Currently reading: The Ascent of Money. It is a bit dated as it was published in March of 2008 and its section on the stock/bond market ends with Enron. It probably makes Fergusson's tv/radio interviews highly relevant to the subject of his book.

Fergusson tends to be a grand narrative historian. The failing of that type of historical narrative is that it sees fulcrum causality in too many events. For instance in John Law's stewardship of the French economic system leading to the revolution.

Paris has been a hotbed of social turbulence throughout its history and the French Kings had been bankrupt and defaulting prior to Law and after Law as well. After reading Horne's Seven Ages of Paris I was left wondering of revolution and upheaval was not Paris' natural social and political state.

Another aspect of financial technologies and innovations is that they have followed the increasing scale of the nation-state as a system of social organization. The modern form of raising capital, through bonds and stocks, as well as monetary controls are all very recent phenomenon that required a very stable and highly centralized political system. The nation-state and international relations between nation-states provided that environment.