![]() ![]() Among the latter is a riveting account of medieval China’s economic sophistication. ![]() In early chapters, Goldstein cherry-picks his way through money’s history, sharing quirky facts (in the 1840s and ’50s, images of Santa Claus adorned some of the 8,370 varieties of paper currency in the USA) and fresh, informative origin stories. In Money, Goldstein invites readers along for those adventures, serving as a first-rate tour guide throughout. Far from existing on a separate, mathematical plane removed from human emotion, money - Goldstein insists - “is fundamentally, unalterably social.” It functions because a society collectively agrees to view its money as money, to trust in the reality of this “made-up thing.” Given this rather tenuous grounding, it’s no surprise that money has taken us on some wild rides over the centuries. ![]() ![]() “It was never there in the first place.” Her words were a eureka moment for Goldstein they not only gave birth to his journalistic niche (he is now cohost of NPR’s Planet Money), but they also formed his foundational beliefs on the topic. “Money is fiction,” she said when he asked where the trillions of dollars that disappeared in that year’s financial meltdown had gone. In the preface of Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing, Jacob Goldstein ’04JRN recalls the impetus for his new book: a 2008 conversation with his aunt, a poet with an MBA. ![]()
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