This book's full title is Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible by William N. Goetzmann. If reading history has taught me anything is that there is seldom anything really new and that this time it is never different.
For example, I remember reading about doing business in China that people were getting their money out because sometimes if you had a successful business the government might arrest you and take your firm away from you and all that you made. This is not new for China. Throughout China's history, the government seldom let an individual get too much money or benefit from things that they have done. The government felt that the government should be the only one to benefit from anything.
It is probably why the industrial revolution did not happen in China. The Chinese invented a lot of things throughout history. They invented the compass, the horse harness, they had paper money going back a long way. However, the Industrial Revolution was very messy. That is not how the Chinese government operated. So what does this say about China being a world power to replace the US?
Bye the way, the US way of doing things has always been quite messy. Yes, they are currently in a mess but this is nothing new. They will muddle through somehow. This could also be applied to the Brits and the Dutch.
There are some interesting reviews on Amazon.
As usual there are some great reviews on Good Reads. You can also find a good review by Pietra Rivoli on Financial Times
William Goetzmann answers question on his book on the Yale site. William Goetzmann gives a talk for CFA Institute.
An index of the books I have reviewed are on my website at Books. I have three blogs. The first talks only about specific stocks and is called Investment Talk . The second one contains information on mostly investing and is called Investing Economics Mostly. My last blog is for my book reviews and it is called Non-Fiction Mostly. Follow me on Twitter.