What do you think?
Rate this book
Easy Money Trilogy #1
Easy Money: Evolution of Money from Robinson Crusoe to the First World War
"A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest," wrote singer and songwriter Paul Simon some decades back. Books on the current financial crisis which started in late 2008 are a tad like that. Until now they have tended to deal with certain aspects of the crisis without looking at the bigger picture of what really went wrong. That bigger picture of the ongoing financial crisis has now started to evolve. Easy Money captures this big picture.
The history of money and the financial system as it has evolved over the centuries stand at the heart of this endeavor. It explores the idea that the evolution of money over centuries has led to an easy money policy being followed by governments and central banks across the world, which in turn has fueled humongous Ponzi schemes, which have now started to unravel, bringing the whole world on the brink of a financial disaster. The book also explains how the lessons of the financial crisis have still not been learned, and in trying to deal with it, governments across the world are making the same mistakes which led to the current crisis in the first place.
The history of money and the financial system as it has evolved over the centuries stand at the heart of this endeavor. It explores the idea that the evolution of money over centuries has led to an easy money policy being followed by governments and central banks across the world, which in turn has fueled humongous Ponzi schemes, which have now started to unravel, bringing the whole world on the brink of a financial disaster. The book also explains how the lessons of the financial crisis have still not been learned, and in trying to deal with it, governments across the world are making the same mistakes which led to the current crisis in the first place.
300 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
63 people are currently reading
548 people want to read
About the author
Vivek Kaul
18 books164 followersVivek Kaul is a writer who has worked at senior positions with the Daily News and Analysis(DNA) and The Economic Times, in the past.
Currently he works as an economic commentator. Other than Equitymaster, his writing has appeared across various other publications in India. These include The Times of India, India Today, Business Standard, Business Today, Business World, The Hindu, The Hindu Business Line, Indian Management, The Asian Age, Deccan Chronicle, Forbes India, Mutual Fund Insight, The Free Press Journal, BBC.com, Quartz.com, DailyO.in, Business World, Huffington Post India and Wealth Insight.
In the past he has also been a regular columnist for Rediff as well as Firstpost. He has lectured at IIM Bangalore, IIM Indore, IIM Kozhikode, TA PAI Institute of Management and the Alliance University (Bangalore).
Currently he works as an economic commentator. Other than Equitymaster, his writing has appeared across various other publications in India. These include The Times of India, India Today, Business Standard, Business Today, Business World, The Hindu, The Hindu Business Line, Indian Management, The Asian Age, Deccan Chronicle, Forbes India, Mutual Fund Insight, The Free Press Journal, BBC.com, Quartz.com, DailyO.in, Business World, Huffington Post India and Wealth Insight.
In the past he has also been a regular columnist for Rediff as well as Firstpost. He has lectured at IIM Bangalore, IIM Indore, IIM Kozhikode, TA PAI Institute of Management and the Alliance University (Bangalore).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 26, 2022
I am a fan of Vivek Kaul.
My understandings of many economic events of India of the recent past have come from his writings, podcasts and interviews, and I admit that many of my economic biases are aligned with that of his.
So, when I found that there is a 3-volume series authored by him on the evolution of money and history of the global financial world, I didn't hesitate to bring home the books, as soon as I saw them available at a discount on Amazon. :)
Needless to say, like Kaul's other writings, the chronicles of evolution of money in the book is quite well-researched and detailed out. However, I think somehow Kaul's witticism and snarky remarks that I am fan of are missing in this historical treatise, if you will. Also, I think describing the first 2000 years of history, Kaul took more than two third of this book(first one in the series), and the most important last 200 years he rushed through. Probably, those would be further expanded in the remaining 2 books in the series.
Would come back to this book again for reference for sure. Some of the stories very well-told.
My understandings of many economic events of India of the recent past have come from his writings, podcasts and interviews, and I admit that many of my economic biases are aligned with that of his.
So, when I found that there is a 3-volume series authored by him on the evolution of money and history of the global financial world, I didn't hesitate to bring home the books, as soon as I saw them available at a discount on Amazon. :)
Needless to say, like Kaul's other writings, the chronicles of evolution of money in the book is quite well-researched and detailed out. However, I think somehow Kaul's witticism and snarky remarks that I am fan of are missing in this historical treatise, if you will. Also, I think describing the first 2000 years of history, Kaul took more than two third of this book(first one in the series), and the most important last 200 years he rushed through. Probably, those would be further expanded in the remaining 2 books in the series.
Would come back to this book again for reference for sure. Some of the stories very well-told.
December 30, 2014
I bought this book because I expected it to give me an understanding of the 2008 financial crisis by taking us back to the origins of Money itself and then working its way forward gradually from those ancient times to the current financial meltdown. Only after I read the Preface, did I realize that it is actually a trilogy and that this first book in the series traces the history of `easy money' from the ancient times up to the end of the First World War. It has a sobering conclusion that governments at various points of time in history have worked toward destroying money and the financial system and unfortunately, the lessons have not been learnt even now.
The book traces the history of money, its evolution from the barter system, to agricultural commodities to metals to eventually paper. Accounts of some of the financial bubbles in history, debasement of currency to fund wars and build empires and the origins of the banking system are also covered. However, these topics have all been treated in other books in the past as well and so this book serves as a primer for those who are somewhat new to those subjects.
I found some of the lessons of history which are well summarized towards the end of the book more interesting than the rest of the book. According to the author, Money in history, has had mainly two objectives, one as Currency which is just a medium of exchange that facilitates trade and commerce, while the other is simply its use as a store of value. When money loses its store value in a sustained manner and devolves just into a currency, we start seeing economic collapse and impoverishment. Another lesson is to understand the close relationship between paper money and the banking system. The lesser the capital the bank has , the greater is the return it makes on that capital. All the modern innovations like securitization, collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps are fundamentally products which help banks to maintain lower capital on their books. Earlier, banks had to maintain the loans they gave out on their books for the entire tenure of the loan. But the modern innovations allowed banks to get rid of the loans from their books and maintain a lower capital and thus generate higher returns, opening the door for the major financial crisis of 2008.
The final chapters of the book suddenly take a leap from 1918 to today's world economy in the era of Globalization. The author makes the fantastic assertion that the economic arrangement between the US and the low-cost Asian countries as something like a Ponzi scheme and wonders how long the American Empire can continue like this. It is argued as follows:
Since the US is the largest and richest economy in the world, countries like Japan, China and countries in South-East Asia make products and sell them to the US, earning dollars in the process. These dollars are invested back in the American financial securities because they are seen as the safest. With so much money chasing them, the issuers of these securities offer low rates of interest on them. This keeps interest rates low in the US, allowing Americans to borrow money at low rates and buy homes. This increases demand for homes, pushing up their prices. Once home prices rise, Americans are able to borrow more against their home equity and spend it on consuming other goods like buying cars from Japan, apparel and electronics from China and oil from Saudi Arabia. So, the cycle goes on with the US shopping, China earning dollars, China investing it back in the US, the US borrowing and spending again and China earning even more and so on.
I have read radical left-wing economists calling the whole capitalist system a Ponzi scheme, but have not known any mainstream liberal economist condemning the economic arrangement between the US and Asia as an unsustainable Ponzi scheme. Perhaps, economists have voiced concern about the ever-increasing debts of Americans and have cautioned that it is unsustainable, which is probably saying the same thing as calling it a Ponzi scheme! We saw that Japan stagnated after a decade of high growth and stopped exporting as much to the US from the early 1990s. However, it didn't seem to impact the US consumer significantly. One can argue that China replaced Japan as the low cost export source and so nothing much changed for the American consumer. If that is so, would there be a major impact on the US if the Chinese economy also stagnates a la Japan? Obviously, the author hasn't discussed these possibilities because he holds the position that it is a Ponzi scheme and so unsustainable.
The book is a worthy read for those interested in the history and evolution of money. It is written without jargon and shows that if we want to understand the present, it is a good starting point to focus on the past.
The book traces the history of money, its evolution from the barter system, to agricultural commodities to metals to eventually paper. Accounts of some of the financial bubbles in history, debasement of currency to fund wars and build empires and the origins of the banking system are also covered. However, these topics have all been treated in other books in the past as well and so this book serves as a primer for those who are somewhat new to those subjects.
