cover image Secret Life of Money

Secret Life of Money

Tad Crawford. Jeremy P. Tarcher, $24.95 (287pp) ISBN 978-0-87477-786-4

This study of money by the president of Allworth Press in New York City appears indebted in equal measures to Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and sundry classic tales (e.g., The Wizard of Oz). After dispensing with the standard economic definition of money as a medium of exchange, which must be freely accepted, offer a measuring device to evaluate goods and services and exist in a storable form, Crawford considers money's deeper symbolism and concludes that it represents life forces, especially fertility; money serves us, in other words, as a kind of energy. Crawford analyzes sacrifice, hoarding, inheritance, debt, credit cards, the stock market and the society of consumerism, tying all to his central thesis. Readers may observe strain in Crawford's close analysis of classical tales in economic terms, but the book should also enlighten those who tend to view money only in the most literal terms. (Jan.)