All Others Pay Cash: Dollar Bills And Their Cultural Work

ISBN-13:	9783825355371
Publisher:	Universitatsverlag Winter
Publication date:	01/09/2008
Series:	American Studies - A Monograph Series , #170
Pages:	545
Product dimensions:	5.28(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

The study is an interdisciplinary analysis of American culture through one central case study. It explores the cultural, social, and historic contexts of America's national money icon, covering such topics as origin, design, creative usages, counterfeiting, and its defenses by official America. Applying the theoretical model of a "circuit of culture," the book attempts a comprehensive account of the ways in which dollar bills relate to social and political change, and how such events as the War of Independence, the Civil War, and the continuing War on Terror have shaped the themes of national and other identities. The book should offer graduate students and scholars alike an opportunity to explore the meanings and hidden agendas of the world's most powerful and most widely known as well as most widely used currency. In addition, it should make it possible to look at other currencies and forms of money in a similar way, much as it should help to refine and expand theoretically the analytic approach outlined in it.