Fiat Money
I just finished reading the historian Andrew Dickson White's Fiat Money Inflation In France, a distillation of lectures on the French Revolution he gave in the 1870's. It begins this way:
Early in the year 1789 the French nation found itself in deep financial embarrassement: there was a heavy debt and a serious deficit.
It ends this way:
There is a lesson in all this which it behooves every thinking man to ponder.
What a wonderful little book. It is beautifully and clearly written, with that serious moral tone common to 19th century history. It puts me in mind of one of my favorite books of history: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. White in fact refers at several points to the John Law's paper money scheme that opens Mackay's book.
Early in the year 1789 the French nation found itself in deep financial embarrassement: there was a heavy debt and a serious deficit.
It ends this way:
There is a lesson in all this which it behooves every thinking man to ponder.
What a wonderful little book. It is beautifully and clearly written, with that serious moral tone common to 19th century history. It puts me in mind of one of my favorite books of history: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. White in fact refers at several points to the John Law's paper money scheme that opens Mackay's book.
Labels: Books, Bubbles, Economics, Financial Panic
posted by Jeff Burton at
7:17 AM
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