Why is finance so important? How do stock markets work and what do they really do? Most importantly, what might finance be and what could we expect from it?
Exploring contemporary finance via the development of stock exchanges, markets and the links with states, Roscoe mingles historical and technical detail with humorous anecdotes and lively portraits of market participants.
Deftly combining research and autobiographical vignettes, he offers a cautionary tale about the drive of financial markets towards expropriation, capture and exclusion. Positioning financial markets as central devices in the organization of the global economy, he includes contemporary concerns over inequality, climate emergency and (de)colonialism and concludes by wondering, in the market’s own angst-filled voice, what the future for finance might be, and how we might get there.
Table of Content
Prologue: A Bad Kind of Magic?
1. Why We Should Care about Finance
Part 1: How the Markets Became
2. From Future Pigs to Present Prices, a Chicago Story
3. King William’s Overdraft
4. Mind Your Eye!
5. God Bless Margaret Thatcher
Part 2: The Spectacular Science of Money
6. Finding Prices, Making Prices
7. Where Real Men Make Real Money
8. Wires! Shocks! Sausages!
Part 3: Opportunity Lost
9. Other People’s Money
10. Fear and Loathing on Wall Street
11. The Burden of Empire
12. Extractive Industries
Part 4: Financial Futures
13: Finance Takes Flight
14. The Temples of Capitalism
Epilogue: The Market Replies
About the author
Philip Roscoe is Professor in Management at the University of St Andrews. His research takes a sociological approach to markets and finance. A former journalist, he was one of the first BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Thinkers.
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