Stuart Kells is in some senses an Antipodean version of American journalist and historian Michael Lewis. Kells has chronicled the antics of corporate players, such as publishers Penguin Random House, diamond miners Argyle, and financial market traders in the water of the Murray-Darling Basin. This new book is published by Melbourne University Publishing, whose corporate history he has also written.
In Alice: The Biggest Untold Story in the History of Money, he turns his attention to a financial innovator. But in his choice of protagonist, Kells differs from Lewis, whose most recent book told the story of the famous crypto wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried. Kells’ book is the story of Australian banking consultant Ian Shepherd, whose ambitious plan to reinvent the financial system and mitigate some of its risks ended in failure.
