For something that inundates every aspects of our lives, I do not know as much about money as I should. How it works on a macro scale and what gives numbers on a screen their worth are mysteries to me. This book does not give a comprehensive education on what money is or how to harness it. David McWilliams does something much more interesting. In Money: The Greatest Story Ever Sold, he narrates the last 5,000 years of history through money.
McWilliams is a seasoned economist who conveys complex economic concepts into digestible tidbits that inform your reading as you go. In one sense, he achieves what non-fiction should aim to do: You learn something. He was one of the few economists to predict the 2008 financial crash. McWilliams has a clear authoritative voice. You learn a lot. But maybe too much.
McWilliams paints a fascinating picture of the way our various forms of wealth over thousands of years have contributed to our development as humans. Some of the first artefacts of the written word revolve around money. Even the first written record of someone’s name (Kushim) was in a document of his loan to bolster his home-brew. Tracing money through time gives a tremendous sense of continuity to what are otherwise unimaginably different societies. McWilliams takes us from the Sumerians to Ancient Greece to Arab merchants during the Renaissance, to now. McWilliams elaborately illustrates the ingenuity, the violence, and the mania that wealth has provoked over millennia.
Despite being able to succinctly encapsulate 5,000 years of economic history into 350 pages, this does force him to make some pretty harrowing sacrifices to make the book work. While it is undeniable that money is a powerful driving force for most people (whether to survive or to fuel innovation), McWilliams treats money like the one true source of inspiration. “Innovation” is a term that slowly become dogmatic when tied up with money. Business and artistry can go hand in hand. McWilliams demonstrates this through the life of James Joyce or beloved allegories like The Wizard of Oz. But money is not always the heroic beacon of the arts that McWilliams claims it is. While some innovate and take risks in pursuit of money, this book lends little time to those whose creativity is extinguished for survival.
Discussions of evolutionary theory are where McWilliams is ultimately out of his depth and accepts Malthusian theory with little pushback. Perhaps challenging the idea that famine and disease are “positive checks” to keep the population intact would blur the book’s focus. But in that case, it is better to leave Malthus off the table than portray the Irish Famine’s death toll as a lack of adaptation on the part of the deceased. Misunderstanding the term “survival of the fittest” not only for McWilliams’s critique of it to be its actual definition, but to mystify the manufactured starvation of millions, was an irresponsible move that should have been cut altogether.
Nonetheless, McWilliams is a compelling writer who gives a varied and messy history of wealth and money. But the history of money is undoubtedly varied and messy. It is a shame that in the name of expediently tearing through 5,000 years of history, some chapters had some questionable claims behind them. If you are looking for a non-fiction easy-read, this is not the book. It is worth the read, as long as you have several pinches of salt at the ready.
Words by Elizabeth Sorrell
Want more Books content from The Indiependent? Click here