Adam Fergusson

Adam Fergusson is the author of When Money Dies. First published in 1975, it is the classic history of the hyperinflation which ravaged Germany, Austria and Hungary after the First World War. It deals above all 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, in the case of the Weimar Republic, its dark long-term legacy. For anyone interested in the pathology of money, even at a century’s distance from those startling, chaotic, distressing events, the story remains a moral tale with immediate relevance for the social problems and financial extravagances the world faces today. 

The book, republished in the global financial mayhem of 2010, and allegedly recommended by Warren Buffet, quickly reclaimed its place as an international best-seller, including many translations ranging from Spanish and German to Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Russian. 

Adam, a Scotsman who graduated in history at Cambridge, was a journalist with the Glasgow Herald, the Statist and The Times before spending four years as a Member of the European Parliament and four more in the Foreign Office as a Special Adviser on European affairs.  A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he has written five books, including three novels, many articles and pamphlets, three musical comedies and much light verse. Now in his 80s, a widower with thirteen grandchildren, he lives in London.