The Wealth Of Man - Hardcover

Jay, Peter

3.5

12 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1891620673 ISBN 13: 9781891620676

Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2000

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Jay (economics editor, BBC) tells the story of the ascent of humanity as the only economic animal as producer, consumer, and accumulator of wealth. Synthesizing historical, economic, scientific, and cultural analysis, Jay traces human development from the time before agriculture to the development of cultivation and trade, the development of money and writing, and the emergence of cities. He also considers the rise and fall of empires, the origins of the industrial revolution, and the current phase of globalization. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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About the Author:

Educated at Oxford and a veteran of the Royal Navy, Peter Jay has a long and acclaimed career as a journalist, historian, and government official. He served for six years in the British Treasury Department before joining the Times as Economics Editor. After a decade at the paper, he was appointed Ambassador to the United States. He is currently the Economics Editor for the BBC and a frequent presence on British television. The Wealth of Man will tie into a major six-part BBC documentary narrated by Jay. He lives in Oxfordshire, England.

From Booklist:

Quixotic it may appear to proffer a one-volume history of the world economy that holds interest, but Jay succeeds. Exhibiting the flair of a journalist and the worldly wisdom of a finance official, both of which professions occupied him in Britain, Jay jaunts from the dawn of agriculture to the globalized present. His story adheres to a highly serviceable metaphor for humanity's work for wealth: the waltz. First, an advance increases wealth; the increase attracts political attention; and the threat to wealth from politics eventuates in rules to regulate or protect wealth from capricious avarice. Commanding a capacious fund of information, Jay advances illustrations of his waltz motif from the first recorded wars in the Fertile Crescent to wealth's modern three-step in China. Yet Jay's erudition is not designed for impressing readers, but for informing them about the buildup of the material platform of contemporary civilization--about which most are unreflecting. Far from an apology for laissez-faire, Jay's accessible, nontechnical history outlines wealth's accumulations and dissipations as a way of cautioning against sanguine expectations of unending prosperity. Bonnie Smothers
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved

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