The Ascent of Money: The Financial History of the World
by Adrian Pennink
List Price:
Our Price: $11.49
You Save: $18.50 (62%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $11.24 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Niall FergusonDirector: Adrian Pennink
Brand: PBS
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 240 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-09-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: PBS
DVD Reviews of The Ascent of Money: The Financial History of the World
DVD Review: Pass it by
Summary: 2 Stars
If you have been around for the past few decades and have been reading the financial news in the newspapers and magazines then don't waste your time with this book. While Professor Ferguson throws thousands of pieces of data at us there are few insightful explanations or insider information. It's a view of someone looking in from the outside, constrained by his academic position. If you want a brief catalog of the main money events, starting with Mesopotamia and ending with the recent recession, then this will do.
Contrast this with a superb book like "The Big Short" of Michael Lewis . Maybe the difference is he didn't chew off so much, being outside academia he had more freedom, and he really spent a lot of time with the people he wrote about. He didn't drop in.
I will state a couple of things I wanted from the book and you can judge if the above is unfair. After all, Lewis only had to cover a few years. I wwanted more information on why a few thousand top financial people have managed to get such a stranglehold on the economy and why they can do quasi illegal stuff with no punishment. Why can the head of Countrywide mortgage services take home more than $500,000,000 after leaving millions of people in foreclosures behind him? Why can Ken Lay's family keep all the millions he stole? Why can John Merryweather rise from financial debacles not once but several times, leaving millions of impoverished investors, yet stay rich? I'm not saying he did anything illegal just why did the system let him get away with it,? Isn't failure supposed to punish the people who set it up as well as the investors? It's as if these guys have found a system where if "we win I get rich; if we lose I get rich." What are the social dynamics that permit this? What are the social dynamics that let 99 percent of these guys get away with it? They've kept the yachts and jet planes and now feed the Republican legislators and 42,000 lobbyists. (And many Democrats.) And what about the morality of it all? How long can a society worship the Golden Calf and survive? How long can people continue to survive and believe, that if they do the right thing, the generous thing, they are saps and will be ruined, ? Isn't this worth discussing and explaining in the postmortem? There have been societies that believed that if you have accumulated enough to give yourself and yours the basic comforts, if you then fought and schemed for much more, you were mentally sick. Or to put it another way, you were a cancer on society. Is that what we have come to?
Description of The Ascent of Money: The Financial History of the World
Studio: Pbs Release Date: 09/01/2009 Run time: 240 minutesBestsellers in DVD
![The Story of Jeremiah [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Wresting With God [VHS]by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops:
Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
![Strike the Original Match [VHS] Image](/images/Strike-the-Original-Match-VHS-0001374079-X.jpg)
Strike the Original Match [VHS]New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
![Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image](/images/Medjugorje-The-Miracles-and-the-Message-VHS-0001373293-X.jpg)
Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99
Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops:
Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single Userby Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops:
Cost Accounting [VHS]by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
CollapseMPI; Release date: 2010-06-15; DVD
Best price: $8.74
Price in other shops:
The War of the World: A New History of the 20th CenturyPBS; Release date: 2008-08-12; DVD
Best price: $11.49
Price in other shops:
Frontline: Breaking the BankPBS; Release date: 2009-08-11; DVD
Best price: $11.02
Price in other shops:
FRONTLINE: Ten Trillion and CountingPBS; Release date: 2009-06-16; DVD
Best price: $12.97
Price in other shops:
American Experience: The Crash of 1929PBS; Release date: 2009-12-15; DVD
Best price: $13.16
Price in other shops:
Ascent of MoneyPBS; Release date: 2009-04-07; DVD
Best price: $11.99
Price in other shops:
Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World EconomyPublic Broadcasting Service; Release date: 2002-07-30; DVD
Best price: $15.00
Price in other shops:
Frontline: Inside the MeltdownPBS; Release date: 2009-05-12; DVD
Best price: $11.99
Price in other shops:
Frontline: The WarningPBS; Release date: 2010-01-05; DVD
Best price: $13.11
Price in other shops:
Inside JobSON; Release date: 2011-03-08; DVD
Best price: $14.22
Price in other shops: