The Ascent of Money读后感1000字
《The Ascent of Money》是一本由Niall Ferguson著作，Penguin Press出版的Hardcover图书，本书定价：USD 29.95，页数：442，特精心从网络上整理的一些读者的读后感，希望对大家能有帮助。
●a must read
●作者喜欢讲故事，可惜似乎技术层面的干货以及深入的分析很不够，最后竟然扯上了进化的概念……应该属于学术能力不强，但沟通能力还蛮强的典型吧……
●Money is a matter of belief.
●写的挺全
●科普读物
《The Ascent of Money》读后感(一)：这哥们作为教授有好大一个耳环！！！lol 还把原配丢了找了个黑美人。。。
很不错的金融历史书。。。
这哥们作为教授有好大一个耳环！！！lol 还把原配丢了找了个黑美人。。。
John Law是最搞笑的。。。 建议国内傻逼经济学家恶补此书。。。
《The Ascent of Money》读后感(二)：不错的金融史书
英文原版不错，虽然表达不一定太好理解，词汇量大，但内容很好，值得多花一点时间理解和琢磨。不过作者行文感觉有点儿散，想讲到blowing bubble的时候，开始说了John Law其人，但后来就引申到Dutch bank model方面的内容，后来又兜回来说John Law在Regent的帮助下推动了Banque de France的成立，有点儿搞不清楚逻辑。其他地方也有累似的情况，不知道是不是老外写书的手法如此。
《The Ascent of Money》读后感(三)：也就是一散文集吧。
读的英文版，当个小说来读普及一下知识还可以，但要想从中提纯出思想性的东西，实话讲还是蛮少的。
一是太大而散，涉及了货币，债券，股票，房产，等等。但每一个部分只是讲了一些小故事，并没有什么中心主旨存在。
二是故事引用失当，很多小故事不明白他为什么要花篇幅去引用，似乎和原文并不搭。比如阿根廷那位作家的小说什么的，好象就是作者看过，正好记下来，就顺手拉了来，我觉得很不严谨。甚至把布莱克舒尔茨模型也列上去了，似乎也就是为了晃瞎那些不懂金融的人士的眼睛用的。
这本书，要是一位记者写的，写写看看，也这罢了，作为一位世界知名学者的成果，好象有点不太相称。
《The Ascent of Money》读后感(四)：五个金融历史故事会
作者挑选了自己觉得重要的事件，按话题来组织内容，分五章分别讨论了信用，债券，泡沫，住房，风险和Chimerica。本书并不是一般意义上系统的历史记录，所以副标题A Financial History of the World有些过大。前两章的很多材料都算得上是“新闻”，符合我对历史书的期待；后四章写作跳跃性比较大，也看不出跟前两个话题的逻辑关系。这五个话题的选择似乎没有一个明确的主线。类似的写法在《极简欧洲史》中看到，但那本书里面的六个选题显然更加有主次之分和逻辑关系。
不得不说，作者讲故事能力一流，文字引人入胜，尤其是Introduction开头的几段。但是如果你想从本书看出金融历史发展的根本性规律甚至由此指导投资赚钱之类，恐怕你要失望。配合上作者拍的一部同主题的纪录片，本书的角色其实更像一个导游而不是一部完整的历史。
跟阴谋论的作品比起来，作者对于历史事件的梳理还是相当严谨的。虽然作者在Introduction里面对于金融的作用的叙述有些夸大。作者论断说，"..., money is the root of most progress." "Behind each great historical phenomenon there lies a financial secret, ..." 但他所列举的各种例子，其实只是说明了金融是社会发展密不可分的一部分。但要说金融主导了这些发展，结论比较牵强。例如，如果给那些目前比较原始的部落配上相应的现代金融系统，它应该很难就能很快发展出其他的现代科技。又如，作者说，“It was Nathan Rothschild as much as the Duke of Wellington who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.” 显然，如果只需要Rothschild先生的资金就能打败拿破仑的话，那么Wellington公爵也不需要看蜘蛛结网给后来的心灵鸡汤软文做材料了。或者，我们也可以说，这些战斗的士兵，生产武器的工厂等等都是一样重要的。还好他后面自己也说:"It may in fact be futile to seek a simplistic causal relationship (more sophisticated financial institutions caused growth or growth spurred on financial development). It seems perfectly plausible that the two processes were interdependent and self-reinforcing."
写完评论，发现Amazon上面有位读者Brian Brockmeyer的观点和我非常类似:"Ultimately, though, the book will be of most benefit to those with a casual interest in economics, as it is entirely deｓｃｒｉｐｔive and not preｓｃｒｉｐｔive. Ferguson never really offers anything resembling a thesis, nor does he reveal his own views except for the most fleeting of moments when singing the virtues of late-19th/early-20th century imperialism. He is focused exclusively on reporting, not analyzing. As such, THE ASCENT OF MONEY, though well-written, does not transcend its status as a historical chronicle and will be of trivial value to those seeking a sophisticated economic treatise."
