How did humanity go from exchanging goods and recording debts on clay tablets to tapping a phone, using a credit card, or buying something now and paying later?

The Origins of Money is an illustrated journey through one of the most powerful inventions in human history. Beginning long before the first coins, Murat Smith explores how gifts, barter, debt, commodities, accounting and early systems of value developed into increasingly sophisticated forms of money.

Travel through the monetary worlds of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Greece, Persia and Rome; discover the rise of paper money, medieval banking, bills of exchange and global silver; and follow the transformation of finance through banknotes, central banks, the gold standard, credit cards and electronic payment networks.

The story then enters the digital age, examining Bitcoin, cryptoassets, central-bank digital currencies, Afterpay and Buy Now, Pay Later, before confronting one final question: what will money become next?

Richly illustrated and spanning thousands of years, The Origins of Money reveals that money has never been simply coins or notes. It is a constantly changing system of trust, power, technology, debt and human relationships.

For readers fascinated by history, economics, ancient civilisation, banking, cryptocurrency and the forces that shaped the modern world, this book offers the complete story of how humanity learned to create, exchange and trust value.