“How did America begin? What was its primordial element?” The answer, essayist Lance Morrow argues in his book God and Mammon: Chronicles of American Money, is money. “Money is an indelicate explanation of America, perhaps, but the truest one—or anyway, the most intelligent starting point.”

This week on The World in Time, Lewis H. Lapham and Morrow discuss money and America, its primacy at our founding, and whether its role as our country’s protagonist has changed in the twenty-first century.

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with Lance Morrow, author of God and Mammon: Chronicles of American Money.

Thanks to our generous donors. Lead support for this podcast has been provided by Elizabeth “Lisette” Prince. Additional support was provided by James J. “Jimmy” Coleman Jr.