COWRIES TO CRYPTO

Having a little fun with finance Author Jame Dibiasio Publisher Oanda Price £19.99 Released Out now

This highly accessible and often rather entertaining exploration of the evolution of money and the systems that exist around it is an excellent introduction to the subject. Taking you on a journey from the earliest forms of currency, such as cowrie shells used in China, all the way through to Bitcoin and other digital exchange, you really couldn’t ask for something more comprehensive – and all this in about 160 pages.

Dibiasio is a financial journalist of some acclaim and here he teams up with illustrator Harry Harrison, whose satirical cartoons have featured regularly in the South China Morning Post as well as Time magazine and The Guardian. Dibiasio’s approachable prose combined with Harrison’s entertaining imagery helps the often rather complex and abstract world of money become much more digestible.

Some particularly interesting ideas this book explores is how money became of use in the first place, why middlemen emerged as an important arbiter of value, and how kings took control of money and imbued it with their authority as a means of maintaining and also spreading their control. There’s also a fascinating exploration of the way Buddhism, Christianity and Islam each contributed to the way money was understood by people, not least by imbuing people with a sense of a future that was worth saving resources and preparing for.

Cowries To Crypto digs into some complex topics but does so with a lightness of touch that is commendable. If you want to understand the financial systems that run beneath and through all of history, this is a nice way to get started.