I didn’t realize there was a book for this as well, I thought it was just a BBC documentary series. The documentaries are really well made and very informative, but even in those I felt that he was speaking more to his Harvard mates than to us common folk. There are actually six documentary episodes in total. I see you’ve mentioned four of them in your review. Of the last two, the first is about the housing asset bubble, and how for centuries past this market has boomed then gone bust, and how we never seem to learn from past expeience. The final episode is all about how the American government finances alot of its spending by selling bonds overseas, mainly to China.

If you haven’t seen the last two eps you should, you’d like it.

As for the book I don’t think I could handle reading it, but the documentaries are definitely worth watching.

I don’t think Italy was the founder of modern day finance…. I think China was the first, 3,000 BC and their sword/shovel currencies. Then again, who knows for sure!