Popes and Bankers – Book review for Booksneeze

I received the book Popes and Bankers by Jack Cashill to review for BookSneeze.  This is the first book that I have gotten. 

I love to get new books and what better way to get them for free?   I have to admit that this book started out slow for me.  It tells about a woman who defaults on her mortgage.  It goes from there to define the history of debt.   This really hit home for me because we are trying to become debt free.   Through history, borrowing money has been thought to be a serious sin.  It says that the thought of interest at all, not just excessive interest should be condemned.   He mainly focuses on the theme of "usury" which is the lending of money at fairly high interest rates.

Oh, if only that was the way things were.  Throughout the book, the author tries to convey that the problem lies in the greedy borrowers and not the lenders.  I do believe that is a large part of the problem.  American’s feel like we are entitled to have it all.  It doesn’t matter whether we have the money or not.  It is culturally acceptable now to just borrow more and more.   I also feel like the lenders take advantage of people who they know cannot pay the interest rates that they charge. 

It is eye opening to see Cashill’s perspective on how our society has transformed into what it is today. 

Overall, this book was hard for me to read.  It has a lot of history about credit and loans in the U.S.  I did enjoy the way he linked history to the present.  If you are looking for a quick way to learn about credit and spending habits and trends from Bible times, to medieval period to today, this may be a book you enjoy.

I received this book from BookSneeze in exchange for this review.  No other compensation was provided.