I found some of the lessons of history which are well summarized towards the end of the book more interesting than the rest of the book. According to the author, Money in history, has had mainly two objectives, one as Currency which is just a medium of exchange that facilitates trade and commerce, while the other is simply its use as a store of value. When money loses its store value in a sustained manner and devolves just into a currency, we start seeing economic collapse and impoverishment. Another lesson is to understand the close relationship between paper money and the banking system. The lesser the capital the bank has , the greater is the return it makes on that capital. All the modern innovations like securitization, collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps are fundamentally products which help banks to maintain lower capital on their books. Earlier, banks had to maintain the loans they gave out on their books for the entire tenure of the loan. But the modern innovations allowed banks to get rid of the loans from their books and maintain a lower capital and thus generate higher returns, opening the door for the major financial crisis of 2008.
The final chapters of the book suddenly take a leap from 1918 to today's world economy in the era of Globalization. The author makes the fantastic assertion that the economic arrangement between the US and the low-cost Asian countries as something like a Ponzi scheme and wonders how long the American Empire can continue like this. It is argued as follows:
Since the US is the largest and richest economy in the world, countries like Japan, China and countries in South-East Asia make products and sell them to the US, earning dollars in the process. These dollars are invested back in the American financial securities because they are seen as the safest. With so much money chasing them, the issuers of these securities offer low rates of interest on them. This keeps interest rates low in the US, allowing Americans to borrow money at low rates and buy homes. This increases demand for homes, pushing up their prices. Once home prices rise, Americans are able to borrow more against their home equity and spend it on consuming other goods like buying cars from Japan, apparel and electronics from China and oil from Saudi Arabia. So, the cycle goes on with the US shopping, China earning dollars, China investing it back in the US, the US borrowing and spending again and China earning even more and so on.
I have read radical left-wing economists calling the whole capitalist system a Ponzi scheme, but have not known any mainstream liberal economist condemning the economic arrangement between the US and Asia as an unsustainable Ponzi scheme. Perhaps, economists have voiced concern about the ever-increasing debts of Americans and have cautioned that it is unsustainable, which is probably saying the same thing as calling it a Ponzi scheme! We saw that Japan stagnated after a decade of high growth and stopped exporting as much to the US from the early 1990s. However, it didn't seem to impact the US consumer significantly. One can argue that China replaced Japan as the low cost export source and so nothing much changed for the American consumer. If that is so, would there be a major impact on the US if the Chinese economy also stagnates a la Japan? Obviously, the author hasn't discussed these possibilities because he holds the position that it is a Ponzi scheme and so unsustainable.
The book is a worthy read for those interested in the history and evolution of money. It is written without jargon and shows that if we want to understand the present, it is a good starting point to focus on the past.
June 25, 2020
2.5-3 stars. But won't fault the book since the prevalent topic of the book was something that I generally find quite boring - evolution of money, Gold standard et al. But even then I found some parts Really interesting, especially in the last few chapters
Took 1.5 months to finish it though :(
Took 1.5 months to finish it though :(
June 24, 2020
This time is NOT different.
An excellent account of the growth of money as a concept since human civilization as we know it began a few thousand years ago. From the barter system to the gold standard and paper money that we use to this day, the formation of major central banks around the world and the "abuse" of money which continues to this day. It is an easy read because the author has taken a lot of effort to put across the point and explain concepts in a simplistic fashion without dilution of the subject matter. It does get a bit dry in the middle chapters, however, you must stick through and you'll be rewarded with an amazing understanding of many of the present day concepts and workings of the global monetary system.
One of the praises for the book is - Must read for anyone seeking a degree in Finance - I couldn't agree more.
Looking forward to part 2.
An excellent account of the growth of money as a concept since human civilization as we know it began a few thousand years ago. From the barter system to the gold standard and paper money that we use to this day, the formation of major central banks around the world and the "abuse" of money which continues to this day. It is an easy read because the author has taken a lot of effort to put across the point and explain concepts in a simplistic fashion without dilution of the subject matter. It does get a bit dry in the middle chapters, however, you must stick through and you'll be rewarded with an amazing understanding of many of the present day concepts and workings of the global monetary system.
One of the praises for the book is - Must read for anyone seeking a degree in Finance - I couldn't agree more.
Looking forward to part 2.
March 28, 2021
Rating: 3.5 / 5
The book is written in very simple language without financial system Jargon, which makes it a great book if you are interested to read a well-researched account on the history of money like
- How did we come to trade in paper money.
- Birth and death of Gold Standard.
- How central banking evolved.
- Effects of historical events like world war 1 on today's financial system.
