Philip Coggan

Simply doesn't answer the exam question.

The early stuff is great: explaining declining turnouts, increasing apathy - with data to back it up. It then pads out most of the rest of the book with fairly paint-by-numbers economic history that doesn't address the topic in the title, before returning briefly to voting systems at the end of the book. I suspect Coggan wanted to write a different book.

The biggest crime for me is the misrepresentation of the UK referendum on the alternative vote in 2011. He consistently calls it 'the UK rejecting PR' (which it wasn't). Makes me wonder how much else he got wrong in here.… (more)

A very readable history of debt and money in a journalistic style that doesn't feature ranting, blaming the 'idle' poor, blaming the 'parasite' rich, shadowy international cabals of super criminals or any of of the weird and not at all wonderful theories that seem to be used to avoid asking questions like: why did we let our (Western) Governments get so amazingly in debt. Some of the suggested answers here may well surprise the uninitiated.

So if you're looking for someone to lynch, rich or poor, don't bother. If you're looking for a some understanding and comparisons about the money madness going on in the world right now with what's gone on before, and currency issues have been going on for a LONG time now, you should be here.

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