Bringing the economy back in

Whether assuming the form of personal notes in 1792, bills of exchange in 1819, bank drafts in 1837, railway mortgages in 1857, greenbacks during the Civil War, second-mortgage bonds in 1873, gold reserves in 1893, loan certificates in 1907, or banker 's acceptances in 1913, credit has consistently been the subject of a visceral struggle over what form money should assume and who would consequently have access to it. "3 Economic history cannot explain such a great transformation, let alone recognize it.4 Unfortunately, "capitalism" itself has already emerged as a marketing niche for publishers-a development most evident in Hyman's Borrow, whose glib prose and sloppy editing are as much a manifestation of the mass market as the subjects of the book-which threatens to empty it of critical meaning.