"The best-selling author of Naked Statistics and Naked Economics explores the colorful world of money and banking to answer such questions as how money creation is used to counter financial crises, why the shared European currency has caused so much trouble and how Bitcoin will impact the future"--NoveList.

Part I: What It Is -- 1 What Is Money -- 2 Inflation and Deflation -- 3 The Science, Art, Politics, and Psychology of Prices -- 4 Credit and Crashes -- 5 Central Banking -- 6 Exchange Rates and the Global Financial System -- 7 Gold -- Part II Why It Matters -- 8 A Quick Tour of American Monetary History -- 9 1929 and 2008 -- 10 Japan -- 11 The Euro -- 12 The United States and China -- 13 The Future of Money -- 14 Doing Central Banking Better.