An interesting article appeared in the Melbourne Age recently: a review of Civilization--The West and the Rest (now a major TV series) by Niall Ferguson, best-selling author of The Ascent of Money. The review was by John Keane, director of the Sydney Democracy Initiative and professor of politics at the University of Sydney.
The Ascent of Money is excellent and informative. It doesn't teach you how to make money, but it explains how many ways there are to cheat with it once you have it, or are able to pretend to have it, and how history repeats itself constantly. So one looks forward to The West and the Rest.
Read the rest of Western civilization