Recall This Book

108* Chris Desan on Making Money (Recall This Buck)

Listen Later

Our Recall this Buck series, back in 2020 and 2021, explored the history of money, ranging from the earliest forms of labor IOUs to the modern world of bitcoin and electronically distributed value. We began by focusing on the rise of capitalism, the Bank of England, and how an explosion of liquidity changed everything.

We were lucky to do so, just before the Pandemic struck, with Christine Desan of Harvard Law School, who recently published Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism (Oxford University Press, 2014). She is also managing editor of JustMoney.org, a website that explores money as a critical site of governance. Desan’s research explores money as a legal and political project. Her approach opens economic orthodoxy to question by widening the focus on money as an instrument, to examine the institutions and agreements through which resources are mobilized and tracked, by means of money. In doing so, she shows that particular forms of money, and the markets within which they circulate, are neither natural or inevitable.

  • Christine Desan, “Making Money“
  • Ursula Le Guin The Earthsea Novels (money hard to come by, but kinda cute)
  • Samuel Delany, the Neveryon series (money part of the evils of naming, slavery, labor appropriation)
  • Jane Austen “Pride and Prejudice“
  • Richard Rhodes, “Energy“
  • John Plotz, “Is Realism Failing?” (on liberal guilt and patrimonial fiction)
  • William Cobbett, “Rural Rides” (1830; London as wen)
  • E. P. Thompson, “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century” (notional “just price” of bread)
  • Peter Brown, “Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD”
  • Chris Vanden Bossche, “Reform Acts“
  • “Sanditon” on PBS (and the original unfinished Austen novel)
  • Still from “Sanditon”
  • Margot Finn, “Character of Credit“
  • Thomas Piketty, “Capital in the 21st Century“
  • L. Frank Baum, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” (1900)
  • Leo Tolstoy “The Forged Coupon” (orig.1904)
  • Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Bottle Imp” (1891)
  • Frank Norris, “The Octopus” (1901)
  • D. W. Griffith, “A Corner in Wheat” (1909)


    • Read the episode here.

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    ...more
    View all episodesView all episodes
    Download on the App Store
    Recall This BookBy Elizabeth Ferry and John Plotz
    • 4.7
    • 4.7
    • 4.7
    • 4.7
    • 4.7

    4.7

    29 ratings

    More shows like Recall This Book

    View all
    Radiolab by WNYC Studios

    Radiolab

    43,909 Listeners

    Political Gabfest by Slate Podcasts

    Political Gabfest

    8,495 Listeners

    The LRB Podcast by The London Review of Books

    The LRB Podcast

    292 Listeners

    The New Yorker Radio Hour by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

    The New Yorker Radio Hour

    6,653 Listeners

    Backlisted by Backlisted

    Backlisted

    577 Listeners

    The Daily by The New York Times

    The Daily

    111,562 Listeners

    Up First from NPR by NPR

    Up First from NPR

    56,166 Listeners

    Hard Fork by The New York Times

    Hard Fork

    5,432 Listeners

    The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

    The Ezra Klein Show

    15,174 Listeners

    Novel Dialogue by Aarthi Vadde and John Plotz

    Novel Dialogue

    20 Listeners

    The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast by Trevor Berrett

    The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast

    31 Listeners

    Past Present Future by David Runciman

    Past Present Future

    316 Listeners

    The Big Flop by Wondery

    The Big Flop

    1,115 Listeners