Money: The Unauthorized Biography

By Felix Martin

Book Overview

What is money, and how does it work? In this tour de force of political, cultural, and economic history, Felix Martin challenges nothing less than our conventional understanding of one of humankind's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307962431
• ISBN13: 9780307962430
• Release Date: March 2014
• Publisher: Knopf
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.3" x 6.6"

Customer Reviews

Lots of fun and fodder for discussion

You have probably read all kinds of economics books, including Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, etc. One of my favorites is “The Capitalist Manifesto” by Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler. If you have not read much about economics, you will get an economics education along with the premise of this book on money. But wait, do we know what money is or how it works, or just the smooth theories we read about and are taught in school? This book shows an interesting side to history. We get a synopsis of the Iliad to show an example of a pre-monetary society. We get an overview of the General Conference on Weights and Measures on 14 October 1960, in Paris. I will not go through more details, as that is why you are reading the book. I enjoyed the description of different items used as money. Being a survivalist, I was prepared for the big crash in 2008; I dusted off and was prepared to use my stacks of ceramic Notgeld. Some books can be scanned, and you slow down for the interesting part. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the whole book is interesting.