Viviana A. Zelizer, The Social Meaning of Money. Pin Money, Paychecks, Poor Relief, & Other Currencies, Princeton University Press, 2017.
“In Funes the Memory-Keeper Jorge Luis Borges gave us one of the most fantastic characters. Bedridden after an equestrian accident, Funes developed his own whimsical system of enumeration during sleepless nights: […]” (p. 199).
“Like Funes and his particularized numbers, we will keep coining new names, as well as defining new uses and designating separate users, for our multiple currencies” (p. 216).
“So much more about money remains to be explored. But I will abide by the noted Spanish writer Francisco de Quevedo’s seventeenth-century dictum (endorsed by Jorge Luis Borges in his compelling Brodie’s Report): ‘God spare you, reader, from long prologues.’ The same should apply to twenty-first century afterwords” (p. 226).
