If you have any interest in Economics, History, Niall Ferguson, YouTube presentations of BBC documentaries, the following link may indeed be catnip. Here is a link to The Ascent of Money: a financial history of the world. This documentary is a companion piece to Ferguson’s new book (of the same name…found here at Amazon.com).
The Ascent of Money: A BBC Financial History of the World
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/06/07/the-ascent-of-money-documentary
The Ascent of Money: a Financial History of the World by Harvard historian Niall Ferguson. But the book was actually meant to accompany a 2008 six-part documentary commissioned by BBC Channel 4 — the same folks who gave us What Is Reality?, The End of God: A Horizon Guide to Science and Religion, How Music Works, What Is Time? — And distributed in the US by PBS.
The program is now available online in a clip of questionable legality that may or may not get pulled down by the copyright watchdogs at any point. But, while it lasts, it’s very much worth a watch — eloquent and digestible, it distills one of the most powerful driving forces of our civilization and its multiplicitous impact on just about every aspect of our lives.
