Department of History

Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, the wherewithal. Call it what you like: Money can make us or it can break us. In the past year, it's certainly broken some of the biggest names on Wall Street. How on Earth could a little lcoal difficulty with subprime mortgages in the United States unleash an economic tsunami big enough to wipe out some of Wall Street's most illustrious firms, force nationaization of banks and financial institutions on both sides of the Atlantic, and bring the entire world economy to the very brink of recession, if not depression?Hosted by bestselling author, economist, historian, and Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, THE ASCENT OF MONEY takes a prescient look at how money evolved, from the concept of credit and debt in the Reniassance to the emergence of a global economy and the subprime crisis we face today.As he traverses the world of money, Ferguson speaks with leading experts inculding finanacier George Soros and former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, among others. From the rise of the stocks and bonds markets to subprime mortgages, from the housing bubble to the globolization of money and the concept of "Chimerica," Ferguson demonstrates that financial history is the essential backstory behind all history and to the current financial meltdown.