including headings Better than barter, Safe in the temple, The first mint, Bronze coins in China, Greek and Roman financiers, ...
Paper money is first experimented with in China in about910, during the Five Dynasties period. It is a familiar currency by the end of the century under the Song dynasty. Another three centuries later it is one of the th...
No doubt hunter-gatherers, when they find the honey of bees in a hollow tree, often risk a sting for the pleasure of sweetness. The story of beekeeping can be described as the search for safer and more convenient ways of...
Though money has been lost, these faraway events are as yet more painful on the plains than in the offices of Wall Street (established by now as the nation's main financial centre). Recognizing a potential crisis, financ...
The transformation from moneylenders into private banks is a gradual one during the 17th and 18th centuries. In England it is achieved by various families of goldsmiths who early in the period accept money on deposit pur...
The sudden growth in population and money supply transforms California into a new kind of society - one of violence, greed and ostentatious consumption, in which new ventures are recklessly undertaken and frequently fail...
Such undertakings tie up large sums for money for long periods before any profit can be realized, in the capital cost of ships and the expense of their crews on journeys lasting months and sometimes years. A large number...
At Jonathan's coffee-house there are customers with money to risk in a different way. These are the investors who take a share in a trading venture, accepting part of the risk in return for part of the profit. The enterp...
The Dutch company finds it easier to make money by piracy than by the efforts of colonists (the capture of the Spanish silver fleet off Cuba in 1628 yields vast profits), but the town of New Amsterdam thrives as an excep...
By the mid-1980s, with those in employment making good money (particularly in areas such as financial services) and with inflation sharply down from its 1970s peak, the mood of the country is swinging to the right. Mrs T...
Speculation is an intrinsic part of capitalism, since the capitalist must risk money in the hope of making more. When the risk is undertaken as a direct part of a productive enterprise (buying a machine to make something...
In 1636 John Hampden initiates a policy of non-payment of ship money which gradually wins support around the country. The king's agents are able to raise only 80% of the sums demanded in 1638, and less than 25% of the ta...
The economic status of the Jews declines in the same period. Their position as money-lenders to the rich and powerful is eroded from the 13th century when merchants from northern Italy (collectively described as Lombards...
Venice, after being possibly the first city to found a bank for the keeping of money on safe deposit and the clearing of cheques, is also a pioneer in the involvement of a bank with state finances. In 1617 the Banco Giro...
The cost of four years of war has been massive on both sides, in men and money alike. The north has more of each and loses more of each: about 360,000 Union soldiers killed compared to 260,000 Confederates; some $5 billi...
