Dimensions
135 x 216 x 20mm
When Money Dies is a narrative history of the hyper-inflation crisis that brought the Weimar Republic to its knees in the 1920s, and helped to pave the way for the later ascendancy of the Nazi and other extremist political parties. Fergusson paints a terrifying and at times surreal picture of Germany in financial free-fall. At the height of the crisis, the republic was reduced to a barter economy: cigars, artworks and jewels were routinely exchanged for staples such as bread; a cinema ticket could be bought for a lump of coal; and a bottle of paraffin for a silk shirt. The Weimar government took a series of increasingly strange measures in response. The Bavarian PM submitted a Bill to the Reichsrat asking that ?gluttony' be made a penal offence (a glutton being ?one who habitually devotes himself to the pleasures of the table'), with repeat offenders incurring sentences of up to five years penal servitude. Fergusson masterfully brings these bizarre times to life, weaving expert economic analysis with anecdote and eye-witness accounts. First published in 1975 to much critical acclaim, When Money Dies has been out of print for over 30 years. With scuffed-up copies of the original now changeing hands for as much as £1,000, and regularly quoted both in academic works and the popular media, this is the seminal book on the subject. Its relevance is ongoing, because it deals specifically with the human side of inflation ? why governments resort to it, the dismal, corruptive pestilence it visits on their citizens, the agonies of recovery, and the dark, long-term legacy. And at a time when many developed economies are teetering on the brink of financial collapse, it provides an urgent warning against the addictive dangers of the unlimited printing of money ? shorthand for deficit financing ? as a soft option for governments faced with growing unrest and unemployment. AUTHOR: Adam Fergusson lives and writes in London. REVIEWS: ?The narrative has its own compelling pace ? the pace of runaway inflation? - GUARDIAN ?An enormously readable narrative of the Weimar years in Germany' - THE TIMES ?Dazzling journalism? - DAILY TELEGRAPH *
