Are the canonical observations of Abernathy and Utterbach (1975) on the transition from experimental innovation to applied innovation still valid half a century later? Will the example of AI applied to banking activities make it possible to verify this? Since the 2020s, banks have been engaged in a vast process of AI-driven innovation of their products, services and systems, as well as of their relationships with their customers, their staff, their partners and regulators. These innovations aim to personalize products and services according to customer segments (households, businesses, local authorities, governments), their risk-return profiles, and the types of services provided (payment, credit, investment, etc.). They are seeking to diversify the current banking interface and integrate the payment function into various objects (telephones, homes, vehicles, glasses, watches, etc.). Their aim is to adapt credit and insurance offers to each purchase, and to automate investment management according to the risk profiles of savers and their ESG scoring requirements. They aim to ensure that each transaction is supported by a “robot advisor” or an AI-“augmented” banking advisor, capable of carrying out prospecting, projections, simulations and training. Thanks to AI, they are striving to better support start-ups in their “valleys of death” and industrial or financial groups in their merger and acquisition projects (especially cross-border), with the help of structured multi-disciplinary networks. In the structured products market, AI applications already allow for the automatic selection of counterparties, an analysis of the levels of protection and barriers offered, the coupons proposed, the pricing of embedded options, the strength of balance sheets and the rating of issuers, and the depth and quality of the secondary market. But above all, AI makes it possible to ensure better security for customer data, processing, transactions, settlement-delivery and securities custody. Achieving these objectives already requires the most advanced AI applications, such as biometric identification, automatic flow traceability, scheduled data dissemination, the systematisation of smart contracts (in MNBC and tokens), the control of loans financing investments with ESG impact (such as Tree Token), the development of “complementary currencies” (such as Bancor) and micro-payments promoting the inclusion of unbanked people (such as Arcadia Blockchain), etc. The staff of each bank must therefore demonstrate “innovism” (Phelps et al., 2020), so that their bank is not a “follower” but a “pioneer” in the application of AI. Innovation encompasses the ability to anticipate new, abnormal or crisis situations by setting up “innovation laboratories”, creating a financial “imaginarium” and stimulating the “desire to create” among staff at all levels. It therefore seems that, in the light of this example, the technological acculturation of companies is both more comprehensive and faster than it was during the “thirty glorious years”. Abernathy, W. J., & Utterback, J. M. (1975). A Dynamic Model of Process and ProductInnovation. Omega, 3(6), 639-656. Phelps, E., Bojilov, R., Hoon, H. T., & Zoega, G. (2020). Dynamism: The Values ThatDrive Innovation, Job Satisfaction, and Economic Growth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jean-Jacques Pluchart
Benjamin MOREL- Crise politique, crise de régime-Éditeur : Odile Jacob- 25th march 2026- 176 pages
The Fifth Republic is based on a simple fact: whoever holds the majority holds power. Yet this majority has become elusive. Power has left the Élysée Palace, is not in the National Assembly, and no longer resides in the government. The aim of this book is to understand how a system that has long functioned on the basis of a clear majority becomes unstable when that majority disappears. Benjamin Morel begins by examining the reasons why we have shifted from a stable two-party system to a dysfunctional three-party system. He then analyzes the effects of this shift on the political system: the temptation to expand the powers of the head of state by overinterpreting the Constitution, the proliferation of expedients to govern regardless (maintaining a resigned government, executive orders…), all of which are precedents whose accumulation paves the way for an illiberal drift. The book presents the following themes: tripolarization, an unstable legislature, escaping the trap of instability, a regime in a fragile balance, and governing nonetheless under a Constitution designed to ward off instability while remaining vulnerable to illiberal abuses. The book’s conclusion is tinged with a certain optimism: the one who defines the crisis is also the one who provides solutions, provided we do not allow ourselves to be misled by false prophets. Changing the electoral system is not an end in itself. Parliament must be better equipped to enable it to ensure the co-construction of legislation between Parliament and the government. The functioning of a regime is not a metaphysical property of the norm; it is a property of the society that receives it. The state functions like public services. A government can lose its political legitimacy when it can no longer translate election results into consent: To govern despite this is to govern in spite of it! What holds a legal order together is everyone’s conviction that it is in their interest to respect it and play by the rules. Some say it would be easy to solve the problem. A new Constitution would cure our ills. A new election would sweep away our worries. What is causing the crisis is the overall mismatch between the election and the expectations surrounding it. These expectations are divided into three camps, yet they all expect one of them to govern with the absolute powers of a majority bloc. All eyes remain fixed on the presidential election, even as the electoral landscape makes the return of a Jupiter unlikely. Faced with this paradox, which every citizen carries within them, the solutions lie not in the texts but in the minds! Dominique Chesneau
Leon XIV, Encyclique « Magnifique humanité »- Publisher : CERF ; 25 th may 2026 ;224 Pages.
