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Bank Notes and Shinplasters
- The Rage for Paper Money in the Early Republic (American Business, Politics, and Society)
- Narrated by: Chaz Allen
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
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Bank Notes and Shinplasters
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Publisher's summary
The colorful history of paper money before the Civil War.
Before Civil War greenbacks and a national bank network established a uniform federal currency in the United States, the proliferation of loosely regulated banks saturated the early American republic with upward of 10,000 unique and legal bank notes. In Bank Notes and Shinplasters, Joshua R. Greenberg shows how ordinary Americans accumulated and wielded the financial knowledge required to navigate interpersonal bank note transactions.
Greenberg argues Americans, by necessity, developed the ability to analyze the value of paper financial instruments, assess the strength of banking institutions, and even track legislative changes that might alter the rules of currency circulation. In his examination of the doodles, calculations, political screeds, and commercial stamps that ended up on bank bills, he connects the material culture of cash to financial, political, and intellectual history.
The book demonstrates that the shift from state-regulated banks and private shinplaster producers to federally authorized paper money in the Civil War era led to the erasure of the skill, knowledge, and lived experience with banking that informed debates over economic policy. The end result, Greenberg writes, has been a diminished public understanding of how currency and the financial sector operate in our contemporary era, from the 2008 recession to the rise of Bitcoin.
The book is published by University of Pennsylvania Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks
"Startling insight and ingenuity...illuminating...." (Journal of Early American History)
"Timely and important book...." (American Nineteenth Century History)
"A splendid book. (Stephen Mihm, author of A Nation of Counterfeiters)
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American Default
- The Untold Story of FDR, the Supreme Court, and the Battle over Gold
- By: Sebastian Edwards
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4 out of 5 stars 37
The American economy is strong in large part because nobody believes that America would ever default on its debt. Yet in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt did just that, when in a bid to pull the country out of depression, he depreciated the US dollar in relation to gold, effectively annulling all debt contracts. American Default is the story of this forgotten chapter in America's history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Superb
- By Jean on 12-08-18
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The Story of Silver
- How the White Metal Shaped America and the Modern World
- By: William L. Silber
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 295
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 250
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 251
This is the story of silver's transformation from soft money during the 19th century to hard asset today, and how manipulations of the white metal by American president Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930s and by the richest man in the world, Texas oil baron Nelson Bunker Hunt, during the 1970s altered the course of American and world history. FDR pumped up the price of silver to help jump start the US economy during the Great Depression, but this move weakened China, which was then on the silver standard, and facilitated Japan's rise to power before World War II.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Detailed Account of Silver's Monetary History
- By Brandy Crosby on 01-11-21
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The Money Men
- Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years' War over the American Dollar
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 168
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 67
A best-selling historian's gripping account of the powerful men who controlled America's financial destiny. From the first days of the United States, a battle raged over money. On one side were the democrats, who wanted cheap money and feared the concentration of financial interests in the hands of a few. On the other were the capitalists who sought the soundness of a national bank and the profits that came with it.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not clear what this book is really about
- By Chris on 07-03-08
By: H. W. Brands
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Slavery's Capitalism
- A New History of American Economic Development
- By: Sven Beckert - editor, Seth Rockman - editor
- Narrated by: William Hughes, Kevin Kenerly, Bahni Turpin, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 424
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 363
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 363
During the 19th century, the United States entered the ranks of the world's most advanced and dynamic economies. At the same time, the nation sustained an expansive and brutal system of human bondage. This was no mere coincidence. Slavery's Capitalism argues for slavery's centrality to the emergence of American capitalism in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War.
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1 out of 5 stars
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The volume is so low I can't hear it.
- By Anonymous User on 01-30-18
By: Sven Beckert - editor, and others
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Ways and Means
- Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War
- By: Roger Lowenstein
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 199
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 173
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 172
Upon his election to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln inherited a country in crisis. Even before the Confederacy’s secession, the United States Treasury had run out of money. The government had no authority to raise taxes, no federal bank, no currency. But amid unprecedented troubles Lincoln saw opportunity—the chance to legislate in the centralizing spirit of the “more perfect union” that had first drawn him to politics.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perspective that matters - financing the Civil War
- By Edgewater on 07-04-22
By: Roger Lowenstein
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The Forgotten Man
- By: Amity Shlaes
- Narrated by: Terence Aselford
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 704
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 706
It's difficult today to imagine how America survived the Great Depression. Only through the stories of the common people who struggled during that era can we really understand how the nation endured. In The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression. Rejecting the old emphasis on the New Deal, she turns to the neglected and moving stories of individual Americans, and shows how they helped establish the steadfast character we developed as a nation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a story of forgotten times
- By Debb Robinson on 10-11-07
By: Amity Shlaes
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Americana
- A 400-Year History of American Capitalism
- By: Bhu Srinivasan
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Bhu Srinivasan
- Length: 21 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 624
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 544
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Story5 out of 5 stars 535
From the days of the Mayflower and the Virginia Company, America has been a place for people to dream, invent, build, tinker, and bet the farm in pursuit of a better life. Americana takes us on a 400-year journey of this spirit of innovation and ambition through a series of Next Big Things - the inventions, techniques, and industries that drove American history forward: from the telegraph, the railroad, guns, radio, and banking, to flight, suburbia, and sneakers, culminating with the Internet and mobile technology at the turn of the 21st century.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent history!
