The idea that money and its power over the world needs to be demystified, is one that not many people will argue with. This snappy well argued book attempts to do exactly that.

Part 1. Commodities, Markets and Capital 1. Social Relations Underpinning Commodity Markets 2. Commodities and Gifts Part 2. Money and Credit 3. Money's Monopoly over the Ability to Buy 4. The Social Content of Credit Relations Part 3. Theoretical Approaches to the Social Relations Sustaining Markets and Money 5. Social Norms and Institutions in the Capitalist Economy 6. The Emergence and Functioning of Money 7. Money as Unit of Account and Means of Exchange in a Socialist Economy

Costas Lapavitsas is Senior Lecturer in Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK. He is co-editor of Development Policy in the Twenty-First Century , also available from Routledge.