Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “Money: The Unauthorised Biography” as Want to Read:
Money: The Unauthorised Biography
Enlarge cover
Rate this book
Clear rating
Open Preview

Money: The Unauthorised Biography

3.69  ·  Rating Details  ·  313 Ratings  ·  67 Reviews
What is money, and how does it work?

The conventional answer is that people once used sugar in the West Indies, tobacco in Virginia, and dried cod in Newfoundland, and that today's financial universe evolved from barter.

Unfortunately, there is a problem with this story. It's wrong. And not just wrong, but dangerous.

Money: the Unauthorised Biography unfolds a panoramic secre
...more
Hardcover, 336 pages
Published June 6th 2013 by Bodley Head
More Details... edit details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Money, please sign up.

Be the first to ask a question about Money

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 1,099)
filter  |  sort: default (?)  |  Rating Details
Paul Fulcher
May 22, 2014 Paul Fulcher rated it liked it
Shelves: 2014
Something of a mixed bag overall - in part because there are two books in one, a reasonably interest history of money and a rather simplistic polemic with his views on reform of the money system post the financial crisis. But overall, worth reading.

The best part is where Martin provides a highly readable account of the history of money from the earliest days, including the evolving philosophy of how people thought about money. Although given how recently it is written it was a shame to see no co
...more
Ints
Feb 11, 2016 Ints rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition
Shelves: ekonomika
Laiku pa laikam man uznāk vēlme izlasīt grāmatu, kura cenšas atbildēt uz vienu manas bērnības pamatjautājumu: “Cik maksā rublis?”. Teorijas par to ir daudz un dažādas, atbilde uz šo jautājumu nemaz nav tik vienkārša, un atkarībā no daudziem pieņēmumiem tā var variēt. Taču tādas grāmatas esmu lasījis jau daudz, un tādēļ lasīt vēl kādu par šo tēmu man paliek aizvien neinteresantāk. Taču grāmatas anotācijā bija viens apgalvojums, kas mani aizķēra.

Ja lasām par finanšu pasaules izcelsmes vēsturi, tad
...more
Muath Aziz
What is money? The classical view (Aristotle and Adam Smith etc) is that in ancient time economy was Natural/Barter system where you give cow milk to the baker in exchange for bread. Then humans found out that the system was not flexible so the rare robust gold was used. This was proven to be a common misunderstanding, there have never been a Barter Economy in human history!

There is a difference between money and currency: "money is the system of credit accounts and their clearing that currency
...more
Karel Baloun
Apr 06, 2014 Karel Baloun rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition
Ends with a delightfully direct explanation for financial crises: a lack of demand, which turns into a lack of confidence in the value of business and credit. Money is just trusted credit, and pretending it is hard (specie, metals) is an easy to explain fraud, used to buttress the current power and control of those who have money.

Explains why QE^n is likely to continue, globally, until demand is adequate to enable near full employment. Technical automation and increasing productivity just add pr
...more
Pete
Sep 20, 2013 Pete rated it liked it
Shelves: nonfiction, economics
Money : The Unauthorized biography (2013) by Felix Martin is a decent book that looks at the history of money and then goes on to make various recommendations of dubious merit.

The book starts with a contrived dialogue about what money is. Martin then goes on to describe how money is more than just a medium of exchange and the history of the use of money. When the book is looking at the historic side of money from Ancient Greece to the founding of the bank of England the book is really interesti
...more
Todd Stockslager
May 31, 2015 Todd Stockslager rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition
Shelves: business
Review title: Money murder mystery
Martin's expose of money may take readers by surprise. It isn't about coins and bills and inflation, although those are elements of the story. And it isn't a dry recounting of economic or fiscal theory, although the history of the theory is an element of the story.

In fact, money isn't what--or who, if we accept the conceit of Martin's subtitle--we think it is. The reason money's biography isn't about coins and bills is because bills and coins aren't money! Inste
...more
Mal Warwick
Apr 06, 2015 Mal Warwick rated it really liked it
You get what you pay for with Money. Yes, this book really does tell the story of money from its origins in Mesopotamia and Greece thousands of years ago to today’s endlessly complex international economy. At times, the book is rough going. It appears to have been written by a Ph.D. in economics who may presume a little too much about the ability of the general reader to engage in the sort of mental gymnastics necessary to understand the money market. Still, the storyline is clear: this is the t ...more
Mark
Sep 15, 2014 Mark rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition
Maybe like a lot of other people, the global subprime mortgage crisis triggered in me a desire to learn more about economics. Called "the dismal science" for a good reason, it's also hugely important in our lives. After some earlier reading I'd already learned to think of money as human cooperation, rather than anything tangible such as gold. This author prefers to define it as transferable credit, which is probably more accurate (economically), but shows why no one likes economists. :-) Isn't t ...more
Sean Goh
Apr 09, 2014 Sean Goh rated it liked it
Boring bits here and there, but its interesting to read about various historical crisis, and how the idea of money evolved from credit to commodity.

Currency itself is not money. Money is the system of accounts and their clearing that currency represents.

The closer an institution is to our daily lives, the harder it is to step outside and analyse it. Like a fish who does not know what is water.

