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Author: McWilliams, David

General & world history

Published on 5 June 2025 by Simon & Schuster Ltd in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 432 pages, 2x8pp colour plates
198 x 130 | 0g

In this groundbreaking book, renowned global economist David McWilliams unlocks the mysteries and the awesome power of money: what it is, how it works and why it matters. Money is an epic, breathlessly entertaining journey across the world through the present and the past, from the birthplace of money in ancient Babylon to the beginning of trade along the silk road to China, from Marrakech markets to Wall Street and the dawn of cryptocurrency. By tracking its history McWilliams uncovers our relationship with money, transforming our perspective on its impact on the world right now.

The story of money is the story of our desires, our genius and our downfalls. Money has shaped the very essence of what it means to be human. We can’t hope to understand ourselves without it. And yet despite money’s primacy, most of us don’t truly understand it. Where does money come from? How much is out there? Who controls it? Nothing we’ve invented as a species has defined our own evolution so thoroughly and changed the direction of our planet’s history so dramatically. Money is power – and power beguiles. It unleashes our deepest cravings.

The story of money is the story of earth’s most inventive, destructive and dangerous animal, Homo Sapiens. It is our story.