BRICS And All That

Publication Date October 13, 2025

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.

If you don’t think that an intergovernmental organization that comprises these countries and a few others has comic potential, then think again.

BRICS And All That offers a humorous—occasionally factual—account 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. The book provides unconventional histories of the two pouty 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. This book 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 also gives a summary of the pros and cons of BRICS—highlighting both its successes and its failures during its first two decades.