Freaks of fortune : the emerging world of capitalism and risk in America / Jonathan Levy
- Author
- Levy, Jonathan, 1978-
- Published
- Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012.
- Physical Description
- 1 online resource (414 pages)
Access Online
- Language Note
- English.
- Contents
- The assumption of risk -- The perils of the seas -- The actuarial science of freedom -- The failure of the freedman's bank -- Betting the farm -- Fraternity in the age of capital -- Trading the future -- The trust question.
- Summary
- "Focusing on the hopes and anxieties of ordinary people, Jonathan Levy shows how risk developed through the extraordinary growth of new financial institutions--insurance corporations, savings banks, mortgage-backed securities markets, commodities futures markets, and securities markets--while posing inescapable moral questions. For at the heart of risk's rise was a new vision of freedom. To be a free individual, whether an emancipated slave, a plains farmer, or a Wall Street financier, was to take, assume, and manage one's own personal risk. Yet this often meant offloading that same risk onto a series of new financial institutions, which together have only recently acquired the name "financial services industry." Levy traces the fate of a new vision of personal freedom, as it unfolded in the new economic reality created by the American financial system. Amid the nineteenth-century's waning faith in God's providence, Americans increasingly confronted unanticipated challenges to their independence and security in the boom and bust chance-world of capitalism. Freaks of Fortune is one of the first books to excavate the historical origins of our own financialized times and risk-defined lives."--Publisher's website
- Subject(s)
- 1800-1899
- Capitalism—United States—History—19th century
- Risk—Sociological aspects—History—19th century
- Risk-taking (Psychology)—United States—History—19th century
- Risque—Aspect sociologique—Histoire—19e siècle
- Prise de risque—États-Unis—Histoire—19e siècle
- BUSINESS & ECONOMICS—Free Enterprise
- BUSINESS & ECONOMICS—Economic History
- Capitalism
- Economic history
- Risk—Sociological aspects
- Risk-taking (Psychology)
- Social conditions
- Risiko
- Wirtschaft
- Kapitalismus
- United States—Economic conditions—19th century
- United States—Social conditions—19th century
- États-Unis—Conditions économiques—19e siècle
- États-Unis—Conditions sociales—19e siècle
- United States
- USA
- Genre(s)
- ISBN
- 9780674067202 (electronic bk.)
0674067207 (electronic bk.)
9780674047488
0674047486
0674736354
9780674736351
0674071123
9780674071124 - Bibliography Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
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