Money and Promises: Seven Deals That Changed the World

Fair attempt to popularize banking history, very worthwhile, but gets a little bit lost in the weeds
First, the best of it: the closing sequence on the financial birth and death of the USSR is a masterpiece. This told me more in a short time than ten other books touching on the subject, and it danced, in the telling. The author’s experience there shined through. Second-best, IMO, is the preceding sequence, on the financial birth of the USA. It, also, in elegant and compact explanation, imparts so much.In the remaining chapters, my complaint, if any, would be about the sprighliness of the storytelling, which I would say, in a popular-history type work, is a little less than scintillating. At moments, like a gawking but very nerdy tourist, it wanders and gets too technical without cutting through to the big essential themes. But overall I am very pleased for having listened to this book.I would be the target audience for this book: I have a longtime interest in finance and financial history, but not professionally. Similar works I have enjoyed, for example, are The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson, and Money Changes Everything by William N. Goetzmann (also the work Goetzmann, edited, The Origins of Value). Between those works, for a fairly popular audience, Ascent of Money was at the extreme of popular accessibility and catchy storytelling. It was made with a colorful companion documentary/TV special, in the style of Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man, or the Carl Sagan shows. Goetzmann, meanwhile, is relatively more detailed and scholarly, and predictably, is slightly more disciplined and plodding in the telling (yet still aiming to reach a popular audience). My taste would be in the midrange of those approaches: I like some storytelling to keep me interested. I like artful phrasings in the mix, that get to the heart of what is going on, on a simple level, to keep me awake and flowing along with the narrative. (I teach Business Law and I work very hard to do that for students. I say, if I can’t explain something in plain English, I don’t really understand it, and I fault teachers for being needlessly obtuse.) Here, I think author Paolo Zannoni is trying for a similar effect with a similar audience. I would call his success at this, fair-to-pretty-good. I enjoyed the book, and in the audible version, the narrator certainly tried hard to inject some sparkle and enthusiasm. I am glad for having listened to it. I think the choice of which stories to tell, and the overall pacing, is very good. I just would not classify it as being at the absolute front rank of this genre (thinking of the examples above). I would like slightly more spice and anecdote in the telling (let me be shallow and say, entertainment), given what he is trying to achieve. But when the author sparkles, he does so fantastically. I commend this book to anyone of similar interests.