Philip Coggan is the Capital Markets Editor and Buttonwood columnist of The Economist. Previously, he worked for the Financial Times for 20 years, most recently as the Investment Editor. In 2009, he was voted Senior Financial Journalist of the Year in the Wincott awards and best communicator in the business journalist of the year awards. Among his books are "The Money Machine", a guide to the city that is still in print after 25 years and "The Economist Guide to Hedge Funds". His latest book, "Paper Promises: Money, Debt and the New World Order", was published by Penguin in December and is already well on its way to being a bestseller.

The world is drowning in debt. Can we stay afloat? In this masterful analysis of the world's finances, Philip Coggan shows that to answer these questions we first need to ask several others. For example: What exactly is money? And why is it worth anything? How has its function changed over decades and centuries? What purpose did the gold standard actually serve? Why, for that matter, is gold still worth more than cowry shells? Who are the world's real creditors and debtors today? Above all, what promises do we need to believe to stop the whole system falling apart?We take for granted so much about the current financial system (have you actually tried to answer the questions above?) Only by going back to the beginning - to first principles and to our history - can we comprehend where all this debt has come from, and its very serious consequences now.

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