This is a brisk, well-researched tour of how the American finance and banking sector got its start.
Financial History
Murphy has provided what should be the go-to source for anyone looking to understand the differences among savings banks, investment banks, and commercial banks in pre-Civil War America; to know what it meant for banks to provide discounts on ... Read morecommercial paper; and to know what terms like fractional reserve, independent treasury, bimetallism, shinplasters, wildcat banks, and bills of exchange meant.
Civil War Book Review
Murphy has written what this financial historian considers a sound and reliable introductory or companion text to early American banking that is both engaging and easy-to-read, and at the same time broadly consistent with recent economic research on the topics covered.
EH.net
It [Other People's Money] does much to further our understanding of an important feature of international capital markets, and it raises crucial policy issues.
EH.Net
The strengths of this work are numerous. In addition to narrating some intriguing vignettes on Abigail Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Herman Melville, this book contains a fascinating array of cartoons and images of credit instruments, many of which are drawn from the author's extensive personal collection. Murphy's writing is also straightforward; her analysis, insightful.
Common-Place
I recommend Other People's Money highly to anyone seeking a brief but accurate introduction to this fascinating era in banking and monetary history.
Business History Review
Other People's Money is a beautifully written book on how banking worked in the early American Republic. Part of Johns Hopkins University Press's How Things Worked series, the target audience for this book is undergraduates studying U.S. history or economic history. The book condenses a large literature from American history and economic history as well as contemporary material from periodicals and novels into an interdisciplinary narrative of the political battles over money and banking from the early Republic to the Civil War. Murphy's book shows that the politics of money shaped how money worked.
Jane Knodell, University of Vermont
Enterprise and Society
It is difficult to overstate the quality of Murphy's work. Other People's Money is an outstanding contribution that brilliantly accomplishes the herculean task of digesting the complexities of banking in the early republic. Moreover, Murphy manages to convey these points clearly in immensely readable prose. Helpful for both the layperson and the scholar, this book deserves a place on syllabi and the bookshelves of anyone with an interest in capitalism during this period. Murphy reminds the reader that the story of American banking has a long and complex history, and this erudite study does an excellent job of explaining that complexity in accessible terms.
Aaron L. Chin, University of New Hampshire
American Nineteenth Century History
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