Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, by Thomas Gainsborough, c. 1750. National Gallery, London.

Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, by Thomas Gainsborough, c. 1750. National Gallery, London.

About Money

Volume 1, Number 2 | spring 2008

Purchase

Our Robber Barons, by Bernhard Gillam, 1882.

Preamble

Holy Dread

By Lewis H. Lapham

The history of the United States is synonymous with the dream of riches, but the question as to whether money is mortal or immortal has never been resolved.

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International currencies for trading on the Foreign exchange market, image courtesy epSos .de.

Prometheus Unbound

By Jack Weatherford

From the invention of coinage to the present day, each technological innovation in currency has further expanded money’s role in our lives.

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Map

Perpetual Motion

Tracing the drug trade, the slave trade, and the Silk Road.

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1748 | Philadelphia

Benjamin Franklin’s Bottom Line

Money, more or less, is always welcome.More

2001 | Sardinia

Stairway to Heaven

A birthday bash brought to you by Tyco.More

c. 1850 | Mississippi River

Playing the Market

Huck and Jim ponder true wealth. More

Charts & Graphs

Shakespeare’s Shillings

The Bard settles his bill.

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Black and white photograph of English writer Virginia Woolf.

American novelist John Dos Passos.

Black and white photograph of French novelist, playwright, and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.

Florentine ruler and patron Lorenzo de Medici.

Painted portrait of Florentine statesman and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli.

He that serves God for money will serve the Devil for better wages.

—Roger L’Estrange, 1692

Photo of stone Aristotle statue face

Painted portrait of English philosopher Jeremy Bentham.

Aristotle & Jeremy Bentham

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Lapham’sDaily

Roundtable

Lapham’s Quarterly Is on Hiatus

By Lapham’s Quarterly

But the American Agora Foundation is already planning for the future. More

The Colosseum, attributed to Robert Eaton, c. 1855.

DÉjÀ Vu

Monumental Mistakes

2023:

Fitness instructor carves his girlfriend’s name into the Colosseum.

c. 1850:

Thompson of Sunderland makes his mark on Pompey’s pillar.

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Terracotta funerary plaque, Greek, Attic, c. 520 BC.

The World in Time

Robert D. Kaplan

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power. More

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