Atlas of Finance: Mapping the Global Story of Money (Hardcover)

Description

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A unique illustrated exploration of the development of finance that combines data from every part of the world and covers five thousand years of history
 
“The book is a lot of fun. Data-fixated readers will enjoy unpicking its main content: a series of elegantly produced maps, graphs and other visualisations. These are eclectic in scope and ambitious in intent.”—Jonathan Guthrie, Financial Times
 
From the emergence of money in the ancient world to today’s interconnected landscape of high-frequency trading and cryptocurrency, the story of finance has always taken place on an international stage. Finance is one of the most globalized and networked of human activities, and one of the most important social technologies ever invented.
 
This volume, the first visually based book dedicated to finance, uses graphics and maps to bring the complex and abstract world of finance down to earth, showing how geography is fundamental for understanding finance, and vice versa. It illuminates the people—including Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes—who have shaped our thinking about global finance; brings to life the ways that place-specific histories, laws, regulations, and institutions influence finance; shows how finance relates to innovation, globalization, and environmental change; and details how finance plays a key part in drawing the landscape of uneven development, inequality, and instability.
 
The Atlas of Finance, with word and image, will change the way you view both your money and your world.

About the Author

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Dariusz Wójcik is professor of financial geography at National University of Singapore. Wójcik leads an author team that includes Panagiotis Iliopoulos, Stefanos Ioannou, Liam Keenan, Julian Migozzi, Timothy Monteath, Vladimír Pažitka, Morag Torrance, and Michael Urban. James Cheshire is professor of geographic information and cartography at University College London; Oliver Uberti is a Los Angeles–based designer and a former design editor for National Geographic. Cheshire and Uberti are the award-winning team behind Atlas of the Invisible: Maps and Graphics That Will Change How You See the World.

Praise For…

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“The book is a lot of fun. Data-fixated readers will enjoy unpicking its main content: a series of elegantly produced maps, graphs and other visualisations. These are eclectic in scope and ambitious in intent.”—Jonathan Guthrie, Financial Times

“Pertinent to all our lives. It is beautifully illustrated. . . . Catch[es] the imagination and inspire[s] people to learn more.”—Money Week

“A wonderful achievement, shining light on many crevices of our economies and their histories.”—Paschal Donohoe, Irish Times

“Atlas of Finance is a stunning visual experience, every page a revelation of the mystery of finance and its often hidden pathways across the globe.”—Liaquat Ahamed, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lords of Finance

“This volume gives readers a real, intrinsic view of how, where, and when financial markets do their work. It follows the history of money from cuneiform tablets to Bitcoins, showing how the essence of finance is in the networks that it both creates and destroys; and each page bursts with stunning and illuminating illustrations. Everyone from students to seasoned professionals to armchair experts will learn something from this unique and fun book.”—Robert J. Shiller, Nobel laureate in Economic Sciences and author of Narrative Economics

“Erudite, spectacular, and revealing, the Atlas of Finance sheds a bright light on the history and geography of finance—its contribution to unleashing human potential but also its darker side. A tremendous accomplishment!”—Gabriel Zucman, professor at the Paris School of Economics and University of California, Berkeley