Table of Contents

*** 1. Birth of Monetary Units in Early Antiquity ***
From taxation-redistribution to early market economy after 4000 BC
Values for exchanges
Counting in intermediate-commodities
From intermediate-commodities to silver ounce money
Historical Correlation:
Intermediate-commodities or protomoney, and early antiquity

*** 2. Coins: Catalyst of Antiquity ***
Coins after 640 BC
Coins by weight in Greece’s marketplaces
Coinage: ferment of empires
Moneychangers: guarantors of coin value
Banking as an offshoot of money in antiquity
Historical Correlation:
Coins: more peacemaker for civilization than “sinew of war” for empires?

*** 3. The Roman Empire and Coin Multiplication ***
Financial concerns for the Empire in the first century AD
Quick fixes to treasury crises in the first century AD
Inflation in the late first century AD
Winners and losers of price inflation after the late first century AD
Economic stagnation from the first to the third century AD
The Crisis of the Third Century AD
Failure to curb inflation in the late third century AD
Inflation circumvented, reviving the Empire during the fourth century AD
Historical Correlation:
Monetary obstacles contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire

*** 4. From Lack of Coins in the Middle Ages to Banking and the Renaissance ***
Coin circulation in Western Europe from the seventh to the twelfth century
Coins transmuted in the thirteenth century
The economic decline of the fourteenth century combining with deflation in the fifteenth century
Deflation circumvented by Italian merchants in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
Bankers financing the Renaissance in the fifteenth century
Deflation dodged in the sixteenth century, and economic improvement
Inflation limited by mercantilism in the sixteenth century
Historical Correlation:
Dual evolution contrasted with or without banks

*** 5. From Printing Banknotes to the Industrial Revolution ***
Scarcity of coins in the seventeenth century
Appearance of the banknote in England in the seventeenth century
Loan multiplication and the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century
The Bank of England and its banknotes in the eighteenth century
Historical Correlation:
Industrial Revolution and banknotes

*** 6. Failures and Successes of Paper Banknotes in the eighteenth century ***
Banknotes discredited in France after 1720
Debacle of the “continentals” in the US around 1780
Collapse of the assignats of the French revolution around 1795
The Napoleonic Wars and banknotes
Historical Correlation:
Monetary mismanagement and their effects on the Crowns of England and France

*** 7. Banknotes, Gold Standard and Economic Cycles in the nineteenth century ***
Brief economic depression in Great Britain around 1820
Economic cycles discerned after 1820
Expansion of the Industrial Revolution on the European continent after 1830
The Gold Standard and the “Long Depression” after 1873
End of British supremacy in the late nineteenth century
Historical Correlation:
Deflation in the late nineteenth century and the fever of nationalism

*** 8. Dollars, Banknotes and Keynes from 1914 to 1971 ***
Gold Standard disruptions during World War I
Hyperinflation in Germany
Stock exchange crash of 1929
Theories of Keynes around 1930
Gold convertibility partially repealed in the 1930s
Keynesian theories in the US after 1932
Prodigious economic recovery in Nazi Germany after 1933
World War II and monetary battles
Bretton Woods in 1944 and the postwar “Golden Age of Capitalism”
Keynes on the sidelines and Schacht in the limelight during the inter-war period

*** 9. The Rise of Monetarism in the 1970s ***
The end of gold convertibility of the dollar after 1971
New soul and origin of money
Breakdown of fixed parities followed by devaluations after 1973
Rise of inflation and unemployment in the 1970s
Fight against inflation in order to regain economic growth around 1980
“Reaganomics” in the US after 1980
Dollars similar to gold coins after 1980
European currencies stabilized before the introduction of the euro in 1999
The US tamps down inflation and its economy dominates the world

*** 10. Troubles with Monetarism ***
Two economic glitches at the turn of the twenty‑first century
Third glitch: the financial crisis of 2008
In search of a broader solution

*** 11. Secondary Currencies and Parallel Economies in Modern Times ***
The five currencies of Argentina after 2001
The black market constrained by lack of its own currency
Service-notes in European countries
Economists overlook parallel economies

*** 12. A Parallel Currency to Speed Up the Economy (and Fight Global Warming) ***
A Parallel System to push back deflation… and fight global warming
Benefits of the Green-Market System
Road-map to success with the people
A monetary solution to speed up the economy and contain global warming?