A colorful history of coins and currency from their very beginnings.
Money tells the story of coins and paper money from ancient to modern times. The book is an exciting collaboration by curators at the British Museum, home to one of the world's finest numismatic collections. Profusely illustrated with 545 color and archival images, Money traces the use of monetary exchange from a primitive barter system to the online, cashless systems operating today.
Money examines its subject with authority and imagination, covering its history through the ages and across the world:
- Ancient Mesopotamia, Greece and Egypt
- The Roman world
- Medieval Europe
- Islamic lands
- India and Southeast Asia
- China and the Far East
- Africa and Oceania
- The early modern period and the modern period.
Including modern developments, such as the introduction of the Euro and e-money, Money is an up-to-date, lively and thought provoking introduction to the subject. It will be of interest to history buffs, economists, bankers and general readers. The beautiful photographs are a fine resource for collectors.
Money: A History examines the origins, spread and cultural diversity of money throughout the world. From the exchange systems of earliest times to the increasingly cashless society of today, money and currency is set against a background of broader issues such as moral, political and religious attitudes to money in different cultures. Coin specialists from the British Museum trace the development of monetary systems from the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt to the invention of coinage in Lydia in the 7th century BC and its dissemination throughout the Greek and Roman empires. They consider money in the medieval West and the Islamic lands, in the ancient civilizations of India and China, and in the early modern period in the West. The book also examines the consequences of the globalization of the world monetary economy in the 19th and 20th centuries from more than a purely Western perspective.
