I loved this book. It's a wide-ranging and interesting history of money as an idea, and how that idea has changed over millennia.

I'm a long-time listener to the Planet Money show on the radio (and podcast), and the chapters in this book comes across as a collection of episodes of the show, rendered in print. In some cases I know that's literally true -- I have heard some of these stories on the show over the year. They're well-written, though, and sensibly organized, and you'd never get this thorough a history as just a listener. The show doesn't aim for the thematic consistency that the book allows.

The final chapter, on the possible future of money, was thought-provoking and a great way to finish a really good book. ( )

3.5 stars

A light read with a fairly superficial treatment of the topic, but I still learned a few a things. ( )

An informative and entertaining book on the real nature of money. Real in that we or most of us take money for granted. The matter of fact power and measure of worth in our world is very real to us. But Goldstein in a plain and straight forward way drills down into what money really is and what it all means in the scheme of things.

In a general historical format he takes us through how the origins of trade and setting value brought money into existence. Yet he also exposes the myth about the power associated with it. He distills it down to it means something because we believe it does. And that is about it. A belief system not really that much different than religion really.

He winds up the book talking about the current crypto-craze and where that may or may not lead. That story in itself is spooky, almost a cult type origin there. There is much to be learned in this book and the lessons we seem to repeat over and over and probably will continue to. ( )

A FANTASTIC read! Finished this in two afternoons. Had to re-read several parts simply to fix this knowledge securely in my mind. I am going to aggressively promote this to all my friends and acquaintances, especially to their 30's aged children and all their friends because they will be the generation that writes the next chapter in this tale: New Money! ( )

I was really bored through all the early history of the first half. I perked up once the Fed came on the scene. The Fed was "a horse designed by a committee of committees, a camel of a central bank." We have 12 districts because the "central" part of "central bank" was too scary for people; and we were almost controlled by private bankers, rather than overseen by a board appointed by the president.

The financial crisis of 2008 is well explained from a different perspective. Learn (again for the first time?) how "money-market funds" came to be and what it meant when the most famous and long-standing one "broke the buck."

Goldstein has good style. Each chapter is short, heavily sub-chaptered with often funny sub-chapter-titles, and ends with a lesson and/or premonition. His informality does devolve a little bit excessively at times ("It was a dick move"... "You know who knew? Irving damn Fisher").

He has a great overarching lesson, though. We all known that money is "a made-up thing." Of course it is - it's just PAPER at the end of the day, after all. But more importantly, the way we "do money" is a made-up thing. It seems every time we make up a new way to "do money," very quickly we forget there was ever another way; and that surely this way is the only "real" way, and we'll all go to hell in a handbasket if we think about doing it some other way.

First go back to gold and silver coins. Why should they be money? They have rarity in their favor, and some utility, but why make them money? Because we said so. But we could say something else: next, consider the gold standard. Why did money have to be pegged to this element called gold? Because we said so. And now... there's an interesting old-but-new-again theory called Modern Monetary Theory which says that basically, as long as we aren't at full employment and experiencing inflation, it's OK for the government to print all the money it wants. It really doesn't have to be balanced with higher taxes; we don't have to wonder how we might "pay for" government programs. Why not just MAKE money to pay for them? We make all this money stuff up anyway. Well... why not? ( )