Greenback: The Almighty Dollar and the Invention of America

Money has always been at the heart of the American experience. Paper money, invented in Boston in 1698, was a classic of American ingenuity-and American disregard for authority and tradition. Jason Goodwin has written a biography of the dollar, giving us the story of its astonishing career through the wilds of American history. Greenback looks at the dollar over the years as a form of art, a kind of advertising, a reflection of American attitudes, and a builder of empires. The author shows us how the dollar rolled out the frontier and peopled the Plains, how it erected the great cities, and how it expressed the urges of democracy and opportunity. And, above all, Goodwin introduces us to the people who championed--or ambushed--the dollar over the years: presidents, artists, pioneers, and frontiersmen bankers, shady and upright safecrackers, crooks, and dreamers of every stripe. It's a vast and colorful cast of characters who all agreed on one thing: getting the money right was the key to unlocking liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Greenback delves into folklore and the development of printing, investigates wildcats and counterfeiters, explains why a buck is a buck and how Dixie got its name. Greenback brings together an array of quirky detail and surprising--often hilarious--anecdote to tell the story of America through its best-beloved product.… (more)