DAVID WOLMAN / The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers -- and the Coming Cashless Society
In today’s tough economic climate many of us have money on our mind. But in our efforts to put away a nest egg or at least earn a living, rarely do we take the time to think about how money
actually works. We put our faith in the system, trusting the currency of the land—and especially our cash in hand—to retain value now and forever. Is our trust misplaced? Does this commitment to cash in particular make sense in the 21st century? Might there be a better way to transact—even more convenient than checks, credit cards, and PayPal? What if someone told you those better ways could also save lives and help countries pay their debts?
In The End of Money, David Wolman dares to take a critical look at cash, considering its liabilities and what our world would be like without those trillions of little numbered bits of paper and tiny metal disks. He starts by giving us a crash course in the rise and fall of physical money, beginning with Marco Polo’s fascination with the paper notes he saw circulating in China, then zooming through the ages to the end of the gold standard and the ascent of national currencies. Next, we follow him around the globe as he pieces together a cross-cultural picture of cash today. He takes us to Iceland, where he examines the connection between cash, cultural heritage, and emotional value; to India, where he explores a growing trend people in developing countries seem to be embracing faster than people in wealthy ones: using cell phones as replacements for both bank branches and cash; and to Tokyo, where he delves into the parallel worlds of counterfeiting and anti-counterfeiting technology.
With input from characters such as a Georgia pastor who sees the end of cash as the start of Armageddon, a convicted counterfeiter whom the Feds have labeled a “domestic terrorist,” a coin collector who seems to loathe his merchandise, and a British technologist who views cash as a “menace,” Wolman weaves a well-rounded analysis of tactile money and our relationship to it. He even explores the topic from health, environmental, and psychological angles, looking at cash as a host for bacteria, a contributor to everyone’s carbon footprint, and an elixir that makes people more confident and happy. Wolman’s journey ends with a glimpse of a future in which he (and others) see a rainbow of currencies—national, virtual, and alternative—being exchanged, and a reflection on his own (mostly successful) attempt to go a full year without using coins or bills.
David Wolman is a contributing editor at Wired.He has written for Outside, Mother Jones, Newsweek, Discover, Forbes and Salon, and his work appeared in Best American Science Writing 2009. A former Fulbright journalism fellow in Japan and a graduate of Stanford University's journalism program, he now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he receivd a 2011 Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship. His previous books are A Left-Hand Turn Around the World and Righting the Mother Tongue.
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