This book takes the reader on a journey through the gladitorial realms of high finance - from the Sydney futures market and the Singapore money markets to the Casablanca bourse and the first Hungarian stock exchange to operate since 1948. Wall Street and the City of London complete the picture. It looks at what makes financial institutions work, what money actually means in a given society and how to use it to justify existence. The book includes accounts of meetings and encounters with various characters and accounts of unusual events in the financial world. Douglas Kennedy is the author of Beyond the Pyramids: Travel in Egypt and In God's Country: Travels in the Bible Belt.