David Boyle (author)

David Courtney Boyle, born 1958, is a British author and journalist who writes mainly about history and new ideas in "economics", money, business and culture. He lives in Crystal Palace, London. He is now conducting an independent review for the Treasury and the Cabinet Office on Barriers to Public Service Choice, which reported in 2013.

His book Authenticity put the phenomenon on the business and political agenda. His previous books The Tyranny of Numbers and The Sum of Our Discontent predicted and fermented the backlash against target culture. Funny Money helped launched the time banks movement in the UK.

More recently, he has been writing about why organisations and public services are so ineffective, working with the New Economics Foundation and NESTA on a series of publications about coproduction, and publishing his own solutions as The Human Element. This argues that organisations have abandoned human skills in favour of numerical targets or IT systems, which frustrate the business of building relationships and making things happen.

His history books usually have a business or economic dimension, including Blondel's Song (UK) and The Troubadour's Song (USA) about the imprisonment and ransom of Richard the Lionheart. His 2008 book Toward the Setting Sun tells the intertwined story of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci and their race for America in the 1490s. His 2010 book, Eminent Corporations with (Andrew Simms) has introduced a new genre, the mini-corporate biography, launching the idea of corporate history as tragedy.

He has been the editor of several non-peer-reviewed journals including New Economics and Town & Country Planning. He is a fellow of the New Economics Foundation and has been at the heart of the effort to develop coproduction and introduce time banks to Britain as a critical element of public service reform. He has been closely involved in their Clone Town Britain campaign and writes about the future of volunteering, cities and business. He edited the Foundation's publications New Economics, News from the New Economy, and then Radical Economics from 1987–2010.

Boyle helped found the London Time Bank, and was co-founder of Time Banking UK. He has been a candidate for Parliament of the United Kingdom, and sits on the federal policy committee of the Liberal Democrats. He was editor of the weekly Liberal Democrat News from 1992–1998.

Bibliography

• Building Futures, 1989
• What is New Economics?, 1993
• Alternative Identities, Alternative Currencies, 1999
• Funny Money: In search of alternative cash, 1999 (ISBN 0-00-653067-2)
• The Sum of Our Discontent, 2001
• The Tyranny of Numbers, 2001 {ISBN 0-00-653199-7}
• The Little Money Book, 2003 (ISBN 1-901970-51-5)
• The Money Changers: Currency Reform from Aristotle to e-cash, 2003
• Numbers, 2004 (ISBN 0-9543959-2-1)
• Authenticity: Brands, Fakes, Spin and the Lust for Real Life, 2004 (ISBN 0-00-717964-2)
• The Troubadour's Song: The Capture and Ransom of Richard the Lionheart, 2005 (ISBN 0-670-91486-X)
• Blondel's Song: The Capture, Imprisonment and Ransom of Richard the Lionheart, 2005 (ISBN 978-0-141-01597-2)
• Leaves the World to Darkness 2007 (ISBN 978-0-9552263-0-4)
• Toward the Setting Sun: Columbus, Cabot and Vespucci and the Race for America 2008 (ISBN 978-0-8027-1651-4)
• Co-production: A manifesto for growing the core economy 2008 (ISBN 978-1-904882-32-9)
• The New Economics: A Bigger Picture (with Andrew Simms) 2009 (ISBN 978-1844076758)
• Money Matters 2009 (ISBN 978-1-906136-20-8)
• The Wizard 2010 (ISBN 978-0-9552263-1-1)
• Eminent Corporations (with Andrew Simms) 2010 (ISBN 978-1849010498)
• Voyages of Discovery 2011 (ISBN 9780500289594)
• The Human Element: Ten new rules to kickstart our failing organizations 2011 (ISBN 978-1849714495)
• "The Age to Come. Authenticity, Postmodernism and How to Survive What Comes Next" 2013

External links

• David Boyle's official site
• Guardian Unlimited Politics – Ask Aristotle: David Boyle
• New Start profile
• Meet the Lib Dem bloggers Q&A