Niall Ferguson is Fellow and Tutor in Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford. He is the author of THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD and THE PITY OF WAR and editor of VIRTUAL HISTORY.

Part 1 Spending and taxing: the rise and fall of the warfare state; "hateful taxes"; the Commons and the castle -representation and administration. Part 2 Promises to pay: mountains of the moon - public debts; the money printers - default and debasement; of interest. Part 3 Economic politics: dead weights and tax-eaters - the social history of finance; the myth of the feelgood factor; the Silverbridge syndrome - electoral economics. Part 4 Global power: masters and plankton - financial globalization; golden fetters, paper chains - international monetary regimes; the American wave - democracy's flow and ebb; fractured unities; understretch - the limits of economic power; conclusion.