Niall Ferguson, in his famous documentary, The Ascent of Money, presents a detailed account of financial history. Ferguson is a historian who has a profound understanding of economics. His research and way of presenting his arguments is accurate, scientific and commendable. Ferguson presents his arguments in accordance to appropriate facts and figures that educate readers about the European financial history in a realistic manner. This paper intends to discuss Niall Ferguson’s documentary along with discussing other related aspects of the area under discussion.
The documentary is about history of borrowing currency. It also educates readers when people started lending to other persons, reasons behind their transactions. What were the benefits as well as disadvantages of these transactions? A number of questions, which arise in minds of people regarding the economic history, are answered by the author in a very vigilant manner in the above said documentary.
The documentary suggests that modern financial system was developed in the Italy. Italy was a center of all commercial activities in 15th century. Indulging in commercial activities was a need of the contemporary era due to growing demands of people and traders used to sail in different parts of the world in quest of money and other commercial items. Traders faced different problems in the beginning but finally they solved these issues successfully.
Certain religious impediments also came in the way of trade and commerce in the beginning. Ardent Christians refused to participate in activities like loaning the money as the Bible forbids them from doing so. Interest is not a good way of earning money as per learnings of the Bible. Bible forbids Christians from charging interests and terms it as ‘Usury’, but very soon they got over it. Jewish, on the other hand, interpreted loaning in a different way (Ferguson).
Italy witnessed a revolution in the financial sector as it conceptualised banks, a bond market and many other financial innovations. Bond market came into existence in Renaissance period in the Italy and had travelled into its modern advent. The author presents the complete overview of the bond market in contemporary italy and describes the necessity and relevance of the bond market in the contemporary italy (Ferguson).
Ferguson also describes how the modern stock market emerged in the Paris and Amsterdam. He also describes the bubbles of the stock market and relates the same to bubbling financial conditions. Ferguson describes different facets of the stock markets and educates about bubbles and bursts, panics and manias, shocks and crashes of the market that are common yet very important for the investors (Ferguson).
Having observed the succinct analysis of the documentary, The Ascent of Money, the paper concludes that Niall Ferguson has presented a commendable overview of the financial history. The documentary enlightens readers about the financial developments that took place in medieval times, but are still relevant for the society in a substantial manner. The author presents a well-researched book that is full of data, facts and figures. The book educates readers about certain special developments that are otherwise difficult to learn.
Work Cited
Ferguson, Niall. "The Ascent of Money - Part 1: From Bullion to Bubbles." 05 July 2009. WGBY Public Television for Western New England. Online. 1 June 2014. <http://wgby.org/episode/3339>.