Lessons from the book:
1. The collective myth of money is what enabled us to specialize in specific trades and become proficient at producing goods.
2. All money must have the properties that it should be a good store of value (must not perish) & reliably in demand to be always accepted by the other parties.
3. Bad money drives out the good money. (Gresham's law)
However, reading it becomes extremely boring in some sections, I wish someone would make a documentary or YouTube Video on the contents of this book.
The book is written in very simple language without financial system Jargon, which makes it a great book if you are interested to read a well-researched account on the history of money like
- How did we come to trade in paper money.
- Birth and death of Gold Standard.
- How central banking evolved.
- Effects of historical events like world war 1 on today's financial system.
Lessons from the book:
1. The collective myth of money is what enabled us to specialize in specific trades and become proficient at producing goods.
2. All money must have the properties that it should be a good store of value (must not perish) & reliably in demand to be always accepted by the other parties.
3. Bad money drives out the good money. (Gresham's law)
However, reading it becomes extremely boring in some sections, I wish someone would make a documentary or YouTube Video on the contents of this book.
August 14, 2019
Easy Money: The Evolution of Money from Robinson Crusoe to the first world war by Vivek Kaul is a fascinating book about the evolution of money from the barter system to fiat money, one of the most imaginative fiction that we have created to facilitate trade, economic activities at large scale. This imaginative fiction has resulted in increased prosperity and cooperation at a global scale which might be very difficult to achieve without the fiction of money that we have created.
The human civilization undertook big leap through the invention of paper currency. People work and specialize in the areas in which they feel they are most suited to work without worrying about getting the other things to live a decent life. This specialization is possible only due to the concept of money which has greatly facilitated trade and economic activities at a large scale.
Barter System
In ancient times, human beings lived in societies that had anywhere from 20 to 60 people. In such a small society, a system of barter where people exchanged things they wanted and did not have, with things they had. This barter system evolved over centuries in different way across various parts of the world. Gradually human beings came up with a standardized medium of exchange in the form of commodities or metals which they could use for exchange. This standardized item evolved over a period of time as money. In parts of ancient India, almonds were money. In the Nicobar Islands in India, coconut was money. Corn was money in Guantemala. In the rice producing nations of Philippines, Japan and Burma, standardized portions of rice served as money.
Minting of Coins
Later on, kingdoms/Monarchs started issuing minted coins using various metal depending upon availability to facilitated trade. To create easy money, they started debasing i.e. by issuing coins whose face value was substantially more than the amount of precious metal in the coin. It is the easiest way to finance war or extravagant life of monarchs. Governments/Monarchs/Kingdoms over the centuries had been debasing money.
Gold and Silver as Money
Gradually Gold and Silver emerged as money in most parts of the world. Gold is chemically inert and its radiance is timeless unlike other metals like Copper, Silver, Iron. Also, the price of Gold will be unaffected by any decline in industrial demand as industrial use of Gold is very limited. Most of the countries by the end of 19th Century joined the Gold standard i.e. currencies backed by some amount of Gold leading to the supply of Gold becoming exceptionally tight to meet the needs of every country. With the dwindling supply of Gold for monetary purpose across the world, the growth of money supply decelerated and resulted in slowing down of the growth. This led to the price of goods and services falling and deflation. It started impacting economies across the world.
Paper Money
Marco Polo, a merchant from Venice, who traveled through large parts of Central Asia and China in the late 13th Century saw paper currency being used across China. Mongols in China they were using paper currency before anyone as the ingredients required for making paper money i.e. paper, ink and printing were also invented in China. By the middle of 14th Century, the Mongols were compelled to abandon China which they had totally ruined by printing excess of paper currency. The Ming dynasty which took over after the Mongols, did not do any better continued printing money. Thereafter China moved on to silver as currency after the Ming dynasty and stayed there till the 20th century. The temptation is always there to raise money by printing press than by raising taxes or implementing new taxes.
Ten Indian Figures and the decimal system
The ten Indian figures i.e. 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0 and the decimal system used by Arab merchants for record keeping and trade in the 9th century, which came to be known as the Arabic system was introduced in Italy & Europe by Fibonacci’s book. This concept of decimal system simplified the bookkeeping and the record keeping system with the introduction of double entry system in Europe.
