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