Easy Money: Evolution of Money from Robinson Crusoe to the First World War - Paperback

by Vivek Kaul (Author)

We live in an era when coloured pieces of paper are deemed to be money. But this was not how things always were.

In the United States, tobacco was money for longer than gold was. In parts of ancient India, almonds were money.

Corn was money in Guatemala. In the rice-producing nations of Philippines, Japan and Burma, standardized portions of rice served as money.

Salt was money in the Sahara Desert. How did these commodities disappear as money?

What role did the rise of banking play in the rise of paper money? How has paper money at various points of time destroyed financial systems?

And, most importantly, how do the same mistakes which were made earlier continue to be made in the modern era? Vivek Kaul answers these and many more questions in the first book in the Easy Money series.

Author Biography

VIVEK KAUL has worked in senior positions at the Daily News and Analysis (DNA) and The Economic Times. He is the author of four books, including the bestselling Easy Money trilogy on the history of money and banking and how that caused the financial crisis that started in 2008 and is still on. India's Big Government: The Intrusive State and How It Is Hurting Us, his fourth book, was published in January 2017. Kaul is a regular columnist for Mint, BBC, Dainik Jagran, Firstpost, Bangalore Mirror and the Deccan Herald. He has also appeared as an economics commentator on BBC, Mirror Now, CNBC Awaaz and NDTV India. He is a regular guest on 'The Seen and the Unseen', one of India's most popular podcasts. He speaks regularly on economics and finance and has lectured at IIM Bangalore, IIM Indore, IIM Kozhikode, IIM Visakhapatnam, NMIMS and the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, among others. Kaul lives in Mumbai and loves to read crime fiction in his free time.