The Manhattan Institute has announced that Edward Chancellor is the winner of the 19th annual Hayek Book Prize for his book The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest. The prize honors the book that best reflects economist Friedrich Hayek’s vision of economic and individual liberty, and encourages other scholars to follow his example.

Chancellor’s book traces the history of finanial lending and interest from their origins in ancient Mesopotamia, through debates about usury in Restoration Britain and John Law’s ill-fated Mississippi scheme, to the global credit booms of the twenty-first century.