The Almightier - by Paul Vigna (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The complete story of how we came to worship money, and how we can stop greed from destroying everything.

The pursuit of wealth is considered an essential function of human nature, and greed is an unspoken civic virtue. Many of us revere billionaires and Wall Street rain-makers, then complain about "the system" being rigged, and wonder why the country doesn't seem to work for the little guy anymore. Some blame the Deep State for income inequality and corruption, and others blame capitalism, but the truth is that these issues have much deeper roots: our devotion to money is a manmade invention that has transformed over thousands of years to replace religion as the foundation of our society, and it is tearing civilization apart.

In The Almightier, journalist Paul Vigna uncovers the forgotten history of money, tracing the uneasy and often accidental alliance between wealth and religion as it developed from ancient city-states to today's secular world, where religious devotion has receded and greed has stepped in to fill the void. Through engaging anecdotes, original research, and fresh perspectives on the causes of the many challenges we face today, Vigna makes a compelling argument that money has no power apart from the power we give it.

We can build a better future, where we don't need to choose between helping others and getting ahead. But we can't repair the damage that greed has done until we understand how it took over our world in the first place.

Review Quotes

"Greed dominates the modern world. But where did our obsession with money and wealth come from? Does it represent the best possible way to run our lives? Or is there some better way? Anyone interested in these questions should read this book. Paul Vigna's reinterpretation of world history is original, compelling, and thought-provoking. The perfect read for our unstable times."
--Simon Johnson, 2024 Economics Nobel Prize winner and coauthor of Power and Progress

"A brilliant exploration of how our faith in money has shaped history and continues to define our world today. With his trademark clarity and insight, Vigna makes the abstract come alive, taking readers on a journey that's as engaging as it is enlightening."
--Kabir Sehgal, bestselling author of Coined

"Religion and money are society's two most powerful inventions. Both have tapped deeply into human imagination to play equal parts in the construction - and destruction - of civilizations. In this gem of a book, Paul Vigna takes us on a rollicking, 5000-year journey to show just how intertwined these two dangerous ideas have always been and what their past tells us about ourselves and our future."
--Michael Casey, co-author of Our Biggest Fight

"Vigna takes us on an enthralling guided tour through the origins and history of money, which is essential to improving our understanding of the pervasive role money plays in our lives today. This well-crafted and provocative book, replete with historical nuggets and rich insights, will not only entertain you but force you to reconsider the prominent role that the creation of money has played in unleashing forces, both good and bad, that affect our economies and societies."
--Eswar Prasad, Cornell University economics professor, Brookings Institution senior fellow, and author of The Future of Money

About the Author

PAUL VIGNA is an author, journalist, editor and speaker, with a particular focus on capital markets and cryptocurrencies. He is the author of Guts: The Anatomy of The Walking Dead and coauthor of The Age of Cryptocurrency and The Truth Machine. For 25 years, he was a reporter and editor for Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal, pioneering coverage of the cryptocurrency sector. He has appeared on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox, and PBS.