Money in an Unequal World: Keith Hart and His Memory Bank

Money in an Unequal World is a distinctly individualized exploration of the way currency has become a universal source of "social memory," and what this means in a global society now riding the latest wave of its transformation from "metallic objects to paper notes to electronic digits." Keith Hart, a teacher and social anthropologist, offers draws on a background that combines such eclectic pursuits as academics, entrepreneurship, and gambling. Also drawing upon philosophers of the "democratic revolution" like Locke, Kant, Marx, and Gandhi, he tackles this abstract tale by examining "the conjuncture of money and machines that makes our phase of economic history capitalist" and investigating "money and markets from a humanistic point of view." Inviting readers to discover the story in their own way--even recommending that one "dip into the argument at random, allowing your eye to rest where it finds fertile ground (and move on if it does not)"--Hart meanders in a basically linear and highly entertaining fashion from the struggle against the agrarian hierarchy to the collapse of Stalinism and the rise of the Web. Ultimately, he concludes that changes apparent today actually provide an unprecedented opportunity to improve the world using money and markets as instruments of "economic democracy." His argument is provocative and illuminating. --Howard Rothman