MONEY

A breathtaking expansive and imaginative ride through the history and future of money from an author who truly understands it PROFESSOR BRIAN COX A cracking book that is as enjoyable as it is readable PETER FRANKOPAN Equally entertaining and insightful YANIS VAROUFAKIS 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 TOM HOLLAND MONEY The object of our desires The engine of our genius Humanity s greatest invention Money is everything It brings freedom and it takes it away It inspires and corrupts us But what is money Is it the main thing holding us back from utopia or is it the one constant that s driven us to success In his illuminating entertaining and often surprising book economist David McWilliams charts the relationship between humans and money from clay tablets in Mesopotamia to coins in Ancient 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 Along the way we meet a host of characters who have innovated with money disrupting society and transforming the wa