In this fresh, eye-opening global history, economist David McWilliams charts the relationship between humans and moneyfrom clay tablets in Mesopotamia to cryptocurrency in Silicon Valley.

The story of humanity is inextricable from that of money. No innovation has defined our own evolution so thoroughly and changed the direction of our planets history so dramatically. And yet despite moneys primacy, most of us dont truly understand it.

As leading economist David McWilliams shows, money is central to every aspect of our civilization, from the political to the artistic. Money defines the relationship between worker and employer, buyer and seller, merchant and producer. But not only that: it also defines the bond between the governed and the governor, the state and the citizen. Money unlocks pleasure, puts a price on desire, art and creativity. It motivates us to strive, achieve, invent and take risks. Money also brings out humanitys darker side, invoking greed, envy, hatred, violence and, of course, colonialism.

In The History of Money, McWilliams takes us across the world, from the birthplace of money in ancient Babylon to the beginning of trade along the Silk Road, from Marrakech markets to Wall Street. Along the way, we meet a host of innovators, emperors, frauds, and speculators, who have disrupted society and transformed the way we live. Filled with memorable anecdotes, and with a foreword by Michael Lewis, The History of Money is an essential, extremely readable history of humanitys most consequential invention.