In “The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers – and the Coming Cashless Society” (DeCapo Press, $25), author David Wolman dares to take a critical look at cash, considering its liabilities, and what our world would be like without those trillions of little numbered bits of paper and tiny metal disks. Wolman starts by giving readers a crash course in the rise and fall of physical money, beginning with Marco Polo’s fascination with the paper notes he saw circulating in China, then zooming through the ages to the end of the gold standard and the ascent of national currencies. On a trip around the globe, Wolman pieces together a cross-cultural picture of cash today. He takes the reader to Iceland, where he examines the connection between cash, cultural heritage and emotional value; to India, where he explores a growing trend that people in developing countries seem to be embracing faster than people in wealthy ones: using cell phones as replacements for both bank branches and cash; and to Tokyo, where he delves into the parallel worlds of counterfeiting and anti-counterfeiting technology.
Wolman begins his journey by deciding to shun cash for an entire year — a surprisingly successful experiment (with a couple of notable exceptions). He then ventures forth to find people and technologies that illuminate the road ahead. In Honolulu, he drinks Mai Tais with Bernard von NotHaus, a convicted counterfeiter and alternative-currency evangelist whom government prosecutors have labeled a domestic terrorist. In a downtrodden Oregon town, he mingles with obsessive coin collectors — the people who are supposed to love cash the most, yet don’t. And in rural Georgia, he examines why some people feel the end of cash is Armageddon’s warm-up act. After stops at the Digital Money Forum in London and Iceland’s central bank, Wolman flies to Delhi, where he sees first-hand how cash penalizes the poor more than anyone — and how mobile technologies promise to change that.
The usefulness of physical money — to say nothing of its value — is coming under fire as never before. Intrigued by the distinct possibility that cash will soon disappear, Wolman’s investigation ensures that you’ll never look at a dollar bill the same way again.
“The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers – and the Coming Cashless Society” is available at major bookstores and online at Amazon.com.
Contact staff writer Bobbi Booker at (215) 893-5749 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
