Table of Contents
Introduction 6
A Time Before Money 8
How early people managed without money
It's a Gift 10
Presents in the past
Swap Shop 12
All about bartering
Cow Much? 14
Stores of value
All That Glitters 16
Gold and silver
Shilling Out 18
Selling for seashells
Mesopotamia's Got Talent[s] 20
Marvelous Mesopotamian money
Owe No! 22
Pouches, priests, and promises to pay
Very Interesting 24
Simple and compound interest
Coining It 26
The world's first coins
Coins Catch On 28
Countries go coin-crazy
Don't Sank On It 30
Banks in ancient Greece
Slave To Money 32
Debt slavery in the ancient world
Funding Fights 34
The currency of the Roman Empire
Roman Rises 36
Money mayhem in ancient Rome
Fine Time 38
Blood money in Dark Ages Europe
China's Changing Currencies 40
Cowries and coins in ancient China
Flying Cash 42
The invention of paper money
Stone-Cold Rich 44
BIG money on the island of Yap
World's Wealthiest 46
Mansa Musa's many millions
What a Rotta! 48
Numbers and banks in Renaissance Italy
Families and Florins 50
The Medicis make a killing
Taking Stock 52
All about stocks and shares
Cocoa, Cotton, and Copper 54
Aztecs, Incas, and empires
Super Silver 56
Second-best? Not in the Spanish Empire.
Paper Problem Solvers 58
Paper gets popular
Coin Clippers 60
Crafty currency criminals
National Banks 62
The first central banks
Cashing In 64
Rothschild gets rich
Minted! 66
The first coin-making machines
An Upsetting Business 68
How coins are created today
The Greenback 70
The mighty one-dollar bill
Mark My Words 72
Hyperinflation after World War I
Making Money 74
Faking it with a famous forger
Crash! 76
The Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression
Wealth of Nations 78
Getting to grips with GDP
Opportonity Knox 80
The US's fortified gold reserves
Put it on Plastic 82
The first credit cards
Playing with Plastic 84
New notes in Australia
Holes in the Wall 86
All about ATMs
Microbanks 88
Big ideas for starting small
Beyond Banks 90
Crowdfunding and P2P lending
Euro Most Welcome 92
Currency unions and the euro
Making Money from Money 94
Commemorative coins
Feeling Reserved 96
Fractional reserve banking
The Global Financial Crisis 98
2008 and the Great Recession
Bitcoin Begins 100
The wild world of cryptocurrencies
Rich and Poor 102
Wealth and inequality
The End of Hard Cash? 104
Digital dollars and contactless cards
Future Money 106
What lies in store for money and how we use it?
Timeline 108
Money and You! 112
Buy, Bye, Bye 114
Money Mishaps 116
Money Quiz 118
Taking Things Further 120
Further reading and resources
Glossary 122
Index 124
