The History of Central Banking
And the Enslavement of Mankind
Few books cut through the myths of finance as brutally as The History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind. It does not dress its argument in polite academic language. It makes a blunt case: central banks are not guardians of stability, they are instruments of control.
The book traces this power back centuries. The creation of the Bank of England in 1694 is presented not as a milestone of progress, but as the first step in a system of financial bondage. The bank was granted the privilege of issuing money to fund wars, while ordinary citizens carried the debt through taxation and debased currency. The pattern was set. Governments spent, banks printed, and the public paid.
From there, the story rolls forward. The Rothschild banking dynasty exploiting war finance across Europe. The establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913, timed perfectly before the slaughter of the First World War. Each event is presented as another layer of a cage being built around society. Every crisis strengthened the system, never weakened it.
The book makes a key point that mainstream histories ignore. Central banks do not exist to serve the people, they exist to serve the state and those who own the debt. Inflation, far from being a failure of policy, is shown as a deliberate mechanism to transfer wealth from savers to issuers. Money is conjured out of nothing, lent at interest, and repaid by generations who never agreed to the deal. It is not an accident, it is enslavement by design.
What makes the narrative powerful is its insistence that this is not just history, it is the present. The abandonment of the gold standard in 1971 is framed as the ultimate betrayal, removing the last restraint on money creation. Since then, central banks have operated in a world of pure fiat, accountable to no one, and capable of expanding credit in infinite amounts. The result is debt spiralling beyond comprehension and a public so entangled that default would mean collapse.
The conclusion is grim but unavoidable. If you follow the arc laid out, you see that this is not a story of bad decisions or misjudged policies. It is a story of deliberate architecture, built to ensure dependency. Nations are no longer sovereign when their currency is controlled by unelected bankers. People are not free when every pound in their pocket represents debt owed to someone else.
The book does not offer comfort. It offers clarity. Central banking is not the solution to instability. It is the source. And until that truth is confronted, the cycle of enslavement will continue.