From ancient Mesopotamia to twenty-first century hedge funds, humans have sought to grow their wealth by investing wisely. Click on the timeline below to see how strategies have evolved, what has worked and what to avoid. Then read the relevant chapters in the book for deeper guidance.
Norton Reamer and Jesse Downing, authors of Investment: A History, discuss key insights from their study of five thousand years of investment. See more videos.
It's ironic that so much dramatically improved in the way the economy was handled from the Great Depression to the time of the Great Recession -- and yet, it's still controversial, and doesn't seem to be fully understood by the public or even the Congress.
It's remarkable how recent it was that insider trading was labelled broadly an investing malfeasance. Until the 1960s, courts ruled in favor of insiders who traded on nonpublic information. When it comes to regulation of investing transgressions, there still seems to be evidence that the law (and the SEC's enforcement of it) can still make further progress.