[ book tip by Katy Barrett ] Have you noticed something different in your wallet recently? The design of English coins has changed. Each denomination now shows a different part of the royal shield, the six together making up the whole image. Such a change gets you thinking about money, one of the many reasons for reading Money: A History. 

In this dense but rewarding work, curators from the British Museum consider money not just as the economic tool but as a cultural, social, religious, and political one; as a material object, and as a key to the development of human history. It is a thought-provoking read. What is money? Yes, it is small, round metal objects, as developed in the Western tradition from Ancient Greece. But as early as the tenth century the Chinese were producing paper money. How different life would be if we only used coins! In other societies, rice, cloth, bracelets, shells, tobacco, salt, and even human skulls have all circulated as units of value. Such a range of objects have carried the concept of wealth.  

In the 'modern' period, many of these objects have been submerged under the 'globalised economy' so here Money: A History switches to looking at plastic money, electronic money, and economic policy. For a while, in the mid-nineteenth-century, we had the wonderful idea that economics could be politically controlled! Something as intangible as money has clearly developed its own 'personality' in our lives, raising compelling questions as the current 'recession' looms over us.  

Such a book will inevitably be extended and expanded as the history of money continues, but as we face the recession, Money: A History makes us think about its place in our lives from a new and liberating angle.

[ Favourite quote ] 'Cash Died Today.'
'The awakening of the separate personality of money.'
'This book is intended to use our familiarity with money in our own lives to open up a route to the past. The history of money embraces the whole of human history.'

[ book info ] Eagleton, Catherine: Money: A History. (original language: English) Jonathan Williams, Joe Cribb, Elizabeth Errington. British Museum Press, London, 2007 (1997). ISBN: 978-0-7141-1814-7.