- By L. Maranto on 10-14-17
By: Bhu Srinivasan
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How the Other Half Banks
- Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy
- By: Mehrsa Baradaran
- Narrated by: Priya Ayyar
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 282
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 248
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 243
The United States has two separate banking systems today - one serving the well-to-do and another exploiting everyone else. How the Other Half Banks contributes to the growing conversation on American inequality by highlighting one of its prime causes: unequal credit. Mehrsa Baradaran examines how a significant portion of the population, deserted by banks, is forced to wander through a Wild West of payday lenders and check-cashing services to cover emergency expenses and pay for necessities - all thanks to deregulation that began in the 1970s.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The Borrowers at the Fringe
- By Darwin8u on 09-13-16
By: Mehrsa Baradaran
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Phishing for Phools
- The Economics of Manipulation and Deception
- By: George A. Akerlof, Robert J. Shiller
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 347
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 298
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Story4 out of 5 stars 297
Ever since Adam Smith, the central teaching of economics has been that free markets provide us with material well-being, as if by an invisible hand. In Phishing for Phools, Nobel Prize-winning economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller deliver a fundamental challenge to this insight, arguing that markets harm as well as help us. As long as there is profit to be made, sellers will systematically exploit our psychological weaknesses and our ignorance through manipulation and deception.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Useful for a certain audience, but ...
- By Philo on 02-29-16
By: George A. Akerlof, and others
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The New Deal
- A Modern History
- By: Michael Hiltzik
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 19 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
As America struggles with an economic debacle akin to the Great Depression, nothing could be timelier than an authoritative account of the New Deal, masterfully written by Michael Hiltzik, author of the acclaimed history of the Hoover Dam, Colossus.
In this richly peopled, vividly rendered narrative, Hiltzik describes how the urgent short-term relief measures of Franklin Roosevelt’s Hundred Days evolved into a transformative concept of the federal role in American life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Another Excellent New Deal History
- By R.S. on 12-19-11
By: Michael Hiltzik
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The Money Makers
- How Roosevelt and Keynes Ended the Depression, Defeated Fascism, and Secured a Prosperous Peace
- By: Eric Rauchway
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Shortly after arriving in the White House in early 1933, Franklin Roosevelt took the United States off the gold standard. His opponents thought his decision unwise at best and ruinous at worst. But they could not have been more wrong. With The Money Makers, Eric Rauchway tells the absorbing story of how FDR and his advisors pulled the levers of monetary policy to save the domestic economy and propel the United States to unprecedented prosperity and superpower status.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent over view and easily understandable
- By L. Ford Ballard, Jr. on 01-15-19
By: Eric Rauchway
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The Battle of Bretton Woods
- John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order
- By: Benn Steil
- Narrated by: Philip Rose
- Length: 15 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 238
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 189
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Story4 out of 5 stars 191
When turmoil strikes world monetary and financial markets, leaders invariably call for "a new Bretton Woods" to prevent catastrophic economic disorder and defuse political conflict. The name of the remote New Hampshire town where representatives of 44 nations gathered in July 1944, in the midst of the century's second great war, has become shorthand for enlightened globalization.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Is this a mystery, a history or an economics book?
- By Neil on 04-23-13
By: Benn Steil
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FDR's Folly
- How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression
- By: Jim Powell
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 498
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 319
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 320
In the minds of historians and the American public alike, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of our greatest presidents, not least because he supposedly saved America from the Great Depression. But as historian Jim Powell reveals in this groundbreaking book, Roosevelt's New Deal policies actually prolonged and exacerbated the economic disaster.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Scones for the Tea Party
- By Chiefkent on 06-11-12
By: Jim Powell
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America's First Great Depression
- Economic Crisis and Political Disorder After the Panic of 1837
- By: Alasdair Roberts
- Narrated by: Kevin Young
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 39
For a while, it seemed impossible to lose money on real estate. But then the bubble burst. The financial sector was paralyzed and the economy contracted. State and federal governments struggled to pay their domestic and foreign creditors. Washington was incapable of decisive action. The country seethed with political and social unrest. In America's First Great Depression, Alasdair Roberts describes how the United States dealt with the economic and political crisis that followed the Panic of 1837.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Story
- By Timothy on 06-10-13
By: Alasdair Roberts
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How the Post Office Created America
- A History
- By: Winifred Gallagher
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 94
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4 out of 5 stars 81
The founders established the Post Office before they had even signed the Declaration of Independence, and for a very long time it was the US government's largest and most important endeavor - indeed, it was the government for most citizens. This was no conventional mail network but the central nervous system of the new body politic, designed to bind 13 quarrelsome colonies into the United States by delivering news about public affairs to every citizen - a radical idea that appalled Europe's great powers.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Super interesting. I'm so disappointed.
- By william kearns on 07-21-16
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The History of Banking
- The History of Banking and How the World of Finance Became What It Is Today
- By: K. Connors
- Narrated by: Michael J. Cover
- Length: 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 12
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 11
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 11
Have you ever wondered who started banking and for what reason? Or where money came from and how it's regulated? Ever wonder how banks are able to lend out billions of dollars at a time? This book gives a detailed outline of the history of banking from the 15 century to present day. Whether you are a fellow banker like myself, aspiring to work in the world of finance, or just plain curious, this book covers everything you need to know from top to bottom.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Changing Lives..
- By jency on 12-12-17
By: K. Connors