Money

Geoffrey Ingham is Emeritus Reader in Sociology and Political Economy at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Christ's College

‘Geoffrey Ingham offers a masterful account of money as a social technology, contrasting it with mainstream monetary theory and focusing on the relations between states and markets. He does so with an impressive sweep from ancient history to the present.’Sheila Dow, University of Stirling‘This is a brilliantly clear and succinct survey. Ingham provides a crisp and critical account of the major theories of money, together with a sharp analysis of contemporary forms of money such as Bitcoin and other alternative moneys. For anyone searching for a reliable and accessible way into the extraordinarily complex phenomenon of money, this book is a must-read.’Nigel Dodd, London School of Economics and Political Science

• Part I     What is Money? 1 Money’s Puzzles2 The ‘incompatibles’3 A social theory of money and monetary systems Part II    Capitalism and Money 4  The evolution of capitalist money5 Modern money (i): states, central banks, and their banking system6 Modern money (ii): ‘near’ money; ‘complementary’, ‘alternative’; ‘surrogate’ money; and ‘crypto currency’7 The Great Financial Crisis and the Question of Money8 Some conclusions