Freaks of Fortune
The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America
Jonathan Levy(Author)
Harvard University Press
Published on 29. October 2012
Book
Hardback
432 pages
978-0-674-04748-8 (ISBN)
Description
Until the early nineteenth century, "risk" was a specialized term: it was the commodity exchanged in a marine insurance contract. Freaks of Fortune tells the story of how the modern concept of risk emerged in the United States. Born on the high seas, risk migrated inland and became essential to the financial management of an inherently uncertain capitalist future. Focusing on the hopes and anxieties of ordinary people, Jonathan Levy shows how risk developed through the extraordinary growth of new financial institutions--insurance corporations, savings banks, mortgage-backed securities markets, commodities futures markets, and securities markets--while posing inescapable moral questions. For at the heart of risk's rise was a new vision of freedom. To be a free individual, whether an emancipated slave, a plains farmer, or a Wall Street financier, was to take, assume, and manage one's own personal risk. Yet this often meant offloading that same risk onto a series of new financial institutions, which together have only recently acquired the name "financial services industry."
Levy traces the fate of a new vision of personal freedom, as it unfolded in the new economic reality created by the American financial system. Amid the nineteenth-century's waning faith in God's providence, Americans increasingly confronted unanticipated challenges to their independence and security in the boom and bust chance-world of capitalism. Freaks of Fortune is one of the first books to excavate the historical origins of our own financialized times and risk-defined lives.
Levy traces the fate of a new vision of personal freedom, as it unfolded in the new economic reality created by the American financial system. Amid the nineteenth-century's waning faith in God's providence, Americans increasingly confronted unanticipated challenges to their independence and security in the boom and bust chance-world of capitalism. Freaks of Fortune is one of the first books to excavate the historical origins of our own financialized times and risk-defined lives.
Reviews / Votes
A free-wheeling yet finely targeted history of capitalism and the modern financial industry, this study by Princeton historian Levy revolves around one specific concept--risk--while considering changing notions of liberty, justice, and human agency. Originally a mariners' term for the possibility of a ship's cargo being lost at sea, "risk" became a defining feature of American commercial life as the free market expanded and industrialization radically increased the pace of economic change...Levy's humane vision and his extensive knowledge of American law, economics, and politics turn what could have been a dry treatise into a fascinating portrait of a society in flux. The author sheds light on such topics as corporate profit-sharing and the ethical ramifications of futures trading, underscoring the extraordinary power of the "economic chance-world" to create and destroy. Happenstance has always played an enormous role in human life, and the book explores society's reaction to the realization that individuals are increasingly defined by the possibility that their station in life will dramatically rise or fall. Publishers Weekly 20120820 Levy provides a fascinating glimpse into the history of financial risk. Looking at the years between the start of the 19th century and the beginning of the Great Depression, he outlines a shift in philosophy regarding risk and responsibility as workers became dependent on new financial systems. Insurance, savings accounts, and even mortgage-backed securities proliferated in an attempt to shift risk off the individual and onto a larger institution. -- Elizabeth Nelson Library Journal 20121015More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
US School Grade: College Graduate Student
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
With printed dust jacket
Illustrations
5 tables
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 155 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-674-04748-8 (9780674047488)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Jonathan Levy
Freaks of Fortune
E-Book
10/2012
1st Edition
Harvard University Press
€38.59
Available for download

E-Book
10/2012
1st Edition
Harvard University Press
€57.69
Available for download
Person
Jonathan Levy is Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University.