A good high level history of the physical currency.

books:


	• The History of Money Jack Weatherford Three Rivers Press, 1998 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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Very Educational

I had no idea this book would be so informative. Very good read, changed my perspective.

A good high level history of the physical currency.

This book is great and quick overview of how money became the physical currency of modern times. Starting with trade of goods, and then to shells and cocoa beans, and then to minted coins and finally to the form of paper money across various countries. While the complaints about specific historical event being wrong maybe true, the social aspects are the importants points of the book. With America, in the early times of the nation, the decision to use a decimal system ultimately impacted how numbers were used for other subjects outside of currency. This changed science and business. This book is very good and filled with interesting tidbits of trivia around the history of money.

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Once again, shaky history

As many other reviewers noted, his history is shaky. Not only that, his anthropological knowledge and understanding of social fabric of many of the societies he reviewed are also weak. It seems that Mr. Weatherford wrote his book without always checking his sources, as if 'out of his head'. My personal favorite flop was his continuous insistence that Lydia was a country located by IONIAN sea. Has he checked his map? Ionian sea is on the other side of Greece and, naturally, modern Turkey in the region where Lydia was located has access to Aegean and Mediterranean seas. I am a little upset with writers who undertake to write sprawling historical analyses without having a solid historical base. He would have gotten a C- in my class. Still his style is entertaining and once you get used to inaccuracies and are willing to overlook them, then it could be an enjoyable read.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

In his most widely appealing book yet, one of today's leading authors of popular anthropology looks at the intriguing history and peculiar nature of money, tracing our relationship with it from the time when primitive men exchanged cowrie shells to the imminent arrival of the all-purpose electronic cash card. 320 pp. Author tour. National radio publicity. 25,000 print.