The End of Alchemy ─ Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy

Mervyn King was governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2013, guiding the country through the Great Recession and into the start of the recovery. Taking the long view, King shows that the crisis he faced was only the latest in a long series of financial crises since our money and banking systems became the cornerstone of modern capitalism. True, the transformation of precious metals into paper money, and the invention of banking institutions that could spin out long-term loans from short-term deposits, have provided a financial alchemy that has spawned two hundred years of economic growth—yet they also create vulnerabilities that have wrought repeated economic disasters, from hyperinflation to banking collapses. In The End of Alchemy, King tackles the fundamental question rising out of the Great Recession: are we slaves to the boom-and-bust cycles of money and banking, or can we remake these institutions to fashion a more stable future?