A sweeping history of the American invention of modern money.

Economists endlessly debate the nature of legal tender monetary systems—coins and bills issued by a government or other authority. Yet the origins of these currencies have received little attention.

Dror Goldberg tells the story of modern money in North America through the Massachusetts colony during the seventeenth century. As the young settlement transitioned to self-governance and its economy grew, the need to formalize a smooth exchange emerged. Printing local money followed.

Easy Money illustrates how colonists invented contemporary currency by shifting its foundation from intrinsically valuable goods—such as silver—to the taxation of the state. Goldberg traces how this structure grew into a worldwide system in which, monetarily, we are all Massachusetts. Weaving economics, law, and American history, Easy Money is a new touchstone in the story of monetary systems.

"Easy Money provides an engrossing narrative account of this lesser-known crucible. Although scholarship about the first American colonies could fill the Mayflower, Mr. Goldberg’s chronicle is the first book-length attempt to explain why a defining concept in our global financial system emerged within a desperate theocracy on the fringes of the British Empire." - The Wall Street Journal

""Easy Money, grounded in a doctoral dissertation and nine publications, will become an instant classic. Lucid, arresting, and free of jargon, it is accessible to general readers and scholars . . . Essential."" - Choice

"Easy Money is a major contribution to North Atlantic monetary history...The book pulls off a neat trick by being very engaging for economic historians and at the same time accessible to a broad audience." - EH.Net

"There are many histories of seventeenth-century finance, colonialism, and governance, but few weave all three together as successfully as Easy Money does here." - William and Mary Quarterly