Money requires three components. A universally applicable unit of value, a system of accounts to keep tr
...more
Carol
Aug 03, 2015 Carol rated it liked it
Shelves: business-pf
According to the author, Felix Martin, only a fraction of money has any actual physical existence, 10% in the U.S.'s case. The rest of it being digital account balances.
Martin asks the reader to think of money as transferable IOUs (transferable credits), the lifeblood of this system being trust, trust that the IOUs will be honored. The book gives an interesting overview of the history and evolution of money. Martin eventually ends up with a lengthy discussion on the 2008 credit crisis and some i
...more
Stven
Oct 30, 2014 Stven rated it liked it  ·  review of another edition
Recommended to Stven by: library
Lots of interesting info about the historical origins of the human habit of money -- probably not what you think -- and the rise and fall of numerous systems throughout the ages. (Did you realize that the story of King Midas came from a society which had only recently started using money at all? I didn't.) If the line of thought were just a bit easier to follow -- maybe even if he just hadn't wrapped the book up with an entire chapter of faux Socratic dialog with an imaginary friend -- I'd have ...more
Douglas Tatelman
Mar 02, 2015 Douglas Tatelman rated it it was amazing
Economists don't even know what money is. This book will open your mind to a rich world of money theory, philosophy and reality.
In places it is dense like a textbook, but well worth reading if you want to truly understand the amazing world we have created with this virtual medium of human exchange.
Christopher Lewis Kozoriz
"It is not the sovereign that controls the money...it is you." ~ Felix Martin, The Unauthorized biography, Audio Program

Listened to this book in audio format and finished it up today while working out at the gym. I guess I was expecting something different when I took this audio book off the shelf to listen to. I was expecting Felix Martin, who is a multi-millionaire, to discuss how to make money; however, in this book, it was basically a history of how money came to be. He starts off talking ab
...more
Jonny99
Aug 27, 2014 Jonny99 rated it it was ok
What it would be like if the Felix Unger character from the play and television show wrote a book. Felix Martin is very high brow. In case you failed to recognize just how well-read the man is he sets out to strenuously prove it here. The book quotes Latin expressions by the score. It covers all the major classical societies (Greek, Roman, etc.) and their philosophies whether or not they have any connection to the topic of money. It discourses on any topic that strikes his fancy because hewing t ...more
Aziz Alkattan
let me start off by saying I am NOT an economist. I'm a doctor, which means I know very little about money. but, I really enjoyed this book. The first chapter left me awestruck, & I couldn't stop talking about it with all my friends, and basically anyone I bumped into. After that, the book became a little boring, and a little too much jargon was used, more suitable for people in the field. the last chapter however was very entertaining. it basically summarized the entire book in the form of ...more
Raghu
Aug 11, 2014 Raghu rated it really liked it
Wrote three paragraphs, and just one accidental click outside of this box results in the loss of the entire review! Boohoohoo...

Now, can just say, MUST READ...
Piritta
The book was quite interesting in the beginning and I got some ideas regarding money that I hadn't thought of before. too soon the book turned into a monologue of money's and monetary policy's history, which went on and on and on. The last chapter highlights the monotone most of the book by getting the author to review the entire book in a conversation with his "friend" and that was irritating. I'm giving three stars because I did learn something new, and that saves a lot. I'm not saying the aut ...more
Ben Vanerica
Sep 02, 2014 Ben Vanerica added it
Shelves: tumblr
Perhaps the main theme in this theme-rich book is that money is a social technology with a rich and varied history. The way money is created and used has a huge impact on human behavior and thinking. I think the evidence and the arguments in this book are quite convincing. Money is much more than a way to pay for things. Conventional views certainly miss a lot of the significance of money. At the very least, this book makes you think about money as a system that can be changed because, indeed, i ...more
Jo
Nov 17, 2013 Jo rated it liked it
Maybe I was a little harsh on this book, having just finished David Graeber's excellent Debt, The First 5,000 Years, which has a few overlapping themes. Martin doesn't quite have Graeber's knack for making the water visible to the fish who swim around in it. But this is still an engaging and sometimes captivating account of a potentially dull and inaccessible subject.

I most enjoyed the early chapters (about the origins and conceptual prerequisites of money) and the later chapters (about the shif
...more
Andrew
Dec 07, 2013 Andrew rated it liked it  ·  review of another edition
Three stars for a book in three parts: an insightful and well-told beginning; a somewhat mushy middle; and an end that returns to strength.

Though perhaps I'm being a bit hard about the middle. I read this on long commutes during a particularly tiring few weeks and admit to nodding off a couple times - more due to the swaying subway than the book. Nevertheless, the narrative direction of the middle was always a bit vague. And while I know Churchill said to repeat a point until your listener agree
...more
Ben
Oct 02, 2014 Ben rated it it was ok  ·  review of another edition
This book was really all over the map and the author couldn't seem to decide whether to be metaphysical, philosophical, economic, historical, pragmatic, or anecdotal in his view of what makes money money. There were some interesting points, but it reminded me of too many grad school lectures where the professor was more concerned about sounding knowledgeable and important than distilling that knowledge into meaningful takeaways.
Anne
Jan 02, 2015 Anne rated it it was ok
Entertaining and informative, but definitely not for the uninitiated.

