| Description |
1 online resource (414 pages) |
| Physical Medium |
polychrome |
| Description |
text file |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
The assumption of risk -- The perils of the seas -- The actuarial science of freedom -- The failure of the freedman's bank -- Betting the farm -- Fraternity in the age of capital -- Trading the future -- The trust question. |
| Summary |
"Focusing on the hopes and anxieties of ordinary people, Jonathan Levy shows how risk developed through the extraordinary growth of new financial institutions--insurance corporations, savings banks, mortgage-backed securities markets, commodities futures markets, and securities markets--while posing inescapable moral questions. For at the heart of risk's rise was a new vision of freedom. To be a free individual, whether an emancipated slave, a plains farmer, or a Wall Street financier, was to take, assume, and manage one's own personal risk. Yet this often meant offloading that same risk onto a series of new financial institutions, which together have only recently acquired the name "financial services industry." Levy traces the fate of a new vision of personal freedom, as it unfolded in the new economic reality created by the American financial system. Amid the nineteenth-century's waning faith in God's providence, Americans increasingly confronted unanticipated challenges to their independence and security in the boom and bust chance-world of capitalism. Freaks of Fortune is one of the first books to excavate the historical origins of our own financialized times and risk-defined lives."--Publisher's website. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Capitalism -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
|
|
Capitalism. |
|
United States. |
|
History. |
| Chronological Term |
19th century |
| Subject |
Risk -- Sociological aspects -- History -- 19th century.
|
|
Risk -- Sociological aspects. |
|
Risk-taking (Psychology) -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
|
|
Risk-taking (Psychology) |
|
United States -- Economic conditions -- 19th century.
|
|
Economic conditions. |
|
United States -- Social conditions -- 19th century.
|
|
Social conditions. |
| Chronological Term |
1800-1899 |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
|
|
History.
|
| Subject |
Risk behaviors. |
| Other Form: |
Print version: Levy, Jonathan, 1978- Freaks of fortune. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012 9780674047488 (DLC) 2012014805 (OCoLC)789661554 |
| ISBN |
9780674067202 (electronic book) |
|
0674067207 (electronic book) |
|
9780674047488 |
|
0674047486 |
|
0674736354 |
|
9780674736351 |
| Standard No. |
ebr10614093 |
|
