Easy Money: Evolution of Money from Robinson Crusoe to the First World War

About the Book

We live in an era when coloured pieces of paper are deemed to be money. But this was not how things always were. In the United States, tobacco was money for longer than gold was. In parts of ancient India, almonds were money. Corn was money in Guatemala. In the rice-producing nations of Philippines, Japan and Burma, standardized portions of rice served as money. Salt was money in the Sahara Desert. How did these commodities disappear as money? What role did the rise of banking play in the rise of paper money? How has paper money at various points of time destroyed financial systems? And, most importantly, how do the same mistakes which were made earlier continue to be made in the modern era? Vivek Kaul answers these and many more questions in the first book in the Easy Money series.

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What people are saying about the Easy Money trilogy

Asking someone what a thing costs will draw a speedy reply. But now ask them what money is … Vivek has asked himself precisely this question and this fine book is a culmination of his dogged pursuit of the answer. Join him in his rich intellectual voyage and see for yourself where it leads.
Dylan Grice
Former editor of the Edelweiss Journal

Forget what you think you know about money and read the true, absorbing tale told by Vivek Kaul in his thorough, but fascinating book, Easy Money. A great read.
Al Ries
Internationally respected marketing guru and author

On our desk are two great books. One is David Stockman’s The Great Deformation… The other is Vivek Kaul’s Easy Money.
Bill Bonner
President and Founder of Agora Inc, an international publisher of financial and special interest books and newsletters.

This indigenous writer has written a book which is truly global in every sense. I would take the liberty of placing him in the same league as a Niall Ferguson or a Peter Bernstein, even though this is Vivek Kaul’s first book
The Hindu

Kaul is not an economist and rightly assumes that neither are his readers. Unlike other books that seem to have had been written by one economist for other, this book is for everyone who is ready to try out a riveting cocktail of history and economics. There is no jargon to throw you off balance.
Instead, the writing is simple, suave and lucid. 
Daily News and Analysis (DNA)