From the author of Lords of the Horizons, the fascinating story of a new kind of money for a new world. Money has always been at the heart of the American experience. Paper money itself, invented in Boston in 1698, was a classic of American ingenuity—and American disregard for authority and tradition. With the wry and admiring eye of a modern De Tocqueville, Jason Goodwin has written a biography of the dollar giving us the story of its astonishing career through the wilds of American history.
Greenback looks at the dollar over the years as a form of art, a kind of advertising, a reflection of American attitudes, and a builder of empires. Goodwin shows us how the dollar rolled out the frontier, peopled the Plains; how it erected the great cities; how it expressed the urges of democracy and opportunity. And above all, he introduces us to the people who championed—or ambushed—the dollar over the years: presidents, artists, pioneers and frontiersmen, bankers shady and upright, safe-blowers, and crooks and dreamers of every stripe. It’s a vast and colorful cast of characters, all agreed on one thing: getting the money right was the key to unlocking liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Greenback delves into folklore and the development of printing, investigates wildcats and counterfeiters, explains why a buck is a buck and how Dixie got its name. Like Goodwin’s Lords of the Horizons, another story of empire, Greenback brings an array of quirky detail and surprising—often hilarious—anecdote to tell the story of America through its best-beloved product.
Greenback looks at the dollar over the years as a form of art, a kind of advertising, a reflection of American attitudes, and a builder of empires. Goodwin shows us how the dollar rolled out the frontier, peopled the Plains; how it erected the great cities; how it expressed the urges of democracy and opportunity. And above all, he introduces us to the people who championed—or ambushed—the dollar over the years: presidents, artists, pioneers and frontiersmen, bankers shady and upright, safe-blowers, and crooks and dreamers of every stripe. It’s a vast and colorful cast of characters, all agreed on one thing: getting the money right was the key to unlocking liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Greenback delves into folklore and the development of printing, investigates wildcats and counterfeiters, explains why a buck is a buck and how Dixie got its name. Like Goodwin’s Lords of the Horizons, another story of empire, Greenback brings an array of quirky detail and surprising—often hilarious—anecdote to tell the story of America through its best-beloved product.
