The age of paper money and metal coins is coming to a close.
"The End of Money" shines the spotlight on this revolution - and
the people, technologies, and trends that are powering it. "The End
of Money" is the story of hard currency - its history, conflicts,
champions, detractors, and eventual demise. As the role of bills
and coins in our everyday lives and in the economy lessens, real
money is becoming not merely an abstraction, but an abstraction of
an abstraction. What will an increasingly cashless future mean for
society, and for the people whose careers are linked to the
production, management, and collection of hard currency? This is
their story, but it is also our story - because the fate of real
money impacts all of our wallets. The tale spans from Britain''s
Master of the Mint, Isaac Newton, to massive zinc mines in Western
Australia. David Wolman delivers an everyman-friendly explanation
of the monetary policies espoused by titans like Jefferson, Keynes,
Friedman, and Greenspan, while exploring the wider implications of
PayPal''s next-generation payment innovations. It examines the role
of Las Vegas casinos as drivers of coin production, delves into
Federal Reserve branch banks full of cash, showcases the boon in
mobile phone banking in developing countries, and looks at the
Secret Service''s ongoing battle with counterfeiters. The book zooms
from places like South Korea, where cell phone scans are used to
pay for just about everything, to fMRI laboratories, where brain
scientists are studying our emotional relationship to cash. From
Bretton Woods and e-bullion businesses, to Andrew Jackson''s "Specie
Circular" of 1836, "The End of Money" takes readers on a
cross-cultural journey into the world of hard currency - and peers
into a future without it.
關於作者:
David Wolman is an author and journalist based in Portland,
Oregon. A contributing editor at Wired, he also writes about
science, culture, and travel for US publications such as Newsweek,
National Geographic Traveler, Discover, and Outside. His previous
books include A Left-Hand Tum around the World: Chasing the Mystery
and Meaning of All Things Southpaw and Righting the Mother Tongue:
From Old English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling.
Wolman is a former Fulbright Fellow, and holds a bachelor''s degree
in geography and a master''s degree in journalism. His work appears
in Best American Science Writing 2009. Visit his website at
http:www.david-wolman.com.