Sterling: The History of a Currency Hardcover - 2000

First line

English money was first called sterling in the late eleventh or early twelfth century.

From the jacket flap

Sterling The History of a Currency "Like an underground stream which rarely comes to the surface but which nevertheless irrigates the countryside through which it flows, sterling runs through British history, from the Conquest up to the present day." With this passage, Nicholas Mayhew begins his fascinating look at one of the world's most storied, influential currencies. Sterling: The History of a currency is both an absorbing account of the global impact of currency throughout the second millennium and an entertaining primer in financial history and theory. Mayhew traces the path of sterling from its genesis around 1080, during the rule of William the Conqueror, through latter-day struggles to hold its own amidst the global retreat from precious metals standards and the still-developing Euro. Tales of laborers and merchants interweave with those of knights and kings to reveal the social fabric of European society in 1500. Passages from Adam Smith's 1776 classic The Wealth of Nations outline early but fundamental principles of banking. The dramatic increase in the early nineteenth-century supply of sterling, accompanied by its equally dramatic fall in value, is explored, and the evolution of money from silver and gold through paper, plastic, and electronic impulses is contrasted with social movements that have changed our need for, and relationship with, money. "Sterling, like the English landscape, has evolved over the centuries, reflecting and sometimes leading to changes in the nation's history, and also generating a sense of unchanging stability of fundamental importance to the national psyche." The history of sterling is nothing less than the history of England and the world. Sterling tells that story with all the vividness and drama which its topic so richly deserves. This profound book also travels far into the heart of mankind's physical and emotional relationship to currency. Whether you are a student of finance, history, psychology, or sociology, Sterling will leave you with a new appreciation for the central role a currency plays in the development of a nation--and the almost human qualities that currency often assumes as it ages, sometimes gracefully and sometimes fitfully, over the years and centuries.

Media reviews

Citations

• Reference and Research Bk News, 11/01/2001, Page 114