Atlas van de financiële wereld: De mondiale geschiedenis van geld in kaart gebracht

by Dariusz Wójcik, James Cheshire (Illustrator), Oliver Uberti (Illustrator)

Dit schitterend geïllustreerde boek toont de geschiedenis van de financiële wereld. Aan de hand van spectaculaire kaarten, infographics, statistieken en foto’s ontdekken we hoe geld en geografie samenhangen. Geografische zaken als klimaat, vruchtbaarheid van het land, bereikbaarheid en politieke cultuur blijken grote invloed te hebben op de verdeling van rijkdom. Rijkdom bepaalt de innovatiekracht maar ook de mate van milieuvervuiling. De kaarten maken duidelijk dat kapitaal zich weinig aantrekt van landsgrenzen. Dat was al zo in de oudheid, waar het eerste geld werd uitgevonden, en het geldt zeker voor ons crypto- en flitskapitaal.

Dit boek is samengesteld door een team van experts, waaronder Dariusz Wójcik, Panagiotis Iliopoulos, Stefanos Ioannou, Liam Keenan, Julien Migozzi, Timothy Monteath, Vladimir Pazitka, Morag Torrance en Michael Urban. De schitterende illustraties zijn van de hand van James Cheshire en Oliver Uberti.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Business, Social Science, History

240 pages, Hardcover

Published February 7, 2025

Reviews

[Walter Ullon · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a practicing data scientist, I spend a significant amount of time creating visualizations to efficiently communicate results, reveal relationships, and surface insights. Despite my confidence in my own work, I felt like a complete chump after reading The Atlas of Finance—it truly sets the gold standard for the visual presentation of information.

If you've ever wanted to travel through history and experience the evolution of economics and finance through stunning infographics, this book is for you. It covers everything from the early history of money and the birth of economic theories to speculative bubbles and the rise of modern financial superpowers—each page is a journey in itself.

I'll definitely be revisiting it for inspiration.
Highest possible recommendation.

[Boudewijn Hogeboom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erg boeiend, tal van financiële begrippen, historie en praktijken worden in fraaie grafieken en plaatsjes letterlijk ‘op de kaart’ gezet. Een spread per thema. Voorkennis helpt omdat de thema’s wel heel beknopt worden neergezet.

[Erik Jansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a designer by education and very much interested in the financial world, I was very interested to read this book. Unfortunately, it did not quite meet my expectations. There are 80 topics each covered with two pages of graphics and text (in the Dutch edition). The explanations are extremely short and it is difficult to grasp the essence, for instance the two items about pensions (61 and 63). However, there are enough interesting topics.

Page 30 shows clearly that the gain in market capitalisation since 2015 is mainly due to the technology shares (BigTech). The explanation of "developed", "emergent" and "frontier" markets is interesting, but the market capitalisation for Portugal, Romania and Serbia is (in the Dutch edition) escaped the translation from "Billion" to "Miljard", making these countries larger than the US.
Page 66 discusses the wealth distribution, the famous 1% that owns half of the wealth of the world. Unfortunately, the graph does not make a difference between private richness and ownership of companies. The value of a company is difficult to assess and to (re)distribute and the value of stocks are based on future expectations, so very speculative.

One other reviewer states that there is nothing about bitcoins and blockchain in the book, but there are two chapters on 'digital currencies' (p. 90) and 'bitcoins' (p. 92).
For those not familiar with the financial world, the Atlas provides a good starting point for the topics covered.

[Lorenz · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who reads and listens to a lot of business and economic news, I would admit that there were a lot of stuff that I still didn't understand. That is why i am very thankful to this book for helping me learn tons of stuff that are very much relevant today. With its amazing data and statistical information, as well as wonderful illustrations and graphs, It even helped me learn new stuff about things that i think i already know. There are topics of course that I wish was covered more in depth (such as the, Asian Financial Crisis, the 2008 Financial Crisis and the Eurozone Crisis), as well as stuff that i think were missing (no specific discussion of the 1928 Wall Street Crash or the Black Wednesday 1992 Sterling Crisis). Yet, I would still have given this a five star instead of four if not for the glaring error in one of the pages where it stated that the United States, Japan and Australia sanctioned South Vietnam in 1975 (what they actually sanctioned was the unified Vietnam and not South Vietnam.) Such a glaring error of course would leave readers like me wondering, if there are other small errors in the book that he or she just read but hasn't spotted yet. Nevertheless, overall still a great book overall. Highly recommended.

[Ryan Baese · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a high school economics teacher I’m always looking for cool and engaging infographics. This book is loaded with stunning visuals. The authors and designers do a great job of telling a complex and important story in way that appeals to beginners and experts alike. I’m stocking up copies to give as gifts for the holiday season! Loved this!

[alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a super interesting read and the infographics were stellar but just overall a bit too dense for my layman brain.

[Ann Deraedt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ik hou van de moderne visualisaties - grafieken en infographics - die in het boek staan. Het boek is overzichtelijk gemaakt zodat ik zin heb om ook de geschiedenis te lezen.

[3thn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the book a lot - but very perplexed not a single mention of crypto or blockchains or bitcoin

[RYAN PHAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice infographics