David McWilliams

David McWilliams
“I’ve always thought what is complicated is rarely important and what is important is rarely complicated”
David McWilliams is an economist, author, journalist, documentary-maker and broadcaster. He is Adjunct Professor of Global Economics at the School of Business Trinity College Dublin. David is ranked 5th most influential economist in the world.
He has devoted his entire professional life to the objective of making economics as widely available and easily understandable on as many platforms and to as many people as possible –and is having a laugh doing it.
As a result, he co-founded the world’s only economics and stand-up comedy festival Kilkenomics – described by the FT as “simply, the best economics conference in the world”.
He also founded Ireland’s leading literary and ideas shindig, the Dalkey Book Festival. The WEF at Davos debased their currency profoundly by making him a Young Global Leader a few years back.
As well as writing a weekly economics column in the Irish Times, he is active on social media and was named Ireland’s “most influential Twitter user” in 2016. David uses new ways to explain our economic world for example Punk Economics and a new venture with the FT, Punk FT, deploy cartoons to make economics digestible for normal, non-nerdy, punters.
David has written four bestsellers The Pope's Children (Macmillan 2006) which became the bestselling nonfiction ever published in Ireland The Generation Game (Macmillan 2007), Follow the Money, (Gill 2009) The Good Room (Penguin 2012) and Renaissance Nation: How The Pope’s Children Rewrote the Rules for Ireland published by Gill in 2018. His writing style is described by Bloomberg’s head of economics Stephanie Flanders, as having “a great knack for bringing a complex economics story to life. He is also funny. In economics, that’s a rare and persuasive combination.”
David’s latest book Money: A Story of Humanity was published by Simon & Schuster UK on 12 September 2024. In this illuminating, sometimes irreverent, and often surprising journey, McWilliams charts the relationship between humans and money – from a tally stick in ancient Africa to coins in Republican Greece, to mathematics in the medieval Arab world, from innovation in Gutenberg's Germany 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 5,000 years, animated human progress.
Praise for Money: A Story of Humanity
“It is an impressive journey that fizzes with facts’..‘Both finance aficionados and mere novices will read, savour and return to these books, giving fresh meaning to the concept of ‘book-keeping”
The Economist
“..firecracker of a book..enthralling ..it’s an argumentative and highly enjoyable read.’
Mail on Sunday
“Well researched and crammed full of anecdotes that help bring a dry subject to life. Much to enjoy – for the lay reader as well as the economist”
The Guardian
“Exceptional.. a hugely ambitious, insightful and readable account of our relationship with money”
Felix Martin ― Financial Times
“Money is a fabulous read but its real importance lies in the questions it raises about the future shape of our societies”
Ian Hughes, The Irish Times
“a fascinating, worthwhile read”
The Irish Independent
“A fun history of money told through the stories of the chancers, cheats, scoundrels and geniuses through the ages who made it happen . . . We take money for granted. Not the amounts of it, but just the fact that it works. This book is a great way to figure out why, and how it shapes the world around us’
Katie Martin, columnist at the Financial Times
'Pacey chapters make for a series of entertaining – and at times irreverent – tales which relay a story of money that we all should know!'
– Linda Yueh, author of The Great Crashes: Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them
“A breathtaking, expansive and imaginative ride through the history and future of Money from an author who truly understands it. 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
“A Cracking Book That Is As Enjoyable As It Is Readable”
Peter Frankopan
“Equally entertaining and insightful”
Yanis Varoufakis
“David McWilliams is the best explainer of economics I know. Here he explains the world through money, and it's fantastically entertaining. He's the kind of writer who makes you feel clever, because he helps you grasp things you never understood before”
Simon Kuper, Financial Times
“A timely, fascinating account of how money has powered life on our planet from Ireland’s superstar economist. Money is so often shrouded in secrecy and manipulated by forces we barely understand, so it’s refreshing to read a book that traces our relationship with it with such healthy irreverence!”
Mariella Frostrup
“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, co-author of The Rest is History: History’s Most Curious Questions Answered
“Compelling, funny and original”
Katja Hoyer
“A tour de force of economic history'”
Gillian Tett
Listen to David talk about Money: A Story of Humanity on RTE, Radio 1
https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22430287/
Rights Sold
The Pope's Children Macmillan (Ireland, UK and Commonwealth) which became the The Generation Game Macmillan (Ireland, UK and Commonwealth
Follow the Money, (Gill) (Ireland, UK and Commonwealth)
The Good Room (Penguin) (Ireland, UK and Commonwealth)
Renaissance Nation: How The Pope’s Children Rewrote the Rules for Ireland (Gill Ireland, UK and Commonwealth)
Money: A Story of Humanity
UK/Ire (Simon & Schuster UK), US (Henry Holt Macmilan), Canada (Simon & Schuster), Albania (Botart Publishing House), Bulgaria (Kibea Books), Brazil (Editora Sextante), China Simplified (Citic Press Corporation), Croatia (Koncept izdavaštvo j.d.o.o), Czech (PROSTOR nakladatelství s.r.o), France (Editions Globe), Germany (Goldmann), Greece (Patakis Publications), Hungary (Prekog Alfa Kft), Indonesia (Noura Publishing), Italy (Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore S.R.L), Korea (Poten-Up Publishing Co), Poland (Wydawnictwo Marginesy Sp. z o. o., ul), Portugal (Desassossego), Romania (SC Publica COM SRL), Serbia (Publik Praktikum d.o.o), Slovak (N Press, s.r.o),, Spain Grupo (Planeta S.A), Turkey (Ketebe Publishing)
David McWilliams TED talk The Power Of Unconventional Thinking
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mcwilliams_the_power_of_unconventional_thinking
https://richtopia.com/top-lists/economists-2020/