The encyclical, which “does not offer an analysis of AI because it is not possible to provide a single, comprehensive definition of it,” focuses on human dignity and moral responsibility in the face of emerging technologies. It follows in the footsteps of Leo XIII, who presented the social doctrine of the Church and emphasized that the pursuit of profit cannot be the be-all and end-all of human society. The Pope explains two reasons why the book is not technical: any statement about AI risks quickly becoming obsolete given the speed at which these systems evolve; and all of us, including those who design them, know little about how they actually work! Furthermore, the book does not make alarmist claims such as that AI would lead to mass layoffs and a widespread dumbing down of the population (“do not be afraid”), but, drawing on the work of numerous working groups cited in the book, it argues that good will come from this revolution, provided that this good is not monopolized by a tiny minority because “a large part of this technology falls under the common good.” In seeking to establish humanistic principles for the development and use of AI, the goal is not to create restrictive regulations that would stifle innovation, but rather to incorporate ethical and moral considerations into the design of models and the selection of training data. And according to Ricoeur and Levinas, the essence of ethics lies in respecting the other by seeing oneself in the gaze of one’s counterpart, beyond laws and rules. A few chapters—the 3rd and 4th deserve special attention among: (1) The evolution of the Church’s social doctrine and its role as a “theology of communion” throughout history, (2) The foundations and principles of social doctrine, including human dignity, the common good, the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity, and social justice, (3) Analysis of the risks associated with artificial intelligence, the concentration of technologies, and the need for a common code of ethics, (4) Preserving the human dimension in the digital transformation, valuing work, education, and freedom in the face of commodification, (5) Building a “civilization of love” in the digital age, promoting peace, dialogue, and multilateralism. We will recall the five principles of the Catholic Church’s social doctrine, which have been presented by past and present economists and elaborated upon in the first two chapters: the principle of the common good (developed by Jean Tirole in his seminal work), the principle of the universal destination of goods (mentioned by 18th-century moralists), the principle of subsidiarity (in management literature, the term “subsidiarity” and the difficulty of its implementation are discussed in France-Lanord and Vannier 2014; Verrier and Bourgeois 2016, 27); the principle of solidarity and the principle of social justice. To illustrate the relevance of the topics discussed, let us cite a few illustrative excerpts from the book: let us avoid the pretension of a single language capable of translating everything into data and performance metrics, even the mystery of the person; entrusting, in practice, to an algorithm the power to select who deserves what, without anyone bearing the weight of the decision, amounts to entrusting it with the task of redefining the limits of human possibilities; data ownership must be regulated and managed as a common good ( !); developers bear an ethical responsibility because every design choice expresses a vision of humanity These concerns and humanistic recommendations are echoed by Anthropic, which cannot predict whether the phenomenon of AI misalignment (when an artificial intelligence pursues goals that conflict with human values or do not truly correspond to what humans have asked of it, Ed.) will ever be fully resolved. Anthropic continues in a text published by its think tank, the Anthropic Institute: “We believe it would be good for the world to have the option to slow down or temporarily suspend the development of advanced AI, in order to allow societal structures and alignment research to keep pace with technological progress.” This nearly 200-page letter, dedicated to “the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence,” resonates far beyond Catholic circles and “constitutes a political and humanist manifesto of unprecedented scope.” Dominique Chesneau
Anton BRENDER, Géopolitique de la dette, Eds Odile Jacob, 180 pages.
