Money
The True Story of a Made-Up Thing
Published on 4. October 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-0-316-41720-4 (ISBN)
Description
A well-researched and entertaining look at how money is a made-up thing that has evolved over time to suit humanity's changing needs, from the co-host of the NPR podcast Planet Money.
"Should be required reading." —The New York Times
Money only works because we all agree to believe in it. In Money, Jacob Goldstein shows how money is a useful fiction that has shaped societies for thousands of years, from the rise of coins in ancient Greece to the first stock market in Amsterdam to the emergence of shadow banking in the 21st century.
At the heart of the story are the fringe thinkers and world leaders who reimagined money. Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor, created paper money backed by nothing, centuries before it appeared in the west. John Law, a professional gambler and convicted murderer, brought modern money to France (and destroyed the country's economy). The cypherpunks, a group of radical libertarian computer programmers, paved the way for bitcoin.
One thing they all realized: what counts as money (and what doesn't) is the result of choices we make, and those choices have a profound effect on who gets more stuff and who gets less, who gets to take risks when times are good, and who gets screwed when things go bad.
Lively, accessible, and full of interesting details (like the 43-pound copper coins that 17th-century Swedes carried strapped to their backs), Money is the story of the choices that gave us money as we know it today.
"Should be required reading." —The New York Times
Money only works because we all agree to believe in it. In Money, Jacob Goldstein shows how money is a useful fiction that has shaped societies for thousands of years, from the rise of coins in ancient Greece to the first stock market in Amsterdam to the emergence of shadow banking in the 21st century.
At the heart of the story are the fringe thinkers and world leaders who reimagined money. Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor, created paper money backed by nothing, centuries before it appeared in the west. John Law, a professional gambler and convicted murderer, brought modern money to France (and destroyed the country's economy). The cypherpunks, a group of radical libertarian computer programmers, paved the way for bitcoin.
One thing they all realized: what counts as money (and what doesn't) is the result of choices we make, and those choices have a profound effect on who gets more stuff and who gets less, who gets to take risks when times are good, and who gets screwed when things go bad.
Lively, accessible, and full of interesting details (like the 43-pound copper coins that 17th-century Swedes carried strapped to their backs), Money is the story of the choices that gave us money as we know it today.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Little, Brown & Company
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 206 mm
Width: 132 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
248 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-316-41720-4 (9780316417204)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jacob Goldstein is the host of the podcast What’s Your Problem? Previously, he hosted NPR's Planet Money for more than a decade. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, This American Life, and Morning Edition, and he was a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, the Miami Herald, and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. He is a graduate of Stanford University and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He lives, perhaps inevitably, in Brooklyn with his wife and two children.