Modern history shows that a nation's success largely depends on the way it manages its money. In times of war, finance has been just as crucial to victory as firepower. But where do money and politics meet? Starting in 1700 and ending at the present day, Niall Ferguson offers a bold and dazzling analysis of the evolution of today's economic and political landscape. Far from being driven by the profit motive alone, out recent history, as Ferguson makes clear, has also been made by potent and often conflicting human impulses - sex, violence and the desire for power.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Spending and taxing: the rise and fall of the warfare state; "hateful taxes"; the Commons and the castle -representation and administration. Part 2 Promises to pay: mountains of the moon - public debts; the money printers - default and debasement; of interest. Part 3 Economic politics: dead weights and tax-eaters - the social history of finance; the myth of the feelgood factor; the Silverbridge syndrome - electoral economics. Part 4 Global power: masters and plankton - financial globalization; golden fetters, paper chains - international monetary regimes; the American wave - democracy's flow and ebb; fractured unities; understretch - the limits of economic power; conclusion.

About the Author

Niall Ferguson is Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford. He is the author of THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD and THE PITY OF WAR and editor of VIRTUAL HISTORY.