Around the world, debt is rising sharply and records keep being broken. The threshold of 300,000 billion, euros or dollars, the difference is no longer essential at this scale, in public and private debt has now been crossed. Speaking about France’s debt in the summer of 2025, François Bayrou referred to “an Everest of debt” during his time at Matignon. But Anton Brender reminds us of an often overlooked truth: “the debts of some are always the claims of others.” While there has never been so much debt, this is also because household financial wealth has never been so high. The “Everest of debt” therefore has its counterpart in an “Everest of global savings.” In a highly pedagogical manner, the author explains the fundamental mechanisms underpinning a financial economy. On one side are the natural borrowers: companies, which need to finance their production capacity, factories, warehouses and investments; and governments, which provide non-market services and must finance their deficits. On the other side are the natural savers: households, primarily, whose savings directly or indirectly meet the financing needs of the economy. The end of the Bretton Woods agreements, the oil shocks and the increasing opening of capital movements broadened the scope of savings and debt. They also contributed to the emergence of external imbalances, born from the interaction between the economic policies pursued by different countries. China’s entry into world trade in 2001 was, in this respect, a decisive moment. Chinese trade surpluses captured part of domestic demand in the United States and Europe. They contributed to the destruction of industrial jobs in Western countries and led central banks to respond by sharply lowering interest rates. American household debt thus enabled, as its mirror image, Chinese household saving. This dynamic helped prepare the ground for the financial crisis of 2008. In a quarter of a century, the United States became the borrower of last resort for the planet. It financed the development of emerging countries at the cost of a colossal debt and the loss of millions of industrial jobs. In January 2025, Donald Trump announced the end of what he called a “scam” and embarked on a policy of unprecedented tariff barriers, the largest since the 1930s, while largely disregarding existing rules. The dynamics of world trade, and therefore of global savings and debt, are profoundly affected by this shift. The world may therefore move from a situation characterized by a limited number of borrowers to one in which financing needs become far more numerous. Asian industrial powers, first and foremost China, will have to support their domestic markets. Japan will have to encourage its population to draw down savings. Europe will have to finance its defence, security and energy transition simultaneously. Emerging countries will also need capital to continue their development. Ph Alezard
ALBRITTON JONSSON Frederik, WENNERLIND Carl, Politiques de la rareté, des origines du capitalisme à la crise écologique, Flammarion, 2026, 456 pages. Préface de Arnaud Orain.
