Ascent of Money: Financial History of the World

Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: call it what you like, money matters' - you know this is a TV tie-in. But books and television scripts are not the same. This truth was best acknowledged by a TV book on the same subject as Ferguson's series. 'A book is a book and a television series is a set of television programmes,' wrote Peter Jay in Road to Riches. 'Both have their own demanding disciplines and imperatives; and neither can be made successfully as an image of the other.' While TV glories in the concrete and struggles with the abstract, written history can embrace both. As Jay explains: 'A book may make more demands on its reader and, in return, the reader may expect more matter from the author.' It is not a deal on which Ferguson delivers. . .