The Ascent of Money by one of my favourite authors, the financial historian, Niall Ferguson is a masterful, thoughtful study of humanity’s complicated relationship with money. The monstrous monetary system we have today is responsible for the greatest leaps and bounds of human prosperity, and for the most depressing of depressions suffered by civilisation to date.
If you want to understand the men (there are not many women in the story of the history of money), mechanics and motivations of money, I cannot recommend this book enough. Niall has a wonderful way of getting to the crux of complicated financial concepts, such as credit default swaps and the global bond market; and of placing these ingenious manifestations of financial wizardry in their proper historical context so that the reader can understand the role these blunt and sharp financial instruments played in booms and busts that define the ascent of mankind.