As someone who only just began to have an interest in economics and finance, this book is really hard to go through. I constantly felt like I was reading a math proof where many steps were skipped, leaving me unable to follow the logic of the proof. A number of concepts, from key terms like "seigniorage" to "banksters" (which google informed me is a portmanteau of "banker" and "ganster") are not explained adequately for me.

Over
...more
Cary Hillebrand
Money! You know, the stuff that makes the world go around. AKA the root of all evil. How can a detailed view of this fundamental aspect of the "dismal science" possibly be interesting let alone fascinating? Let Felix Martin enlighten you as he guides you along the way from its humble beginnings to where it is headed, with fascinating side trips such as the famous immovable stones of the island of Yap.
Mike Dusch
Mar 26, 2014 Mike Dusch rated it it was ok
The first few chapters provide a fascinating account of the history and philosophy of money. However, the later chapters loose a lot of momentum and become increasingly esoteric and jargonized. Take, for example this impenetrable sentences, "It is nothing more than ensuring the synchronization, in the aggregate, of incoming and outgoing payments due on his assets and liabilities-which are themselves, of course, the aggregated liabilities and assets of all his borrowers and creditors".
Søren Mors
Jul 29, 2015 Søren Mors rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition
A very interesting take on what money is, and isn't. And how the views on the question have changed over time.

The author offers a very compelling argument that the interesting property of money is not the physical manifestation in the form of coins (or bits in a computer), but the balances of transferrals that they do represent.

Highly recommended.
Jerome Baladad
May 24, 2015 Jerome Baladad rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition
If you're looking to know more about the history of money as a standard of giving value to what we have here and there, this is a good book to read. It's a well indexed reference book especially for those who have just started reading on economics, trade and business. Content can be challenging to some who have no business or economic background whatsoever. Some topics can be very technical. But those with interest in history can discover that navigating this book to be fascinating and useful.
Kevin Lallah
Sep 01, 2013 Kevin Lallah rated it really liked it
Shelves:
I bought this book with trepidation on the notion, that I thought the subject matter would sizzle my brains. How wrong I was. I’ve given this book 4 stars simply because I think this book was written for the lay person in mind. The book covers money regarding: its conception in Greek society, the way it’s been viewed and used over the centuries, the creation of credit markets and how contemporary economics and finance don’t seem to be as entwined as I thought.
There were the odd few pages which l
...more
Andrew Smith
Jan 21, 2014 Andrew Smith rated it really liked it
This is a terrific book, which has the twin benefits of being very well-written and harbouring an unexpected thesis, which pretty much turns most of our assumptions about the nature of money on their head. It contains plenty of anecdotes with which to delight and surprise your friends and is genuinely enlightening and entertaining for the non-economist. It gets a little repetitive in places as said thesis is fleshed out, but overall it succeeds brilliantly, I think.
Karin
Oct 09, 2014 Karin rated it really liked it
This book goes off in some interesting directions that I never expected. Best read in short spurts, there's a lot of information to take in here. Not convinced of his conclusion totally at the end, but it taught me a lot about history and gave me a lot to think about regarding monetary policy. I'll have to read David Graeber's book ASAP so I can compare/contrast!
John Grange
I've read a number of books on the history and nature of money and debt so this works appealed to me. The structure and flow of the narrative was good but I found Mr Martin's writing style to be difficult at times. It also helps that I'm in agreement with the premise that today's conventional wisdom mischaracterizes the nature of money and that money is a social not physical technology. He also admonishes modern, myopic, monetary policy of inflation targeting which, in my view, does little to pr ...more
« previous 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 36 37 next »
There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »
  • When the Money Runs Out: The End of Western Affluence
  • City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism
  • The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World
  • Bienville's Dilemma: A Historical Geography of New Orleans
  • After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead
  • Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity
  • Route 66: The Mother Road
  • Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right: What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas
  • The Shifts and the Shocks: How the Financial Crisis Has Changed Our Future
  • Stabilizing an Unstable Economy: A Twentieth Century Fund Report
  • The Age of Oversupply: Overcoming the Greatest Challenge to the Global Economy
  • How Much is Enough?: Money and the Good Life
  • Paper Promises: Debt, Money, and the New World Order
  • The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order
  • The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire
  • The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities
  • The Myth of the Rational Market: Wall Street's Impossible Quest for Predictable Markets
  • Inefficient Markets: An Introduction to Behavioral Finance

Share This Book



No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

“An IOU which remains for ever a contract between just two parties is nothing more than a loan. It is credit, but it is not money. It is when that IOU can be passed on to a third party—when it is able to be “negotiated” or “endorsed,” in the financial jargon—that credit comes to life and starts to serve as money. Money, in other words, is not just credit—but transferable credit.” 0 likes
“For a century or more, the “civilized” world regarded as a manifestation of its wealth metal dug from deep in the ground, refined at great labor, and transported great distances to be buried again in elaborate vaults deep under the ground,” 0 likes
More quotes…