Money: Lure, Lore and Literature.

• Author: Hafer, Gail Heyne

Money: Lure, Lore and Literature is the product of a cross-disciplinary conference held at Hofstra University to examine the role of money in literature. The objective of the book is to connect what seem to John Louis DiGaetani, editor of the volume and a professor of English, to be irreconcilable opposites: money and art. He asserts the former exists only in the realm of the concrete, while the latter inhabits the realm of dream and fantasy. DiGaetani argues that money is a "very slippery and complex subject . . . a term very hard even to define." The confusion arises because the definition of money depends on the context in which it is used. DiGaetani's conundrum is solved by recognizing that the authors in this collection, most of whom are not economists, use the term money to mean variously medium of exchange, currency, income and wealth. The incongruity between money and art disappears if we adopt this broader, though questionable, definition of money. As this book demonstrates, money broadly defined provides a fertile ground for artists as well as economists.

These definitional criticisms aside, the assembled essays ably illustrate money as a theme in literature and provide some interesting comments on money in culture and history. The twenty-three papers are presented in five sections: Money, Language and Culture; Money and History; Money and Russian and American Literature; Money and French Literature; and Money and English Literature.

The first section includes the most diverse group of essays. This section opens with Robert Leonard's discussion of the language used to describe money, e.g., dollars, pounds, shillings. The author traces names through time and across languages. Michael J. Haupert's essay provides an overview of money as a medium of exchange with an excellent nontechnical discussion of the concept of prior probability of acceptance. Richard Doty's contribution describes the activities of counterfeiters and the efforts of governments to protect the value of coins and currency. Other papers discuss money as a motivator, the money trail associated with the illegal drug market, and the creation of wealth.

Essays in the second section...