Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #441112 in Books
• Published on: 2001-02-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 576 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The idea that money makes the world go round has become so ingrained in popular consciousness that it has almost acquired the status of eternal truth. Which is possibly by why it has escaped close examination. Until now. And as Niall Ferguson's The Cash Nexus makes clear it is one that doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. That there is a link between money and politics is unarguable. In the early 1700s, when governments discovered the black art of servicing debt through bond issues and a central bank, they unlocked the doors to warfare and empire building on a grand scale, and the ability to raise money has remained integral to domestic and international politics ever since. The question that Ferguson asks is whether the link always holds good and that, as both Marxist and right-wing historians continue to maintain, all political life is driven by economic forces. Indeed, so entrenched is the belief that governments themselves believe it. Bill Clinton's electioneering slogan, "It's the economy, stupid" has become such a given that the Labour government appear to be using it as the basis for their new campaign. And yet, as Ferguson points out, if you look at the results of recent elections, you see that the axiom carries little weight. If it had, John Major would have been re-elected in 1997 and Al Gore would have swept home in 2000. Similarly, if poor economic performance was a guarantee of electoral disaster, Margaret Thatcher would have been voted out of office in 1983. So politics--or the pursuit of power--do exist as a separate entity. Partly this may be because most people are catastrophically hopeless at assessing their economic self-interest, and partly because people are motivated by forces over and beyond money. Whatever the reason, the consequences for the way we view the world are immense, and as in The Pity of War, where Ferguson challenged some of the conventional wisdoms of the First World War, he takes a provocative pen to many of the accepted norms of the 21st century. Class war is replaced by age war, with the teens losing out; the Americans have been too timid rather than too aggressive in their global policing; and petrol tax revolts are a political inevitability. The Cash Nexus is ambitious, entertaining and thought-provoking. What it isn't is a populist history-lite easy read. Some of the ideas are just too complex to be broadbrushed; but don't give up. --John Crace

Martin Vander Weyer, Literary Review, February 2001
"Ferguson combines an ability to make statistics dance... with a prodigious range of literary and historical reference."

DH, Nottingham Evening Post, 10 March 2001
"An analysis, shrewd, interesting and stimulatingly clear-sighted, of the way money turns the political and social wheels."

Customer Reviews

Hard going but worth the effort
The book's scope is much wider than its title would imply. The author analyzes why some regimes have been more successful than others during past 300 years. The book emphasizes importance of four institutions as the bases of financial strength (and long-term success) of the state:
- a tax-collecting bureaucracy
- a representative parliament
- a national debt
- a central bank

There is lot of intellectual gymnastics with figures and facts in the middle of the book that test your determination to go on. Those who persevere get rewarded with the interesting discussion in the end of the book about defense expenses as a insurance policy for the state and a need for a superpower policeman for the free world in order to make peace and prosperity to last.

Read and find out if you agree with the conclusions of the author.

An excellent book but it does tend to drift off in places
Overall an excellent book that look at the link of bond prices democracy, politics and a nation-states power. It is very informative and contains alot of data simply set out; especially useful if you just happening to be doing a degree at the time.

My favourite aspect of this book is the completely fresh look ( even if I don't agree with all of it ) it takes at national power rather than rehashing old books with little, if anything, new to say.

Saying that the book at times does drift off losing all sense of structure especially in the middle covering the links between political parties and various lobby groups.

This does not stop being easy to read and comprehend while still being extremely informative.

The cash nebulous
I purchased this book on the basis of the on-line reviews anticipating a study of financial history.

Whilst it is reasonable on the history of currency, banking, and international finance it drifts off badly into loose discussions of UK politics, democracy and development, and the rise of the US economy. None of this material is particularly convincing and is based far too much on citations.

Overall I found it a frustrating read. There is a too much of a feeling that the author is a moderator in a debate which he doesn't fully understand.