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"The Richest Man Who Ever Lived" by Greg Steinmetz
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/books/review/the-richest-man-who-ever-lived-by-greg-steinmetz.htmlJacob Fugger, the Renaissance-era financier, is a familiar name in Germany, but little known in the English-speaking world. “The Richest Man Who Ever Lived,” by Greg Steinmetz, a journalist turned securities analyst, is an attempt to remedy that. Though it doesn’t quite live up to its promise, it provides a serviceable and colorful introduction to one of the most influential businessmen in history.
Fugger was born in 1459 into a family of prosperous merchants in the commercial city of Augsburg. By the time of his death in 1525, he was not only the wealthiest man in Europe, but had also played a role in creating the Hapsburg Empire, in crowning two Hapsburgs as Holy Roman Emperors and, inadvertently, in starting the Protestant Reformation.
Steinmetz claims that “to understand our financial system and how we got it, it pays to understand” Fugger. Not really. One of the characteristics of the entrepreneur — along with the ability to generate trust, to calculate profitability and to evaluate risk — is the ability to spot opportunity, and opportunity is peculiar to context. So to understand Fugger’s career means first of all to recapture the context in which he found his opportunities.
Fugger’s wealth came from seizing opportunities at the nexus between money, war and political power. He lived in an age of both growing commerce and transformations in the means of violence, as gunpowder weapons replaced swords, lances and spears. That took warfare out of the hands of those who had trained for it their entire lives — knights — and put it in the hands of those less skilled but able and willing to wield muskets and cannons, that is, paid soldiers. Rulers increasingly came to depend on mercenaries to gain power, and they needed huge sums of money to hire and supply armies.
Fugger was born in 1459 into a family of prosperous merchants in the commercial city of Augsburg. By the time of his death in 1525, he was not only the wealthiest man in Europe, but had also played a role in creating the Hapsburg Empire, in crowning two Hapsburgs as Holy Roman Emperors and, inadvertently, in starting the Protestant Reformation.
Steinmetz claims that “to understand our financial system and how we got it, it pays to understand” Fugger. Not really. One of the characteristics of the entrepreneur — along with the ability to generate trust, to calculate profitability and to evaluate risk — is the ability to spot opportunity, and opportunity is peculiar to context. So to understand Fugger’s career means first of all to recapture the context in which he found his opportunities.
Fugger’s wealth came from seizing opportunities at the nexus between money, war and political power. He lived in an age of both growing commerce and transformations in the means of violence, as gunpowder weapons replaced swords, lances and spears. That took warfare out of the hands of those who had trained for it their entire lives — knights — and put it in the hands of those less skilled but able and willing to wield muskets and cannons, that is, paid soldiers. Rulers increasingly came to depend on mercenaries to gain power, and they needed huge sums of money to hire and supply armies.
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through college or studied some history. I'll contact Greg Steinmetz, journalist now financial products/securities man how it is untrue that most of the English speaking world is unfamiliar with Jacob Fugger of Augsburg, funder of the Habsburgs. Albrecht Durer painted that family along with emperors, princes and notable elites. Is it really true this country is that dumbed down.
Jacob Fugger, by Albrecht Durer, 1518.
Maximilian I, HRE, by Albrecht Durer, 1519
