Social Meaning of Money: Pin Money, Paychecks, Poor Relief, and Other Currencies - (Original Edition) / Edition 1

by Viviana A. Zelizer

Overview

A dollar is a dollar--or so most of us believe. Indeed, it is part of the ideology of our time that money is a single, impersonal instrument that impoverishes social life by reducing social relations to cold, hard cash. Arguing against this conventional wisdom, Viviana Zelizer, a distinguished social scientist and prize-winning author, shows how people have invented their own forms of currency, earmarking money in ways that baffle market theorists, incorporating funds into webs of friendship and family relations, and otherwise varying the process by which spending and saving takes place."Viviana Zelizer has written an interesting and informative book showing that there is much more to the meaning of money than ... economic theory and its formidable equations ever imply. Money is a medium of exchange. But that is only the beginning."--John Kenneth Galbraith, The New York Times Book Review"Zelizer has a genius for detecting hidden order in everyday practices.... Gently but firmly she uses her discoveries to overturn widespread beliefs in the power of money to corrupt, standardize, and depersonalize social ties. Best of all, she writes of these complex matters with grace, lucidity, wit, and humanity."--Charles Tilly, Columbia University

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2900691048214
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	08/24/1997
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.54(w) x 8.48(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

Viviana A. Zelizer is Professor of Sociology at Princeton University. She is also author of Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children (Princeton) and winner of the C. Wright Mills Award.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1 The Marking of Money
2 The Domestic Production of Monies
3 Gifted Money
4 Poor People's Money
5 With Strings Attached: The Earmarking of
Charitable Cash
6 Contested Monies
7 What Does Money Mean?
NOTES
INDEX

What People are Saying About This

Charles Tilly

Zelizer has a genius for detecting hidden order in everyday practices.... Gently but firmly she uses her discoveries to overturn widespread beliefs in the power of money to corrupt, standardize, and depersonalize social ties. Best of all, she writes of these complex matters with grace, lucidity, wit, and humanity.
— Charles Tilly, Columbia University

From the Publisher

"Zelizer has a genius for detecting hidden order in everyday practices.... Gently but firmly she uses her discoveries to overturn widespread beliefs in the power of money to corrupt, standardize, and depersonalize social ties. Best of all, she writes of these complex matters with grace, lucidity, wit, and humanity."—Charles Tilly, Columbia University

Editorial Reviews

"Viviana Zelizer's book is one of the richest and most thoughtful investigations of [money's] weirdness, examining in detail how money works in the real world, how we try to manage and control it, why we freely give it away in some circumstances-think, for instance, of tipping‹and how money shapes the relationships we have with one another."

GQ.com

Winner of the 1996 Culture Section Book Award, American Sociological Association

From the Publisher

Viviana Zelizer has written an interesting and informative book showing that there is much more to the meaning of money than . . . economic theory and its formidable equations ever imply. Money is a medium of exchange. But that is only the beginning.

The New York Times Book Review - John Kenneth Galbraith

Viviana Zelizer has written an interesting and informative book showing that there is much more to the meaning of money than . . . economic theory and its formidable equations ever imply. Money is a medium of exchange. But that is only the beginning.
— John Kenneth Galbraith

The New York Times Book Review