In this lesson, students will be introduced to the practice and industry of microfinance, learning how the provision of unsecured loans to low-income, small-scale entrepreneurs in the developing world has improved the business prospects and quality of life for many desperately poor people around the world.

In this lesson, students will be introduced to the practice and industry of microfinance, learning how the provision of unsecured loans to low-income, small-scale entrepreneurs in the developing world has improved the business prospects and quality of life for many desperately poor people around the world.

In the four-hour version of THE ASCENT OF MONEY, historian and author Niall Ferguson seeks to explain the financial history of the world, exploring how our complex system of global finance evolved over the centuries, how money has shaped the course of human affairs and how the mechanics of this economic system work to create seemingly unlimited wealth—or catastrophic loss.

Niall Ferguson, MA, D.Phil., is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Additional web and print resources about the past, present and future of money.

Production credits for THE ASCENT OF MONEY.