The authors trace the genealogy of the concept of “scarcity” of natural resources. They distinguish between Neo-Aristotelian, utopian, Malthusian, romantic, socialist and planetary scarcities. They criticise the capitalist and liberal system that has developed since the First Industrial Revolution and advocate rethinking the “relationship between nature and the economy”, which has gone through several periods since the origin of humanity. This relationship begins with the “cornucopian” approach, marked by the illusion that nature will eternally provide for all of man’s needs (despite food shortages and famines). This approach is opposed to the “finitist thesis”, according to which the world’s population must moderate its consumption by becoming aware of the gradual and inevitable extinction of natural resources. Globalisation is putting increasing pressure on natural resources and biodiversity. Is 21st-century man capable of stopping the reduction of his ecological footprint? This approach has gradually extended to multiple resources: metals and rare earths, arable land, endangered species, etc. During the classical age, the physiocrats hoped for a “great restoration” made possible by the “rational exploitation of the land”; they were certain that “man would decipher the source code of nature”. From the Age of Enlightenment onwards, philosophers believed that “technical reason” would dominate the “naturalist ideal”, and in the 19th century, the engineers of the Industrial Revolution advocated the division of labour and free trade. Economists were confident that, in order to avoid degrading their environment, households would adapt their consumption patterns and that companies would create new processes and products that were economical in terms of energy and non-recyclable by-products. Man was then considered a homo faber capable of “sculpting the world in his image”. But it was not until the 1970s that governments became fully aware of the challenges of preserving the environment and the need to establish a “sustainable and people-friendly economy” that meets the real needs of the population. The authors then recall the criticisms of modern consumerism and environmental degradation that were formulated by the Vatican in its encyclical Laudato si and by the various environmental movements. In particular, they analyse the effects of carbon emissions, ocean acidification, damage to biodiversity, etc. The phenomenon seems all the more worrying to them because 20 th -century man is unable to measure and correct the long-term effects of his activities. They share certain principles advocated by radical environmental movements, in favour of self-sufficiency and economic degrowth. They support the theory of Kahneman (Nobel Prize winner in Economics) according to which, due to a “negativity bias”, the pessimistic forecasts of the Club of Rome or the IPCC are generally viewed with disbelief or scepticism by the majority of the population. The book testifies to the scholarship, persuasiveness and activist experience of its authors; it sheds light on the dilemma of the choice between a sustainable economy and a sustainable natural environment, without being able to resolve it. Frederik ALBRITTON JONSSON is a professor at the University of Chicago and Carl WENNERLIND is a historian specialising in modern Europe.
PHILIBERT Cédric , Climat : Les énergies de l’espoir, Editions Les petits matins, 2025, 222 pages.
The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz brings us face to face with our dependence on fossil fuels and especially on oil. The energy transition is now facing a conflict where the stoppage of the supply of oil and gas is disrupting the world’s economies. The occupant of the White House, as a staunch defender of coal and the “liquid gold” of oil and gas, is blowing hot and cold on the markets to the detriment of the user, who sees their fuel bill skyrocket. Published last October, Cédric Philibert’s essay addresses the energy transition and renewable energies from an optimistic perspective. The solutions for a decarbonised world are there, and it is urgent to continue the transition that has begun. The author challenges a number of preconceived ideas through numerous quantified arguments. He sets the record straight in a polarised debate between climate sceptics and proponents of degrowth. In this essay, he demonstrates that resources such as solar or wind power are sufficient and abundant to achieve the transition. Having these energies available at a moderate cost will make it possible to move towards other possibilities, such as heating ores to several hundred degrees in order to accelerate hydrometallurgical processes, applicable to copper and rare earths, among others. One of the main levers for achieving carbon neutrality concerns the energy efficiency of vehicles. The author even claims that electric cars are good for the climate. Indeed, with the exponential development of renewable energies, electric vehicles will benefit from increasingly low-carbon electricity during their manufacture and lifetime. In addition, he also demonstrates that it is possible to achieve this transition without having harmful consequences for biodiversity. He believes that the energy transition as a whole does not have a significant impact on the rate of artificialisation. The development of agrivoltaics is a real opportunity to achieve the goal of decarbonising energy and has more impact than producing biofuels. As a solution, the author gives pride of place to moderation. To move towards net-zero emissions, it is necessary to divide net emissions of CO2, methane and nitrous oxide by 8 or 10. Nevertheless, we must remain vigilant about the “rebound effect”. Studies have shown that investments in the thermal renovation of buildings do not lead to a significant decrease in the energy consumption of buildings; since they are better insulated, the owners focus on their comfort. A book to recommend to all readers who are keen on the issues of the energy transition and who want an objective view from an energy and climate expert. Cédric PHILIBERT is an independent consultant and senior analystin the field of energy and climate. He is also an associate researcher atthe French Institute of International Relations (Ifri). He advised theDirector General of the French Environment and Energy Management Agency(ADEME), before joining the United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP), then the IEA until 2019. Sophie FRIOT
