"Like an underground stream which rarely comes to the surface but which nevertheless irrigates the countryside through which it flows, sterling runs through British history, from the Conquest up to the present day."

With this passage, Nicholas Mayhew begins his fascinating look at one of the world's most storied, influential currencies. Sterling: The History of a Currency is both an absorbing account of the global impact of currency throughout the second millennium and an entertaining primer in financial history and theory.

Mayhew traces the path of sterling from its genesis...