Originally published in 1990 and now offered in paperback, this is a guide to world coinage, putting the reader in direct touch with the rulers and states which issued them, the craftsmen who made them and the people who used them. The book presents a country-by-country account of world coinage from its beginnings in the 7th century BC. Alexander the Great, Cleopatra and Napoleon appear alongside other rulers, sometimes figures whose very existence is known about only from the coins that they issued. The text follows the development of the four separate coinage traditions of the Mediterranean, India, China and Islam, as the origins and progress of coinage in each country of the world are traced within a concise historical framework. It also describes when and why new currencies and denominations were introduced, what they were made of, and how they were designed and inscribed.