Dror Goldberg, Easy money: American puritans and the invention of modern currency, University of Chicago Press, 2023, pp. x-346

In 1690–92, the colony of Massachusetts became the first western polity to emit legal-tender paper money that circulated as a medium of exchange within that colony. Other British north American colonies followed Massachusetts’ lead. By the mid-18^th century, paper money was the norm. Dror Golberg’s book investigates how the colony of Massachusetts became a monetary