Money | Litsy

Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing | Jacob Goldstein

Beware the, “I‘ll read a few pages to see if I want to commit.” What did I expect from author who regularly appears on This American Life?
#auldlangspine @Sharpeipup

Sharpeipup I learned so much from this book. 1y

Maria514626 @sharpeipup He‘s such a good writer. He could write a book about worms and I‘d probably read it. 😆 1y

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Sharpeipup

Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing | Jacob Goldstein

Everyone should read this!
#blameitonlitsy

Megabooks Truth! 🙌🏻🙌🏻 2y

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AvidReaderandGeekGirl

Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing | Jacob Goldstein

pick

4 stars

Great narration and actually not boring!

3 likes

Megabooks

Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing | Jacob Goldstein

pick

I‘ve always been interested in the made-up things (government, religion) that grease the wheels of human society, so I was fascinated by this book. Goldstein writes about how the belief in money as an abstract concept (paper, online banking) has jump started change and innovation. He goes back to early China and the Mongol Empire before settling in and tracing the trajectory of money from Industrial Revolution England to today.

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Cinfhen

Megabooks I loved his armchair quarterbacking/Captain Hindsight views on past financial calamities. Truly. I learned so much from this book! 2y

wanderinglynn I love Douglas Adam‘s quote about money in HHGTTG: “This planet has—or rather had—a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.” 2y

Megabooks @wanderinglynn wonderful quote and so true! 2y

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AmyG This sounds fascinating. 2y

Megabooks @AmyG it was! 2y

Cinfhen Love that @wanderinglynn 💚💚💚 2y

Cinfhen Great review, Meg! 2y

batsy Great review! I was thinking about the utter pointlessness of money & the destruction its wrought the other day because of some tweet involving bond repayments, roubles & dollars. And to think people are having to suffer or even die over it & how it's exchanged 😫 2y

Megabooks @batsy thanks! Yeah, money is definitely crazy. 2y

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shanaqui

Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing | Jacob Goldstein

pick

This was pretty much as I expected -- light and breezy, able to explain things like the gold standard and the issues for the euro that came from the Greek financial situation and Germany's particular focus on exports, but not something that I'd ever cite or trust to form my opinions.

Close to a #BookSpinBingo line now, though!

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shanaqui

Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing | Jacob Goldstein

Money/finance is not a particular interest of mine, but what I love is the range of non-fiction out there that lets me just dip into a topic. This book is proving not a bad way to do so: it's pretty chatty and simple, and makes things very easy to understand (e.g. the gold standard... and why it's a bad idea). It doesn't have footnotes directing you to specific sources, so I would treat it as very light and fluffy... but I'm enjoying it.

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