Congratulations to Dr Charles Read of Cambridge University, who was a Marjorie Deane intern at The Economist in 2013, for the publication of his new book about the Irish famine and the 1847 financial crisis.

The book describes the consequences of the British budget of February 1847, which contained unfunded tax cuts and a borrowing spree to pay for famine relief in Ireland, which resulted in a financial panic, a government U-turn and austerity that caused excess mortality in Ireland to soar. This is a set of events that seems strangely familiar in the aftermath of the mini-budget and subsequent market panic of September 2022.

More details about the book can be found here.