Last refreshed at 0600GMT Friday The best five books on everything | 30 July 2010

Small, Short and Unsecured: Informal Rural Finance in India

F J A (Fritz) Bouman
Small, Short and Unsecured: Informal Rural Finance in India

Short, Small and Unsecured takes a small area of western India and looks closely at how the money goes round. It delves deliciously deeply into things like how the pawnbroking business works, and exactly how poor farmers get together to set up savings and loans clubs. The book was written in 1989 but the same lessons still apply.