All Over the Page - Money: the true story of a made-up thing

This month we will discuss the book, Money: the true story of a made-up thing, by Jacob Goldstein. The discussion will be facilitated by Eric Head. 

Money only works because we all agree to believe in it. In Money, Jacob Goldstein shows how money is a useful fiction that has shaped societies for thousands of years, from the rise of coins in ancient Greece to the first stock market in Amsterdam to the emergence of shadow banking in the 21st century.

At the heart of the story are the fringe thinkers and world leaders who reimagined money. Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor, created paper money backed by nothing, centuries before it appeared in the west. John Law, a professional gambler and convicted murderer, brought modern money to France (and destroyed the country's economy). The cypherpunks, a group of radical libertarian computer programmers, paved the way for bitcoin.
One thing they all realized: what counts as money (and what doesn't) is the result of choices we make, and those choices have a profound effect on who gets more stuff and who gets less, who gets to take risks when times are good, and who gets screwed when things go bad. Lively, accessible, and full of interesting details (like the 43-pound copper coins that 17th-century Swedes carried strapped to their backs), Money is the story of the choices that gave us money as we know it today.

Eric S. Head, BA in History from the University of Florida, is County Archivist at the Knox County Archives, an instructor in the genealogy class series sponsored by the Knox County Public Library and the East Tennessee Historical Society (ETHS), and a contributor to the ETHS magazine, Tennessee Ancestors. He has also served in various capacities with the Society of Tennessee Archivists, including as President in 2012-2013. Eric has enthusiastically volunteered with a number of organizations in which his daughter was involved including her local swim team and with her High School Band Boosters. He continues to enjoy studying history, particularly naval history, as well as numismatics and finance/economics. Eric has experience researching at numerous facilities in the United States including notable places like the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, the New York City Municipal Archives and the National Archives in Washington, D.C.  He also has ventured overseas looking for ancestors in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.