Money for nothing: Books in brief

Mapping the Deep

Dawn J. Wright et al. Esri (2024)

When Dawn Wright submitted her master’s thesis in the 1980s, her supervisor told her that she had no future in oceanography. Today, she is a distinguished oceanographer and chief scientist at software company Esri. In 2022, she became the first Black person to visit Challenger Deep, the deepest place on Earth’s sea bed, more than 10,000 metres below the sea surface. This charming book, written by Wright in collaboration with four Esri Press colleagues, shows how, in her words, “we can turn the unknown deep into the known deep”.

Atlas of Finance

Dariusz Wójcik et al. Yale Univ. Press (2024)

Indigenous Australians prospered with a continental bartering network that required no money, until European colonialists arrived. However, most other societies have depended on money — that is, “anything that can simultaneously act as a medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value”. This intriguing, large-format atlas of intricate maps and graphics with commentaries by economic geographer Dariusz Wójcik and ten colleagues aims to demystify the world of finance, with considerable success.

Planet Aqua

Jeremy Rifkin Polity (2024)