In his new book The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, historian Niall Ferguson argues that money is the "root of most human progress." He traces money's evolution from Mesopotamia to modern microfinance.
"Perhaps," Ferguson writes, "it will be a financial crisis that signals the twilight of American global primacy."
Ferguson is a history professor at Harvard University and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His recent books include The War of the World, Colossus, and Empire.
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