From one of the Internet's tiny treasures, Delancey Place, May 3:
Today's selection -- from A Brief History of Money: 4,000 Years of Markets, Currencies, Debt, and Crisis by David Orrell.
The expansion of money was made easier as it became more virtual with the arrival of the concept of negative numbers and double-entry bookkeeping:
"The fall of the Roman Empire saw a drastic reduction in trading activities, markets, and even the size of cities, with the population of Rome declining from as many as a million in the 2nd century AD, to about 30,000 by AD 550. The power vacuum was filled by the Christian and Islamic religious authorities who, instead of stamping out coins to pay soldiers, preferred to hoard precious metals in churches and monasteries, often melting it down as decoration for sacred symbols.
"One result of this transformation -- versions of which occurred also in China and India -- was that money became increasingly virtual. Like the Sumerian shekel, it was an abstract score-keeping device more than something you could weigh in your hand. And once again, the birthplace of this next monetary revolution was in Mesopotamia -- with the difference that this time it was led by Islamic money lenders. As today, Islamic finance did not allow usury, but did permit profit-sharing, or charging a range of fees. The system relied heavily on credit instruments, including the promissory notes known as sakk, or 'cheques'. The fact that such transactions were backed only by a signature meant that in business a person's reputation or credibility (from the Latin credere for believe or trust) was all-important....
....MUCH MORE