Fractional reserve banking and central banks
The banker's bank i.e. central bank was created to solve the problem of bank run i.e. people going to banks to redeem the money as gold due to speculation in the economy that the currency is losing value. These banks were not supposed to directly deal with the public. They were supposed to receive deposits from the government and the member banks only.
The end of classical gold standard
Before the first world war began, the world was on the classical gold standard. Each country’s currency was worth a certain weight in gold. One British pound was fixed to be equal to 113 grains of pure gold. At the same time, one dollar was fixed at 23.22 grains of pure gold. All currencies were worth different weights of gold and hence fixed in value against each other.
With the onset of First World War, countries like Germany, France, Austria, Great Britain suspended their gold standard as fighting a war meant that governments across needed to incur huge expenditure much more than the gold in their vaults could support. After the suspension, there was an explosion of paper money being printed to fund the war. When gold and silver were money, the value of money was destroyed by debasing it i.e. by lowering the amount of precious metals in the coins, when paper money replaced precious metals as money, the value was simply destroyed by printing more and more of it. In the system as it has evolved, the government does not print money on its own, it sells securities to the central bank which prints money to buy them.
The concept of money evolved over a period of time with many twists and tales, and is still evolving with the technology of Blockchain and Bitcoins. Easy Money: The Evolution of Money from Robinson Crusoe to the first world war by Vivek Kaul is a fascinating book to understand the evolution of money with various twists and tales. The world of financial engineering is as important as the world of real engineering. If fortunes can be made through selling goods and services in the society, fortunes can be also made in investing/trading/speculating on real assets thanks to sophisticated financial system that we have created. It’s important to understand the role of money & financial system in the society, and this book significantly enriches understanding of the money & financial system as well as risks associated with the creation of the fiction called money.
The human civilization undertook big leap through the invention of paper currency. People work and specialize in the areas in which they feel they are most suited to work without worrying about getting the other things to live a decent life. This specialization is possible only due to the concept of money which has greatly facilitated trade and economic activities at a large scale.
Barter System
In ancient times, human beings lived in societies that had anywhere from 20 to 60 people. In such a small society, a system of barter where people exchanged things they wanted and did not have, with things they had. This barter system evolved over centuries in different way across various parts of the world. Gradually human beings came up with a standardized medium of exchange in the form of commodities or metals which they could use for exchange. This standardized item evolved over a period of time as money. In parts of ancient India, almonds were money. In the Nicobar Islands in India, coconut was money. Corn was money in Guantemala. In the rice producing nations of Philippines, Japan and Burma, standardized portions of rice served as money.
Minting of Coins
Later on, kingdoms/Monarchs started issuing minted coins using various metal depending upon availability to facilitated trade. To create easy money, they started debasing i.e. by issuing coins whose face value was substantially more than the amount of precious metal in the coin. It is the easiest way to finance war or extravagant life of monarchs. Governments/Monarchs/Kingdoms over the centuries had been debasing money.
Gold and Silver as Money
Gradually Gold and Silver emerged as money in most parts of the world. Gold is chemically inert and its radiance is timeless unlike other metals like Copper, Silver, Iron. Also, the price of Gold will be unaffected by any decline in industrial demand as industrial use of Gold is very limited. Most of the countries by the end of 19th Century joined the Gold standard i.e. currencies backed by some amount of Gold leading to the supply of Gold becoming exceptionally tight to meet the needs of every country. With the dwindling supply of Gold for monetary purpose across the world, the growth of money supply decelerated and resulted in slowing down of the growth. This led to the price of goods and services falling and deflation. It started impacting economies across the world.
Paper Money
Marco Polo, a merchant from Venice, who traveled through large parts of Central Asia and China in the late 13th Century saw paper currency being used across China. Mongols in China they were using paper currency before anyone as the ingredients required for making paper money i.e. paper, ink and printing were also invented in China. By the middle of 14th Century, the Mongols were compelled to abandon China which they had totally ruined by printing excess of paper currency. The Ming dynasty which took over after the Mongols, did not do any better continued printing money. Thereafter China moved on to silver as currency after the Ming dynasty and stayed there till the 20th century. The temptation is always there to raise money by printing press than by raising taxes or implementing new taxes.
Ten Indian Figures and the decimal system
The ten Indian figures i.e. 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0 and the decimal system used by Arab merchants for record keeping and trade in the 9th century, which came to be known as the Arabic system was introduced in Italy & Europe by Fibonacci’s book. This concept of decimal system simplified the bookkeeping and the record keeping system with the introduction of double entry system in Europe.
