Introduction. Rough economies: the politics and poetics of coinage -- Dimensions of state formation -- More's Utopia and the logic of debasement: reason, custom and natural laws of coinage -- The great debasement and its aftermath -- Coining crimes and moral regulation in Measure for measure -- "Mysteries of state": the political theology of money in Macbeth -- Foreign coins and domestic exclusion in Thomas Dekker's The shoemaker's holiday -- Conclusion. The changing matter of money
Summary
A reassessment of the historic relation between money and the state through the lens of early modern English literature, Coinage and State Formation examines the political implications of the monetary form in light of material and visual properties of coins as well as the persistence of both intrinsic and extrinsic theories of value
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-257) and index
