David McWilliams

AS HEARD ON RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK THE INTERNATIONAL 1 BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2024 NON FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR A WATERSTONES NON FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 A 2024 BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE OBSERVER ECONOMIST FINANCIAL TIMES AND PROSPECT A breathtaking expansive and imaginative ride through the history and future of money from an author who truly understands it PROFESSOR BRIAN COX Exceptional FINANCIAL TIMES A cracking book that is as enjoyable as it is readable PETER FRANKOPAN Equally entertaining and insightful YANIS VAROUFAKIS MONEY The object of our desires The engine of our genius Humanity s greatest invention From clay tablets in Mesopotamia to today s cryptocurrency global economist David McWilliams takes us on an epic journey of innovation disruption and transformation that is an astonishing new history of our species The question is over 5 000 years have we changed money or has money changed us A fun history of money told through the stories of the chancers cheats scoundrels and geniuses who made it happen KATIE MARTIN An impressive journey that fizzes with facts ECONOMIST An eye op

Renaissance Nation is the story of how the Popes Children rewrote the rules for Ireland.In four decades, bookended by the visits of the pope in September 1979 and August 2018, Ireland has managed to become one of the wealthiest and most progressive nations in the world.Here David McWilliams presents the story of modern Ireland and how, once we threw off the shackles and replaced the torpor of collective dogma with the vibrancy of individual freedom, the economy too started to motor.Meet the everyman revolutionaries who made it all happen, heroes like Sliotar Mom and Flat White Man. Feel the pulse of the Radical Centre and celebrate the optimism of a tolerant, accepting, live and let live nation.In a world where other nations are divided, their economies stalled, lurching to the extremes, convulsed by existential fights pitting one part of the population against the other, Renaissance Nation shows how a well off, relatively chilled Ireland, with a growing economy and surfing a wave of liberal optimism, may not be perfect, but it isnt a bad place to be.A triumph of popular economics and social history, this is the story of how, almost without anyone noticing, an insurgent middle class carried off something extraordinary a quiet revolution and with it, reshaped our national destiny.

Meet The Popes Children, the beneficiaries of Wonderbra Economics. This is the special generation, the Irish baby boom of the 1970s that peaked nine months to the day after the Popes visit. There are 620,000 of them, squeezed into the middle and lifted up by the Expectocracy. Ireland is blurring. Out of this haze has come the Full-on Nation, the most hedonisitic generation ever.David McWilliams brilliant research and analysis of Ireland is a celebration of success. In an easy-to-read style, he takes us to Deckland, that suburban state of mind where you will find the Kells Angels, Breakfast Roll Man, Low GI Jane and RoboPaddy. Come face to face with the Youre a Star generation, Billy Bunker, fair-trade Frank, Carrot Juice Contrarians and Bouncy Castle Brendan. We also meet the HiCos, Hibernian Cosmopolitans, the new elite whose distance from Deckland is measured by appreciations and cultivations that Decklands rampant credit just cant buy. Entertaining and informative, The Popes Children told of the vast surge of ambition, money, optimisim and hope in Ireland during the boom.

As the BOTOX ECONOMY was laid bare and the financial filler of other peoples money became evident, the JAGGERS, JUGGLERS and BONO BOOMERS struggled to maintain their slice of a diminished pie.However the author saw a possible solution to Irelands quandaries. Taking a trip around the globe from Shanghai to New York, from Latin America to Central Europe, he says we can learn from history and appreciate that Ireland has a unique economic resource: OUR GLOBAL TRIBE.If we exploit the demographic potential of the Diaspora, we can re-invigorate the nation. The prosperity of future Irish generations is based on harnessing the collective power of past generations. This is the global GENERATION GAME.

The Popes Children are turning 30 and in the four years since David McWilliams introduced us to the generation that could have had it all, the Popes Children have been betrayed.This book is about real people and how good people can be broken by bad economics. But it doesnt have to be like this. There is a way out.We catch up with old friends, Breakfast Roll Man and Miss Pencil Skirt, and meet new characters like the Merchant of Ennis, Shylock and the Godfather. We have late night tea with Brian Lenihan and cross swords with Seanie Fitzpatrick. We learn why the average drug dealer on the side of the street has more in common with the banker than either would care to mention, as we follow the money in both rackets from its source at the very top right down to the `buy now, pay later deals at rock bottom.Why should we trust the people who got us into this mess in the first place? They were wrong then and they are wrong now. The politicians, bankers and developers think they can hand us the bill and walk away from the carnage. They want us to follow a route that will make things worse for the ordinary man on the street while saving the bankers at the top of the tree, insisting that there is no other way. But there is an obvious alternative which has been adopted by every economy that has successfully emerged from this type of crisis.Follow the Money is an optimistic and uplifting book about that alternative, which is well within our grasp if only wed wake up and seize it.`If you want a dry economic tome, this is not the book for you. However, for analysis of post-boom Ireland, how we got here and the issues we now face, it makes a lot of serious points in an entertaining and provocative way Sunday Business Post`This is a vivid, witty and provocative book Richard Bruton, Irish Independent

A forensic entertaining polemic from the author of The Pope s Children Ireland is deeply in debt beholden to the IMF the EU and the bond markets Its economy is frozen and years of austerity are ahead It didn t have to be this way and it doesn t have to be this way In The Good Room David McWilliams who spotted the dangers of the Irish property bubble and imbalances within the eurozone at a time when other commentators were cheerleading the boom explains the bizarre economics behind Ireland s current predicament and illuminates a different path for the country He illustrates the consequences of debt and austerity for ordinary Irish people and explains why austerity can t work And he shows that history offers numerous useful models for Irish recovery provided we open our eyes to them Economics is about people like you The Pope s Children was the book that connected the dots between economics and daily life in Ireland during the boom years The Good Room does the same for the Ireland of the bust and is in its call for a completely different approach an even more urgent and necessary work McWilliams has a great knack for bringing a complex economics story to life He is also funny In economics that s a rare and persuasive combination

Un fascinante ensayo que explica cómo funciona un elemento tan esencial como desconocido en nuestras vidas«Tan entretenido como esclarecedor.» Yanis Varoufakis«Un relato enormemente ambicioso, perspi

Un fascinante ensayo que explica cómo funciona un elemento tan esencial como desconocido en nuestras vidas«Tan entretenido como esclarecedor.» Yanis Varoufakis «Un relato enormemente ambicioso, persp

A breathtaking expansive and imaginative ride through the history and future of money from an author who truly understands it PROFESSOR BRIAN COX A cracking book that is as enjoyable as it is readable PETER FRANKOPAN Equally entertaining and insightful YANIS VAROUFAKIS If as David McWilliams complains economists take the fun out of money then he is the exception that proves the rule a man who could not write a boring sentence if he tried TOM HOLLAND MONEY The object of our desires The engine of our genius Humanity s greatest invention Money is everything It brings freedom and it takes it away It inspires and corrupts us But what is money Is it the main thing holding us back from utopia or is it the one constant that s driven us to success In his illuminating entertaining and often surprising book economist David McWilliams charts the relationship between humans and money from clay tablets in Mesopotamia to coins in Ancient Greece from mathematics in the medieval Arab world to the French Revolution and from the emergence of the US dollar right up to today s cryptocurrency Along the way we meet a host of characters who have innovated with money disrupting society and transforming the wa

For readers of SAPIENS and Yanis Varoufakis the definitive story of money and how it shaped humankind from influential global economist David McWilliams