The History of Money: A Story of Humanity
by David McWilliams
View on GoodreadsIrish economist David McWilliams's sweeping global history of money — from clay tablets in Mesopotamia and ancient Babylon through the Silk Road to Wall Street and cryptocurrency — arguing that money is humanity's most consequential invention and that its history is really a history of power, creativity, and civilization. Foreword by Michael Lewis.
Core ideas
- McWilliams's framing claim is that the story of humanity is inextricable from the story of money — no innovation has shaped human evolution and the planet's history so thoroughly — yet despite its primacy most people don't truly understand it, and the book sets out to demystify money by narrating it rather than theorizing it.
- Money is treated as a social and political relationship, not a neutral tool: it defines the bond between worker and employer, buyer and seller, and crucially between the governed and the governor — so a history of money doubles as a history of power, the state, and citizenship.
- The narrative is deliberately global and continuous, running from the clay tablets of Mesopotamia and ancient Babylon through the Silk Road and Marrakech markets to Wall Street and cryptocurrency — populated by innovators, emperors, frauds, and speculators — and argues money unlocks both human creativity and humanity's darker drives (greed, violence, colonialism).
Published2024
ISBN9781250408181
ReadAug 2026
