About the Author

Niall Ferguson is one of the world's most renowned historians. He is the author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire, Colossus, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, High Financier, Civilization, The Great Degeneration, Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, and The Square and the Tower. He is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. His many awards include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013).

Reviews

"Before regulators throw block trades, bond swaps, bridge financing, butterfly spreads and Black-Scholes out with the bathwater, they should find time to read Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money." —The Wall Street Journal

"[An] excellent, just in time guide to the history of finance and financial crisis." —The Washington Post

"Shrewdly anticipates many aspects of the current financial crisis, which has toppled banks, precipitated gigantic government bailouts and upended global markets." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Fascinating." —Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek

"Good old-fashioned narrative history, complete with heroes and villains, visionaries and scoundrels." —James Pressley, Bloomberg

"Before regulators throw block trades, bond swaps, bridge financing, butterfly spreads and Black-Scholes out with the bathwater, they should find time to read Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money." -The Wall Street Journal

"[An] excellent, just in time guide to the history of finance and financial crisis." -The Washington Post

"Shrewdly anticipates many aspects of the current financial crisis, which has toppled banks, precipitated gigantic government bailouts and upended global markets." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Fascinating." -Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek

"Good old-fashioned narrative history, complete with heroes and villains, visionaries and scoundrels." -James Pressley, Bloomberg