Money: A History

Published to accompany the opening of the British Museum's HSBC Money Gallery (founded by HSBC Holdings, a banking and financial service company), this delightful, profusely illustrated, compact history of money is a rarity. All the chapters, written by curators in the museum's department of coins and medals, are lively. Enriched by 200 color and numerous black-and-white illustrations, the story of money, as told here, mirrors the growth of cities and trade; the rise and fall of empires (Roman, Byzantine, Mogul, Ottoman); European exploration, investment and colonization, which laid the groundwork for a global economy; and the explosion of paper money and credit in modern times. Besides tracing Islamic civilization's attempts to regulate the influence of money, the authors delineate three major systems of monetary practice and coinage: a ""Western tradition"" extending from Mesopotamia and Egypt, to medieval Europe, down to Keynes and the European Union; China's long, independent money tradition, which spread from Central Asia to Vietnam; and ancient India's system, copied from Afghanistan to Indonesia. This wide-angled, fact-packed, guided museum tour, with coins of lands from Fiji to Brazil, nicely complements Jack Weatherford's recent The History of Money (Forecasts, Dec. 9, 1996). (May)