Black, Scholes & Merton or mathematical neutralisation of chance
Philippe Alezard With Bachelier, finance had found its founding insight: stock market prices can be thought of as random movements and options as rights whose value depends on the probability of future prices. With Wiener, this intuition is given a rigorous mathematical foundation: the Brownian motion becomes a continuous process, with independent and Gaussian increments, capable of giving shape to uncertainty. Finally, with Markowitz, uncertainty is no longer merely described; it becomes the subject of a rational decision, organised at the level of a portfolio. However, a decisive question remained: if chance governs prices, is it possible to give a rigorous price to a contract that relates precisely to this chance? This is the question that Fischer Black, Myron Scholes and Robert C. Merton answered in the early 1970s. Their contribution is not just about producing a famous formula. It transforms the very nature of financial valuation. Before them, an option essentially appeared as a bet: the right to buy or sell an asset at a fixed price, in an uncertain future. After them, the option became an object that can be replicated, hedged and valued based on arbitrage reasoning. The price is no longer just an opinion about the future; it becomes the logical consequence of a dynamic hedging strategy. The intellectual and financial context of the 1960s and 1970s is essential to understanding this breakthrough. In the United States, finance was then in the process of becoming an independent academic discipline. Business schools were moving closer to the markets, price databases were developing, and Markowitz’s portfolio theory had introduced variance and covariance into the language of investors, while the CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model) of Sharpe, Lintner and Mossin sought to establish a balanced relationship between expected return and systematic risk. At the same time, the options markets, long dominated by over-the-counter transactions, were undergoing an institutional change. In April 1973, the Chicago Board Options Exchange opened its doors and offered, for the first time, an organised market for standardised stock option contracts. The publication of the Black-Scholes model came in the same year, almost at the exact moment when the market needed a common language to price, compare and hedge these new instruments. Fischer Sheffey Black was born in 1938 in Washington D.C. His career path was less linear than that of traditional academic economists. He first studied physics at Harvard before turning to applied mathematics and computer science. He obtained a doctorate from Harvard in 1964 in applied mathematics with a thesis devoted[1] to what we would now call artificial intelligence, at a time when this discipline was still in its infancy. Nothing in this initial career path would have predicted that he would become one of the founders of modern finance. However, this interdisciplinary background, spanning physics, calculus, logic and dynamic systems, undoubtedly explains his ability to view markets as formalisable mechanisms. After his studies, Black worked, among other places, at Arthur D. Little, a consulting firm where he met Jack Treynor[2], one of the pioneers of modern portfolio theory and the equilibrium model of financial assets. This meeting was decisive. Treynor introduced Black to financial problems and encouraged him to think about the links between risk, return and market equilibrium. Black then developed a very personal approach to finance: he was less interested in institutions than in the abstract forces that must govern prices if arbitrage opportunities are eliminated. His mind is that of a theoretical engineer: he seeks the hidden constraint, the necessary relationship, the equation that must be true if the market is consistent. Myron Scholes was born in 1941 in Timmins, Ontario, Canada, to a family with deep ties to the business world. In his Nobel autobiography, he emphasises the importance of this family environment: from a very young age, he was interested in trade, accounting, probability and risk. An eye operation during his adolescence disrupted his schooling and forced him to develop special working methods based on listening, memory and conceptualisation. This personal constraint would play an important role in his way of thinking: Scholes was not only a calculation technician, he was attentive to the economic structure of problems. He continued his studies at McMaster University, then at the University of Chicago, where he obtained his doctorate in 1969. Chicago was then one of the most powerful centres of the new financial economy. Eugene Fama was working there on market efficiency, Merton Miller on corporate finance, Milton Friedman on monetary theory, and the university’s intellectual tradition valued equilibrium reasoning, price consistency and the discipline imposed by competitive markets. There, Scholes received an economic education that was very different from the more institutional European tradition: the objective was not only to describe the markets, but to deduce what prices should be in a world where agents exploit all the possibilities of arbitrage. Robert Cox Merton was born in 1944 in New York. His father, Robert K. Merton, was one of the most influential sociologists of the 20th century, known