Over the last 5,000 years money has driven trade, revolutions and discoveries, inspired art, science, philosophy and put a price of human desire. It is essential to our daily lives, but most of us – economists included – don’t really understand it.

In his illuminating book, McWilliams explores the history of money, explaining what is, how it works and how societies that adopted money acquired a competitive and organizational advantage over others. He charts the relationship between humans and money through defining innovations – from a tally stick in ancient Africa to coins in Republican Greece, 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.

David McWilliams is an economist and broadcaster based in Dublin. He writes a weekly column for The Irish Times, hosts The David McWilliams Podcast a bi-weekly economics podcast, and is co-founder of the Dalkey Book Festival and Kilkenomics – the world’s only economics and comedy festival. He is also adjunct professor of global economics at Trinity College Dublin.

David McWilliams says: ‘Working with Simon & Schuster has been a wonderful experience, particularly with Assallah Tahir, who has guided the development of book from the start. I always felt that my own tribe, economists, don’t really understand money, what it does to us, how it shapes our world and its critical role in animating human flourishing. That’s what I’ve set out to reveal in this book – I hope readers enjoy it!’

Assallah Tahir says: ‘Money is enlightening, often funny and always immensely entertaining – David has a great way of making complex ideas easily digestible. He tells a new story of money which places humans – ingenious and endlessly fallible – at the centre rather than on the periphery. I can’t wait for readers to discover it.’

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