<P> A newer, reorganized four - hour version with the original full title The Ascent of Money: The Financial History of the World was aired in July 2009 by PBS . Both versions can still be viewed online at the link below . </P> <P> From Shylock's pound of flesh to the loan sharks of Glasgow, from the "promises to pay" on Babylonian clay tablets to the Medici banking system . Professor Ferguson explains the origins of credit and debt and why credit networks are indispensable to any civilization . </P> <P> How did finance become the realm of the masters of the universe? Through the rise of the bond market in Renaissance Italy . With the advent of bonds, war finance was transformed and spread to north - west Europe and across the Atlantic . It was the bond market that made the Rothschilds the richest and most powerful family of the 19th century . </P> <P> Why do stock markets produce bubbles and busts? Professor Ferguson goes back to the origins of the joint stock company in Amsterdam and Paris . He draws telling parallels between the current stock market crash and the 18th century Mississippi Bubble of Scottish financier John Law and the 2001 Enron bankruptcy . He shows why humans have a herd instinct when it comes to investment, and why no one can accurately predict when the bulls might stampede . </P>

The ascent of money episode 1 dreams of avarice