Fractional reserve banking and central banks
The banker's bank i.e. central bank was created to solve the problem of bank run i.e. people going to banks to redeem the money as gold due to speculation in the economy that the currency is losing value. These banks were not supposed to directly deal with the public. They were supposed to receive deposits from the government and the member banks only.
The end of classical gold standard
Before the first world war began, the world was on the classical gold standard. Each country’s currency was worth a certain weight in gold. One British pound was fixed to be equal to 113 grains of pure gold. At the same time, one dollar was fixed at 23.22 grains of pure gold. All currencies were worth different weights of gold and hence fixed in value against each other.
With the onset of First World War, countries like Germany, France, Austria, Great Britain suspended their gold standard as fighting a war meant that governments across needed to incur huge expenditure much more than the gold in their vaults could support. After the suspension, there was an explosion of paper money being printed to fund the war. When gold and silver were money, the value of money was destroyed by debasing it i.e. by lowering the amount of precious metals in the coins, when paper money replaced precious metals as money, the value was simply destroyed by printing more and more of it. In the system as it has evolved, the government does not print money on its own, it sells securities to the central bank which prints money to buy them.
The concept of money evolved over a period of time with many twists and tales, and is still evolving with the technology of Blockchain and Bitcoins. Easy Money: The Evolution of Money from Robinson Crusoe to the first world war by Vivek Kaul is a fascinating book to understand the evolution of money with various twists and tales. The world of financial engineering is as important as the world of real engineering. If fortunes can be made through selling goods and services in the society, fortunes can be also made in investing/trading/speculating on real assets thanks to sophisticated financial system that we have created. It’s important to understand the role of money & financial system in the society, and this book significantly enriches understanding of the money & financial system as well as risks associated with the creation of the fiction called money.
May 28, 2014
Despite being a management graduate, i was always clueless as to how money supply impacts money value. The book not only explains that but it truly explains how and why paper money and banks came into existence. The book is an easy read and does not require the reader to have any prior exposure to finance.
July 1, 2020
A treat
A very detailed book on understanding why the green stuff came about to be. Well researched and lucidly written. A treat for people interested in history of money
A very detailed book on understanding why the green stuff came about to be. Well researched and lucidly written. A treat for people interested in history of money
October 3, 2024
The book is little overwhelming as it gets technical every now and then. Having said that, the 'technical' aspect is something one should get a broad understanding of while reading this book, and not necessarily for every page and sentence. GDP, Inflation, Exchange Rate and most of the macroeconomics is the crux of the book. But it is not theory on these terms. Rather the book covers the history of money and in a sense runs through how these terms got a place in Economics literature in the first place. The broader theme is also how anything related to money has evolved - macro-economics, trade, banking system, debasement, currency and others.
'History repeats itself' has been the key theme. Evolution of money has seen this phrase lived time and again as the reader would clearly understand.
It is a good book for any economics enthusiast. I rate it 3/5 for a layman reader looking for lucid text. Not an extremely easy read but attention and patience can be worth it.
'History repeats itself' has been the key theme. Evolution of money has seen this phrase lived time and again as the reader would clearly understand.
It is a good book for any economics enthusiast. I rate it 3/5 for a layman reader looking for lucid text. Not an extremely easy read but attention and patience can be worth it.
October 2, 2020
If you are looking for history of Economics, how money evolved, how financial systems came in to being from pre-historic times to the present, this is the book. Vivek Kaul has wonderful way of presenting the history of money & Finance. This book, as such, is for a lay reader without any back ground in economics. He engages you with interesting anecdotes, historical back grounds while guiding you through the supposedly complex subject. He makes the subject appear so simple with practical examples to drive home a point He has a natural wit without over shadowing the subject at hand. The amount of research he did is evident from the notes and references he has presented at the end of the book.
Once you are through, you will be informed person and you form your opinions with some back ground. You need not depend on WhatsApp University!
Once you are through, you will be informed person and you form your opinions with some back ground. You need not depend on WhatsApp University!
July 6, 2022
The best way to understand the money is to learn about their history - how they first appeared as means of trade, how they were used by different governments to finance their programs, and how they eventually evolved into their current form of paper money.