in particular for his work on “self-fulfilling prophecy” and “unintended consequences”. Young Robert therefore grew up in an exceptional intellectual environment, but quickly chose a different path. He first studied mathematical engineering at Columbia in 1966, then applied mathematics at the California Institute of Technology, where he obtained his MS in 1967. He then joined MIT for his PhD in economics, under the supervision of Paul Samuelson. This point is crucial: Samuelson is one of Bachelier’s successors in American finance. Through him, Merton inherited a tradition in which mathematical physics, probability and economics could be brought together in a single analytical architecture. Merton had a more advanced technical mastery of stochastic calculus than most financial economists of his time. Where Black and Scholes construct a highly powerful arbitrage intuition, Merton gives the model its mathematical generality. His 1973 article[3], “Theory of Rational Option Pricing”, published in the Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science, broadens the framework, clarifies the conditions of validity, establishes general restrictions on option prices and embeds
Pauline ROSSI, Le déclin démographique, une urgence économique – Editions PUF, 158 pages, 2026
This very concise book deals with a subject that is very much in the news: the decline in the birth rate. This has also been a concern for most governments for several years. The angle chosen by the author is interesting insofar as he is primarily concerned with the impact of this demographic phenomenon on the economy, which it affects significantly. This book is based on recent research to make a diagnosis of France before expanding its analysis to a global scope. The decline in the birth rate in France has been steady since the second half of the 18th century, with only one real reversal during the “Glorious Thirty”. The recent acceleration of this decline and the increase in the number of deaths today are leading to a crossing of the curves, which is creating economic concern. Only the large net migration has made it possible to observe an increase in the population. Although for a long time a number of children per woman of around 2.1 has been considered a figure that allows the renewal and safeguarding of social and pension systems, the current figure of 1.6 children per woman is cause for concern. This trend is generally shared in most countries, except in a number of African countries or in the United States in the future due to high immigration. This factual situation will pose problems for the financing of social security and pensions, despite an increase in the rate of the working population, with an increase in the number of elderly people, who are, however, in poorer health. All this is expected to lead to a decline in economic growth with a reduced workforce, a decline in business innovation and an increase in automation. Governments have launched programs to try to halt this decline in the birth rate with numerous initiatives such as job security for women or tax measures, but these have generally proved ineffective, whether due to time constraints, particularly with women working more, or also biological constraints with the arrival of children later in life, which have overall lowered the number of children per woman. The alternative to this situation is often the integration of immigrant populations who generally have more children, even though this solution is highly controversial in terms of social acceptability and future impact. The structural factors behind this low birth rate are very well described, starting with the socialisation of risks, which allows an interesting parallel to be drawn between pensions and fertility. Indeed, there is a paradox in the fact that generous pensions ultimately do not encourage people to have large families. The emancipation of women has also reduced the need for a large number of children, which could be seen as security for the future. The decline in marriages, which are often later, reduces the childbearing period, as does celibacy, which is more often imposed than chosen and particularly affects men without children, whose numbers have increased significantly. On the other hand, a child is today often considered a parental investment, both in terms of optimising the time dedicated to them and financing their education, with quality largely taking precedence over quantity. Faced with a structural change whose future is not completely clear, the author recommends that we adapt our economic and social model to this demography. There are obviously opportunities linked to degrowth, particularly environmental ones, even if the impact of the number of inhabitants must be qualified by the lifestyle observed since the 1960s. This also makes it possible to rebalance the use of resources between rich countries and developing countries, with quite different trends in birth rates. In the short term, this situation should make it possible to save on public finances with fewer unemployed people or less funding, particularly for education. This situation will also open up significant “Silver Economy” opportunities for many companies. To take a longer-term view, however, it is necessary to prepare for the impact of this decline on the economy: investing in innovation and human capital to increase productivity, enhancing skills, better integrating young people, mobilising older people and reforming the social protection and pension system (in particular through supplementary schemes). In conclusion, the author draws a parallel with the recent awareness of climate change and urges us to organise ourselves quickly to deal with the impact of the falling birth rate on the economy in the short and medium term. Pauline ROSSI is Professor of Economics at the Ecole Polytechnique Olivier STEPHAN
Pierre-André BUIGUES, La France à la loupe européenne, Eds Dunod, 2026, 220 pages.
The author repeatedly highlights a glaring lack of investment in research, innovation and digital transformation. To close the gap, France would need to increase its R&D spending to 3% of GDP, compared to 2.19% in 2023. Unlike Germany, which uses its investments abroad to strengthen its domestic economy, France has focused on the internationalisation of its multinationals, whose success brings little benefit to the country. Another weakness highlighted is the management of public spending: despite budgets above the European average in key areas such as health and education, the tangible results are struggling to convince the public. In conclusion, this book, which is rich in factual data, offers a nuanced view of France: a country that is performing well in some areas, struggling in others, and sometimes in decline. However, solutions do exist, as the country possesses strengths and potential that urgently need to be harnessed. This book is recommended for all curious minds seeking a clear, well-documented view of France today. Pierre-André Buigues is an economist. For 22 years, he held senior positions at the European Commission, and subsequently worked as a lecturer at Toulouse Business School. An expert on European affairs, he has also worked as an international consultant and adviser for various global institutions. He is the author of numerous reference works. Book review by Sophie FRIOT
David Mc WILLIAMS , Argent . Une histoire de l’humanité, Bérengère Viennot (Translation), 2026, Editeur Presses de La Cite. 348 pages.
The object of our desires, the driving force behind our ingenuity… What if money were also humanity’s greatest invention? Did you know that the piastre was the predecessor of the dollar? That Hitler and Lenin used currency to manipulate the masses? That *The Wizard of Oz* is actually about the deflation associated with the gold standard? That our financial future lies not in Bitcoin but in phone credit? From the Sumerians’ barley grains to cryptocurrencies, via the revolutionary assignats and the invention of the dollar, David McWilliams traces, with a lively and accessible pen, the history of this invention which—just like the wheel or fire—has shaped human relationships. Far from the dry economic treatises, David McWilliams shows us that money is not merely an instrument of power. It can also lead to cooperation and collective progress. This is not the first book on money in literature or in the Cercle Turgot’s list of reviews. The renewed interest in this type of work lies in the author’s background and his own perception of money. This informs his choice of historical timeline and examples. Admittedly, we begin with Part 1, which is devoted to antiquity and the famous “fortune,” and continue with: money in the Middle Ages, revolutionary money, modern money, and finally, liberated money (who controls money, the psychology of money, the evolution of money, modern monetary theory, and M-Pesa). The book also explores numerous cultures that have contributed to the development of money and the innovations each has brought. The mastery of money coincided with other major advances such as writing, mathematics, law, democracy, and philosophy. This evolution raises a question: was money the cause of these other developments, or did these developments lead to the evolution of money? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This is the originality of this book, which was named Book of the Year by the Financial Times: it provides food for thought in an attempt to answer that question. David McWilliams is a social commentator, so he has drawn on a wide range of advice and contributions, and expresses opinions—and… errors—that are his own and those of the people cited in the book. The reader’s task is not to identify any potential blunders, but to understand the intellectual journey of the contributors that may have led to “deviations from the consensus of economists specializing in monetary matters.” A book that should be read by anyone curious about ideas and their interpretation: money and currency are personal concepts. It is a common good and an…individual good as well! Dominique Chesneau