‘Breathtaking, expansive and imaginative . . . If, like me, you’ve never quite figured out where money comes from or even what it is, this is the book for you’ PROFESSOR BRIAN COX

‘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

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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 changing the way we live. Like humanity, money is ever changing, adapting to its time and circumstances. The question is, over the last 5000 years, have we changed money or has money changed us?

Money tells an astonishing new story of our species. Taking the reader on an epic journey through the history of money, McWilliams reveals its fundamental role in our society.

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‘David McWilliams is the best explainer of economics I know’ SIMON KUPER, author of Chums

‘A timely, fascinating account of how money has powered life on our planet’ MARIELLA FROSTRUP