Seventeen-year-old Alexander Paris-Callahan, a recent Santa Monica High School graduate now attending UC Berkeley, has released "500 Events That Shaped the History of Money," tracing financial evolution from ancient barter to Bitcoin.
Published Oct. 15 by Kingman Books and available on Amazon and in select bookstores, the 100,000-word volume draws on more than 800 sources to explore how financial innovation shaped civilization.
Paris-Callahan began the project as a ninth-grader, inspired by his fascination with history and economics. He completed much of the work while homeschooling during 10th grade and during accelerated studies at Santa Monica High, graduating a year early.
"I spent nearly a year identifying events to include in the book, which involved some hard choices," Paris-Callahan said. "All the event descriptions had to be around 200 words."
Despite his youth, he approached the project with academic rigor, eschewing AI tools for extensive reading and research. Two editors—a professional historian and retired economics professor—fact-checked and refined the manuscript.
The book presents global financial history through 500 turning points, from Mesopotamian taxation and banking to Dutch stock markets, early capitalism's bubbles and crashes, central bank creation, credit card revolution and 21st-century digital transformations.
Before Santa Monica High, Paris-Callahan attended Realm Creative Academy, a small Santa Monica private school with flexible curriculum that fostered his love of learning.
He worked with his father, author David Callahan, to publish through their Kingman Books imprint and Ingram Books distribution.
Edited by SMDP Staff