In The Pity of War, Niall Ferguson asked a penetrating question: What would have happened had Britain remained neutral during World War I? Agree with his answer”history would probably have turned out better”or not, of one thing there can be little doubt. Ferguson showed that he possessed an outstanding historical imagination. He did not practice what Herbert Butterfield called “Whig history,” that is, history as a progressive unfolding toward the glorious present. A more realistic approach to history recognizes, as Ferguson did in his earlier book, that people have often confronted genuine alternatives. Unfortunately, Ferguson’s historical imagination has deserted him in The Ascent of Money. He traces the history of finance, from the origin of money to the derivatives and hedge funds of today. Though he describes in his vivid style the panics and disasters that have often characterized this development, for him the path has been onward and upward.