EAN: 9781451688566

THE RICHEST MAN WHO EVER LIVED - GREG STEINMETZ...

In the days when Columbus sailed the ocean and Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa   a German banker
named Jacob Fugger became the richest man in history.      Fugger lived in Germany at the turn
of the sixteenth century  the grandson of a peasant. By the time he died  his fortune amounted
to nearly two percent of European GDP. In an era when kings had unlimited power  Fugger dared
to stare down heads of state and ask them to pay back their loans  with interest. It was this
coolness and self-assurance  along with his inexhaustible ambition  that made him not only the
richest man ever  but a force of history as well. Before Fugger came along it was illegal under
church law to charge interest on loans  but he got the Pope to change that. He also helped
trigger the Reformation and likely funded Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe. His
creation of a news service gave him an information edge over his rivals and customers and
earned Fugger a footnote in the history of journalism. And he took Austria’s Habsburg family
from being second-tier sovereigns to rulers of the first empire where the sun never set.      
The Richest Man Who Ever Lived is more than a tale about the most influential businessman of
all time. It is a story about palace intrigue  knights in battle  family tragedy and triumph 
and a violent clash between the one percent and everybody else. “The tale of Fugger’s
aspiration  ruthlessness  and greed is riveting” ( The Economist ).

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