basic premise is that paper money has had a haphazard and contentious history. As early as the 1200s, the empire of Kublai Khan issued paper certificates in place of specie currency. However, Weatherford notes, “Neither China nor Europe became the cradle of paper money; rather, it was to be North America.” Or as John Kenneth Galbraith observed, “if the history of commercial banking belongs to the Italians and of central banking to the British, that of paper money issued by a government belongs indubitably to the Americans,” who financed their war of independence largely through printing dollars and then, during the Civil War, created the modern system of paper money through the National Bank Act of 1863.For centuries, beginning in the early 1600s, paper currency was backed fully by gold or silver. Weatherford writes that the Bank of England introduced the first gold-backed system of paper currency and created a global financial network. Nationalized in 1946, the fate of the Bank of England was, in the author’s estimation, a major victory of politics over banking and of government over money. Indeed, “Throughout the twentieth century, the power of governments to control money grew tremendously in virtually all parts of the world.” By 1971, the powerful US dollar had been untethered from gold. The value of the American dollar, and nearly all other forms of national currency, “no longer had any independent value; it depended entirely on the people’s confidence in their political system and leaders.”The third and final phase, according to Weatherford, is “Electronic Money.” It is the weakest of the three sections. The author asserts, somewhat surprisingly, that the invention of the ATM in 1971 was the third great revolution in money after the advent of coins 2,600 years ago and paper money 500 years ago. But then he writes that cash has become largely the domain of the poor. “In the modern two-class system, the poor pay with cash while middle-class consumers use plastic and checks.” He provides overviews of the creation of credit cards and modern currency trading, among other related topics.Writing in the mid-1990s, it must be noted that Weatherford presciently saw the development of crypto currencies in the age of the Internet. “People will create new uses for electronic money that we cannot even imagine and that could not have been possible with the earlier forms of money … Money will never again be what it was.”In the closing, Weatherford concludes, “The great struggle of history has been for the control over money. It is almost tautological to affirm that to control the production and distribution of money is to control the wealth, resources, and people of the world.” However, in the twenty-first century, control over money will be beyond the reach of any government or organization. In an age of free-floating currencies, including crypto currencies, with parallel and overlapping systems of money, no one will be in control; we are at the dawn of a new revolution, the Age of Money.

⭐“The History of Money” by Jack Weatherford, Three Rivers Press, New York, 19971. Is a good introductory history. If you are serious about “money” do not let this be the last book you read. But if you are serious about money, this book is a fun easy read.2. Most of the book traces a path that is familiar to economic historians. I did like some of the details he provided about things like Croesus, who minted the first coinage, and Arab traders in China, who deposited their gold in return for official receipts that functioned like bearer notes.3. He might have expanded his treatment of renaissance banking and the emergence of fractional reserve banking considering the interrelationship of money to banking and banking to debt.4. His chapter on the Spanish gold based inflation might have served as a cautionary tale for those enamored of a commodity based currency or bullionism.5. His tales of the hyperinflation caused by irresponsible government printing of currency is an often told story. (In contrast the US mint sells currency to banks.)6. I wish he had spent more space on Bretton Woods, considering the role that it plays in money today.7. I would recommend his chapter on the “Cash Ghetto” to anyone, regardless of their interest in economics who is concerned about poverty.8. Weatherford devotes the end of the book to “Electronic Money” where he observes that, “Rather than being the means for the market, money has become the market.” (page 290)9. It was amusing to read, “The proponents of the so-called smart card hope that it will replace many of the routine cash payments that people make every day.” (page 238) Since the book was written in 1997, I wonder what Weatherford would say today.10. I would like to have seen his treatment of the financial meltdown in 2008.11. One thing that Weatherford can’t seem to get his mind around was the absence of a commodity basis for currency. It is hard to think that the money in the bank isn’t based on a pile of gold in a government vault somewhere; But is based rather upon the collateral that bank is financing. Many will note that overvalued collateral caused the collapse in 2008. Still, when a bank finances a new home, car, or factory the wealth of the bank has been increased by (not gold) but by a new home, car, or factory. What the system needs is an honest assessment of asset values – Remember Enron’s “mark to market” accounting – which may point to the need for more, not less regulation.12. A related topic is when government creates money through obligational authority. Government expenditures are paid by the Treasury through book entries much as any business would do. When the government pays to create a road, build a warship, educate a child, create a vaccine, predict a storm, or many of the other non-exclusionary things that government pays for, note that the government has created more national wealth, without putting more gold in a vault.

⭐excellent service and condition

⭐To me the cover of this book makes it look rather dry and serious. But really, its a highly enjoyable romp through money’s past. I appreciate that this sounds dismissive, but its not meant to. The book does lack the intellectual depth and rigour of say, fellow anthroplogist Greaber’s ‘Debt – the first 5000 years’, or economic historian Davies’ ‘A History of Money’. Nevertheless, if what Weatherford set out to do was write an engaging and readable history in 250 odd pages, then he has succeeded.The book is divided into three parts. The first ‘Classic Cash’ grips you with gory detail about exchange in the ancient and medieval world. The second ‘Paper Money’ gives a bird’s eye view of money from around the time of the reformation and through the industrial revolution. The third is ‘Electronic Cash’ where Weatherford brings us up to date and even speculates on the future a little.I can’t see this book being quoted in academic works, or appearing in too many bibliographies. However, bringing the history of money to a wider public is hugely important, and this book is a noble effort. If you’re going to do an economics 101, or any finance related course, it’ll put things in perspective for you.I enjoyed it. And I recommend it.

⭐I bought this having read some very positive reviews but I was not prepared for it to be quite such an interesting read! As someone with an interest in numismatics, I found this book to be an easily readable and informative text covering the human history of coinage and economics with some truly surprising discoveries for the reader along the way! If you are an economics student or an experienced numismatic researcher, there are more technical and detailed books out there. For the general public with an interest, this is perfectly pitched.

⭐Very interesting book. Easy to read, i.e. not technical. Covers a broad spectrum of the history of money in many different cultures and countries and makes you realise that the pound in your pocket is only really a virtual currency. If you are interested in how money came about, I would recommend this book as a good starting point.

⭐Five stars for cost and delivery time. Book not very interesting – rather anecdotal and at times melodramatic

⭐My type of book. Long form history, etymology, and a view to what’s next.A bit too much padding and fluff at times.

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