Currency of Nihilism

Amin Samman is Reader in International Political Economy at City St George's, University of London. He is the author of History in Financial Times (Stanford, 2019).

"Samman's book is committed to an audacious intellectual experiment, developing prominent positions of Western nihilism based on the dynamics of modern financial economy. Capital markets and the logic of speculation are proved to be the arenas in which the annihilation of values, truths, and realities take place."—Joseph Vogl, Princeton University"Currency of Nihilism is most definitely the book to read on nihilism in the twenty-first century—fabulously creative, absolutely important, theoretically compelling. My sense is that Nietzsche and Baudrillard would be reading this book with rapt attention." —Arthur Kroker, University of Victoria"Samman develops a genuine philosophy of history, founded on the common substance of language and money—namely on nothing. The connection he forges between nihilism and finance establishes a new paradigm for understanding economic modernity. Never before has nothing been something worth taking more seriously." —Noam Yuran, Bar-Ilan University"In this theoretically rich reflection on the vacuum at the heart of finance and the technologies that now exploit it, Samman provides us with an original and discomforting diagnosis of our political and cultural present." —William Davies, Goldsmiths, University of London"Currency of Nihilism provides a masterful illustration of a chronic sickness in finance. It is, in this sense, a scream of negation. But the text is also characterised by the kind of deep thought and stylistic craft that is a potent reminder of humanity's 'power-to'." —Chris Rogers, Finance and Society

• PrefaceIntroduction: Balenciaga Occupies Wall Street1. History of Nihilism2. Economy of Nothingness3. Nihilism and Finance4. Financial Nihilism5. Financial VoidConclusion: Metaphysical Boom and BustNotesBibliographyIndex