Little, Brown acquires The Summit

Little, Brown non-fiction publisher Tim Whiting has acquired World English Language rights to The Summit: Bretton Woods and the Fight to Save the World's Economy by the Economics Editor of Sky News, Ed Conway. The book was bought at auction from Jonathan Conway.

The meeting at Bretton Woods in 1944 was the only time in history countries came from around the world to transform the international monetary system. The structure they laid down presided over the longest ever period of sustained economic growth and stability the world has ever seen. And its demise was partly responsible for today's economic woes – from the financial crisis to the Eurozone's problems. The dramatic story of what happened there is full of lessons about today's economic problems, and what might need to happen next to solve them.

Whiting said: 'We're delighted to have signed Ed Conway's book on Bretton Woods. The proposal is outstanding and the contemporary resonances are clear. It is very rare to come across a non-fiction writer who can depict character and evoke the inherent drama of a situation with the skill of a novelist but Ed is a natural. He has also done his homework and this book will draw on a wealth of unpublished accounts, diaries and oral histories, as well as official sources. I cannot wait to read the full manuscript and to work with Ed, who writes with simply exceptional verve and narrative pace. This will be an extraordinary work of non-fiction from a talented writer and I am thrilled to welcome him to the list'

Little, Brown will publish the book as hardback in May 2014, in time for the 60th anniversary of the summit.

Ed Conway, 33, is the Economics Editor of Sky News. Previously he was Economics Editor of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph. His appointment to this role, when aged only 25, made him the youngest ever Economics Editor of a UK national newspaper.