War and Gold: A Five-Hundred-Year History of Empires, Adventures and Debt - Hardcover

Kwasi Kwarteng was born in London to Ghanaian parents. He has a PhD in History from Cambridge University and was elected as the Member of Parliament for Spelthorne in Surrey. His first book, Ghosts of Empire, was published to critical acclaim in 2011. www.kwart2010.com @kwasikwarteng

A searing study of how the Spanish conquistadors introduced conflict for the sake of wealth shows that money and battle remain inseparable ... Few stones are left unlifted in this study, the sub-title of which gives every clue as to its ambition * Independent * Here is a book that explores the financial cost of war, rather than the human ... Kwarteng is thorough and insightful, weaving a narrative that transports the reader convincingly through time and place * Evening Standard * As befits a highly intelligent man, the author describes these complex issues in an eminently digestible way ... Has he foretold the next catastrophe? * Standpoint * A complicated story well told, from which financial lessons emerge naturally without Kwarteng finding it necessary to bludgeon the reader with his message * Financial Times * A former financial analyst with an impeccable academic track record ... Aggressively intellectual ... An exciting political thinker * Sunday Times * A meaty, thoughtful and well-written book * Literary Review * Absorbing history of humankind's most enduring preoccupations - war and gold ... A fascinating, lucid and serious history of money, from the discovery of the wealth of the Americans to the present financial crisis * The Times * Enormously entertaining ... turns the evolution of money of the past 500 years into a rollicking narrative ... His book is so engagingly written that readers of all political persuasions should enjoy it * Sunday Times * This exhaustive and convincingly argued history of money comes from an author whose day job is to sit in the House of Commons ... He certainly understands the forces and the mistakes that have led to that destabilisation * Observer * This 500-year study of how cash and gold have affected high politics makes for surprisingly compelling reading * The Times Culture * From Adam Smith to J M Keynes and their successors, he shows how interpretations of past crises have shaped and steered economic policy * Independent * A convincing and imaginative way of explaining the fragility of modern financial systems * New Statesman *