{"id":842067,"date":"2025-11-06T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=842067"},"modified":"2025-11-05T14:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T12:24:08","slug":"business-talk-monocle-ceo-david-buckham-unpacks-his-newest-book-about-how-the-west-lost-its-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/842067\/business-talk-monocle-ceo-david-buckham-unpacks-his-newest-book-about-how-the-west-lost-its-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Business Talk \u2013 Monocle CEO David Buckham unpacks his newest book about how the West lost its soul"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In this Business Talk with Michael Avery interview, David Buckham discusses the latest book he has co-authored: <em>The Spell: The Story of Human Progress and How the West Lost Its Soul.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Buckham is the founder and CEO of Monocle Solutions and a veteran of the finance sector, having held key positions at many other notable companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This includes working as the Head of Risk Management at SAS and as a Solutions Specialist at PSG Asset Management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After holding these roles, Buckham founded Monocle Solutions in 2002 to bridge the gap between the complex world of high finance and the actual systems and data that form the foundation of the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Monocle has since grown into a leading international management consultancy that specialises in banking and insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Buckham has also co-authored several books, such as the bestseller <em>The End of Money: The Great Erosion of Trust in Banking, China\u2019s Minsky Moment and the Fallacy of Cryptocurrency (2021).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other books include the internationally published <em>\u201cUnequal: How Extreme Inequality is Damaging Democracy and What We Can Do About It\u201d (2023)<\/em> and <em>\u201cWhy Banks Fail: Unrelenting Bank Runs, the Conundrum of Central Banking and South Africa\u2019s Place in the Global Order\u201d (2023).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The interview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In this Business Talk interview, Buckham unpacks what compelled him to write his most recent book &#8211; <em>The Spell: The Story of Human Progress and How the West Lost Its Soul.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Buckham shares how he guarded against overstating his case while writing his newest book, and how he wove multiple critical topics together without losing impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also discusses his thoughts on the concern that criticism of the IPCC\u2019s alarmist comments on climate change can feed scepticism rather than improve understanding, as well as the impact of commodity scarcity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He concludes the interview by outlining how he used modern, cultural touchstones to emphasise key points in the book \u2013 and shares his outlook for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Watch the full interview with David Buckham below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Business Talk \u2013 David Buckham on how the west lost its soul and the search for meaning\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U_oTHDXF-b0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Buckham is the founder and CEO of Monocle Solutions and the co-author of the highly anticipated book, The Spell: The Story of Human Progress and How the West Lost Its Soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":842072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15578,16446,16196,23982],"class_list":["post-842067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-business-talk","tag-david-buckham","tag-monocle","tag-the-spell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":842070,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842067\/revisions\/842070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}