下面是前两章我觉得比较有趣的部分。
早在公元前5000年的美索不达米亚人们就开始使用粘土做的代币。公元前18世纪的古巴比伦，借贷成为一种商业模式：债务可以易手，长期贷款可以收取复利。公元前6世纪还有一个银行家家族Egibi, 现存上千个用文字记录人向他借钱的粘土平板。最早的银行一般认为是在14世纪的意大利，其中最著名的莫过于Medici家族从黑到白然后实力如日中天的传奇经历。17世纪有三个重大的金融创新：一是1609年荷兰Wisselbank建立方便国际贸易结算，是使用支票和转账等工具的先驱；二是1656年瑞典Riksbank开启了factional reserve banking，借出比它的reserve多的钱；三是1694年为方便战争而建立的Bank of England, 推出了无利率的银行票据，使得交易双方无需都在该银行有账户(对比转账双方都需要在Wisselbank有账户)。然后各国模仿英国央行建立起自己的中央银行，并实行金本位制度。
国家政府债券一开始都是政府由于战争而借债。关于Rothchild家族的记叙直接反驳了宋鸿兵在阴谋论畅销书《货币战争》里面宣称的故事版本--Rothchild家族在滑铁卢战役里面设立烽火传递回伦敦通过购买英国国债大赚一笔。事实上，Rothchild确实根据消息提前买入了英国国债，但等了一年才卖出。造成Rothschild在19世纪金融界统治性地位的原因是他们在伦敦国际债券市场中的强大国际分销网络，赚取政府和零售的差价。
荷兰人最伟大的发明可能是股份制公司。VOC公司本来为了从远东海运香料成立的，结果最开始在主业上面由于航海风险和成本巨大并没有产生巨大利润，反而是在副业(捕获敌人的船只)上获利颇丰。本来VOC成立时允许股东在10年后取回初期投资，但事实上被推迟了，随之产生了交易这些股权的市场。看到巨大的市场交易需求，世界上第一个股票交易所也应运而生。 一旦股票被用来作为借款的抵押物，股市和银行业就联系在一起了。
《The Ascent of Money》读后感(五)：对本书主旨、论证和背景的一些质疑
The book has a twin UK documentary series called "Ascent of Money". Later, PBS produced a shortened version of the documentary that can be accessed online for free. Both films are very illuminating and educational, thus I felt compelled by curiosity to read the prints.
The book is famous for its bold conclusion that development finance is primarily responsible for the evolution of human history. Few strong statements supporting this view jump out of the text - "Financial history, the essential backstory behind all history", "Financial innovation has been an indispensable factor in man’s advance" and "the evolution of credit and debt was as important as any technological innovation in the rise of civilization."
The author provides several short stories to illustrate his view. The banking family Medici supported the Italian Renaissance via bank loans and bond market; Dutch and British stock market contributed to the later revolution and imperial success; The French revolution was rooted in preceding stock market turmoil; and China's Qing Dynasty declined due to its inability to introduce more adaptive financing methods, and her current uprise is a result of modern finance system.
These stories can be relate to and reinforced by books that also discover the linkage between finance and societal change. For instance, the "Wall Street and Rise of Hilter" and the "Wall Street and Rise of Bolshevik" attempt to show that Hilter and Soviet Russia were first financially supported by a few wall street bankers and industry tycoons. In the book "Tradegy and Hope", professor Carrol Quigley attributes the inevitable downfall of Soviety Union to its rigid and inflexible financial system which lacks of modern credit money mechanism.
However, some questions arrive as we learn more about the book and the author. The author, Ferguson, in his preceding book, The Cash Nexus, asserts that economic factor is only partially responsible for societal change. This contention, however, contradicts what he is saying in this book. If such contradiction is logically sound, then the author must have altered his view between writing the two books. However, the rationale for such a change is not given in the book.
Moreover, the author committed a grand fallacy by treating a necessary conducive factor as a sufficient one. I do believe that finance has been playing a critical role to human soceity, but I don't think finance alone can shape the society into what it is today. In other words, development of finance is necessary to societal change, but it is wrong to say that its existence is sufficient to such change. And the author didn't even attempt to prove finance being a sufficient factor.
In terms of reasoning method, the book relies on inductive argumentations, such as generalization and causality, which are susceptible to exceptions and alternative causes. Thus, without additional information to justify the conclusion that financial development is the main driving force of human history, and reject other factors as the main force, the overall argument in this book is weak and subject to implausibility.
Lastly, the time of publication of this book, 2008, makes one to suspect the book's implied political nature. Some positions in the book seem to function as justification of the creidt crisis in 2008. They suggest that financial turmoil in 2008 is a normal piece of history-making moment in the long financial history; Crisis is bound to occur regularly throughout history, because the dying of financial institutions such as Bear Sterns and Merry Lynch simply represents a part of natural selection process in the finance industry.
Thus, one can infer from the above passage that there would be no one to blame for the 2008 crisis. Nonetheless, a few economists and politicians such as Ron Paul have pointed out that the sinner was the US central bank who inflated the bubble prior to the crisis. If Ron Paul is right, then the author's view can be argued as a diversion from the criticism of the US central bank.
Despite of these short comings, the book provides interesting stories, intrigueing ideas connecting segments of social and historical knowledge, and an vivid illustration of importance of finance to human history. To that I do not object.
y HartmannJG52
2012.10.03