BRICS and All That

Five countries hop on a group chat... BRICS is an international development organization founded in 2009 by its namesake charter members: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. These countries wanted to create an international trading and monetary system to counter the dollar-denominated global economy dominated by the United States and its European and Asian allies. BRICS AND ALL THAT offers a humorous account-held together by a sturdy thread of fact-of the events and personalities that have shaped the development of the BRICS organization over the past two decades. This book gently immerses the reader in the language of international finance using a mix of light-hearted vignettes and narratives. BRICS AND ALL THAT provides unconventional histories of the two grouchy countries-China and Russia-who have been at the forefront of efforts to end the U.S. dollar's role as the global reserve currency. It also shows how development loans are underwritten by the organization's New Development Bank-which was originally envisioned by the BRICS founders as a potential challenger to the IMF and the World Bank. BRICS AND ALL THAT gives a summary of the pros and cons of BRICS-highlighting both its successes and its failures during its first two decades. Dead economists ranging from Adam Smith and David Ricardo to John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman have not refused to embrace BRICS AND ALL THAT as a worthy successor to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Yet Smith's seminal, albeit dated, masterwork-unlike BRICS AND ALL THAT-offers little information about such weighty topics as reserve currencies and the loan underwriting processes for large-scale projects such as hydroelectric dams. This book is not endorsed by any heads of state. Jefferson Hane Weaver's previous work with Armin Lear Press is ECONOMICS AND ALL THAT, a humorous-and factual-explanation of key topics in economics. He is also the author of numerous books including WHAT ARE THE ODDS? He received his undergraduate degree in Economics and Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also received his J.D. and his Ph.D. from Columbia University.