Vivek Kaul does a great job presenting and explaining the historical facts related to the money evolution.
It's astonishing how the leaders of the countries make the same mistakes again and again. Do they really not know what they are doing? The author's opinion is that the history is not a good teacher for them.
Since this book is the first in the trilogy it ends at the point of creating the Federal Reserve System in 1914, the Bank of England going off the gold standard in 1931, and Adolf Hitler coming to power in 1933.
I am excited to start reading the next book in the series.
Vivek Kaul does a great job presenting and explaining the historical facts related to the money evolution.
It's astonishing how the leaders of the countries make the same mistakes again and again. Do they really not know what they are doing? The author's opinion is that the history is not a good teacher for them.
Since this book is the first in the trilogy it ends at the point of creating the Federal Reserve System in 1914, the Bank of England going off the gold standard in 1931, and Adolf Hitler coming to power in 1933.
I am excited to start reading the next book in the series.
November 28, 2024
The first book of 3 volumes. It gives an introduction on the evolution of money from barter system, previous metals, paper currency backed by metals to the current paper currency system which is not backed by any metals. I would recommend the book to anyone wanting to understand the history of money. The content of the book is structured chronologically from pre historic times till the second world war.
August 20, 2021
Read first part. But it requires more time to understand as things are not arranged in layman's language as author used to write in his other books like NPA Mess. Hope he might have improved on Second part. Second part has to be read.
January 5, 2019
Very informative. Written in very simple terms so that even a layman can understand.
January 26, 2021
A nice read. The narration is fun to follow. The best part was understanding the monetary system of the United States as it went through the 19th century.
Now onto the second book.
Now onto the second book.
January 21, 2023
A good handy starter book for a basic history of money and it's evolution.
July 16, 2020
It is a very interesting and easy read..!!
As the name mentions the book is about how money evolved over the years.. right from the day people started trading or shall we call bartering(?) with each other. Money evolved from the people’s need to trade for items they need/desire and where barter failed to meet the demand. And in some cases right out complicated.
This is the Book-1 of the 3 book series. The premise of this book is the financial evolution till the period in and around first world war.
The language of the book is easy with all of the financial/economic jargon explained in an easy manner and with simple understandable examples. All the heavy financial/ economical terms, explanations that you read in the financial pages.. have started to make a bit of sense for me now.
I would recommend it to any one who is interested in understanding about economics.
As the name mentions the book is about how money evolved over the years.. right from the day people started trading or shall we call bartering(?) with each other. Money evolved from the people’s need to trade for items they need/desire and where barter failed to meet the demand. And in some cases right out complicated.
This is the Book-1 of the 3 book series. The premise of this book is the financial evolution till the period in and around first world war.
The language of the book is easy with all of the financial/economic jargon explained in an easy manner and with simple understandable examples. All the heavy financial/ economical terms, explanations that you read in the financial pages.. have started to make a bit of sense for me now.
I would recommend it to any one who is interested in understanding about economics.
May 27, 2021
If at all there is a book to read to understand the genesis and evolution of money this is it.
November 19, 2015
I had watched an excellent documentary called End of the road which was about end of gold standard. But there were lot of elements about money and monetary policies of different part of the world and specifically the terminology which I really did not understand ( I am pretty sure it is done to confuse rather than for clarity).
I have been following Vivek Kaul on twitter and decided to read his trilogy on the evolution of money. If you want a very easy to understand reading of this complex subject. I would highly recommend it. This trilogy goes a step further and traces the entire history of how current monetary system came into place.
Highly recommended!!!
I have been following Vivek Kaul on twitter and decided to read his trilogy on the evolution of money. If you want a very easy to understand reading of this complex subject. I would highly recommend it. This trilogy goes a step further and traces the entire history of how current monetary system came into place.
Highly recommended!!!
October 30, 2015
Excellent book to have basic understanding of how money has evolved over the period of time.
The great thing about book is that Author have not used any financial terms to explain the evolution. I found it engrossing and funny to read. Looking forward to read next two volumes.
The great thing about book is that Author have not used any financial terms to explain the evolution. I found it engrossing and funny to read. Looking forward to read next two volumes.
November 17, 2019
The book gives a succinct history of the usage money and it's various forms till 1st world war. It is an interesting read but seems to slow down towards the middle. So wouldn't term it as a must read but more of a good to read book.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews