With wit, insight and an attention to detail worthy of Alexis de Tocqueville, Jason Goodwin, a Cambridge graduate, historian and writer, turns The Story of the Dollar into a true biography, strange, unpredictable, tragic and often downright funny. This is the story of pioneers and adventurers, presidents and swindlers, bankers and counterfeiters, artists, swindlers, madmen, fanatics and adventurers. Goodwin weaves economic theory and folklore, historical anecdote, political philosophy and true crime fiction into a fascinating and paradoxical book about how the history of one country became the history of its money.