'If, as David McWilliams complains, economists take the fun out of money, then he is the exception that proves the rule: a man who could not write a boring sentence if he tried, and who, in this brilliantly informative and entertaining book, has done his subject splendid justice' 
TOM HOLLAND

'Equally entertaining and insightful'
YANIS VAROUFAKIS

MONEY.
The object of our desires.
The engine of our genius.
Humanity’s greatest invention.

Whether we like it or not, our world revolves around money, but we rarely stop to think about it.

What is money, where does it come from, and can it run out? What is this substance that drives trade, revolutions and discoveries; inspires art, philosophy and science?

In this illuminating, sometimes irreverent, and often surprising journey, economist David McWilliams charts the relationship between humans and money – from a tally stick in ancient Africa to coins in Republican Greece, from mathematics in the medieval Arab world to the French Revolution, and from the emergence of the US dollar right up to today’s cryptocurrency and beyond.

Along the way, we meet a host of characters who have innovated with money, disrupting society and changing the way we live, in an ongoing monetary evolution that has, for the last 5000 years, animated human progress.

McWilliams unlocks the mysteries and power of money, explaining why it matters and how it shapes our world. 

‘McWilliams has a great knack for bringing a complex economics story to life.

He is also funny. In economics, that's a rare and persuasive combination’ Irish Times
 


Format Inbunden Omfång 416 sidor Språk Engelska Förlag Simon & Schuster Ltd Utgivningsdatum 2024-09-12 ISBN 9781471195433