The Evolution of Money

About this chapter

The Evolution of Money

Barter, shells, gold, paper, and the promises behind them. Every kind of money people have used solved one problem and created another. This chapter walks through them in order, from keeping score before coins to the day the dollar stopped being tied to gold.

Words for this chapter

Start with: What makes something good money?

In this chapter

1. 01
   What makes something good money?The traits that lasting money shared, checked against the Federal Reserve's own lessons.
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2. 02
   Before coins: how people kept scoreLong before coins, people kept track of who owed what to whom.
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3. 03
   Beyond the barter storySwapping chickens for shoes is the textbook version. Historians say it's only part of the story.
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4. 04
   Shells and beadsWhy people trusted things that were hard to find, hard to fake and easy to recognize.
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5. 05
   The invention of coinageStamped metal made money easy to count and check, and gave rulers a new kind of power.
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6. 06
   DebasementWhen rulers mixed cheaper metal into their coins: the oldest form of inflation.
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7. 07
   Paper moneyPaper was easier to carry, but it was a promise. Someone had to keep it.
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8. 08
   The gold standardWhy money was once tied to gold, and what that did and didn't protect.
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9. 09
   Bretton WoodsHow the U.S. dollar became the center of world money after World War II.
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10. 10
    1971: the day the dollar changedThe U.S. stopped swapping dollars for gold. What the dollar has rested on since.
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more pages as they're written.