The Euro and Its Rivals

by Peebles, Gustav

• ISBN13: 9780253223203
• ISBN10: 0253223202
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-06-14
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

Gustav Peebles takes an anthropological look at two seemingly separate developments in Europe at the turn of the millennium: the rollout of the euro and the building of new transnational regions such as the Oresund Region, envisioned as a melding of Copenhagen, Denmark, with Malmö, Sweden. Peebles argues that the drive to create such transnational spaces is inseparable from the drive to create a pan-national currency. He studies the practices and rhetoric surrounding the national currencies of Denmark and Sweden, the euro, and several new "local currencies" struggling to come into being. The Euro and Its Rivals provides a deep historical study of the welfare state and the monetary policies and utopian visions that helped to ground it, at the same time shedding new light on the contemporary movement of goods, people, credit, and debt.

Author Biography

Gustav Peebles is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Chair of Social Sciences in the Bachelor's Program at The New School in New York City. His work has appeared in Harper's Magazine and other publications.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Imagining Utopia, Constructing øresund: From the Nation-State to the Region	p. 19
The Arts of "Scientific" Money: Monetary Policy as Moral Policy	p. 39
Receipts and Deceits: Currency Regulation, Black Markets, and Borders	p. 69
The Mark of Money: Regulating the Flow of Subjects	p. 93
Indebted Communities: Exiling Economic Hierarchy to the Margins	p. 121
Conclusion: Scientific Money for Scientific States	p. 155
Notes	p. 163
References	p. 185
Index	p. 199
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