The money plot : a history of currency's power to enchant, control, and manipulate / Frederick Kaufman
By: Kaufman, Frederick [author].
Publisher: New York : Other Press, ©2020Description: 287 p: illustrations, map ; 24 cm.Content type: text Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9781590517185; 1590517180.Subject(s): Money -- History | Banks and banking -- History | Commerce -- History | Precious metals | BitcoinGenre/Form: History. | Print books.Current location | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
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On Shelf | HG221 .K2925 2020 (Browse shelf) | Available | AU00000000017107 |
Browsing Alfaisal University Shelves , Shelving location: On Shelf Close shelf browser
HG195 .L83 2018 Dance of the trillions : developing countries and global finance / | HG220.A2 S93 2020 New money : how payment became social media / | HG221 .D63 2014 The social life of money / | HG221 .K2925 2020 The money plot : a history of currency's power to enchant, control, and manipulate / | HG221 .O47 2018 A cash-free society : whether we like it or not / | HG221 .S963 2015 Blockchain : blueprint for a new economy / | HG222.3 .C47 2019 The wealth creator's playbook : a guide to maximizing your return on life and money / |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-285)
Behind the curtain -- The shell game -- The trophy wife -- Acts of violence and other words -- The soul of money -- The crusade -- The silver of count Hieronymus von Schlick -- Money wants to be free -- The buck starts here -- The float -- How to make money -- The end of money
"Half fable, half manifesto, this brilliant new take on the ancient concept of cash lays bare its unparalleled capacity to empower, enchant, and control us. Frederick Kaufman tackles the complex history of money, beginning with the earliest myths and wrapping up with Wall Street's byzantine present-day doings. Along the way, he exposes a set of allegorical plots, stock characters, and stereotypical metaphors that have long been linked with money and commercial culture, from Melanesian trading rituals to the dogma of Medieval churchmen faced with global commerce, the rationales of mercantilism and colonial expansion, and the U.S. dollar's 1971 unpinning from gold. The Money Plot offers a tool to see through the haze of modern banking and finance, demonstrating that the standard reasons given for economic inequality-the neoliberal gospel of market forces-are, like dollars, euros, and yuan, contingent upon structures people have designed. It shines a light on the one percent's efforts to contain a money culture that benefits them within boundaries they themselves are increasingly setting. And Kaufman warns that if we cannot recognize what is going on, we run the risk of becoming pawns and shells ourselves, of becoming other people's money"--