A Brief History of Finance

Abstract Economic historians describe the emergence of Jewish court bankers presiding over a central state bank in Abbasid Baghdad as significant for the global history of finance. This paper, however, re-evaluates these figures in light of new insights about court cultures and institutions in the medieval Islamicate world. It argues that they should be understood primarily as middlemen in tax collection. They performed favors for individual viziers, but likely never held official titles or appointments at al-Muqtadir’s court. Rather, it was precisely their outsider status relative to elite Abbasid social networks that accounts for the longevity of their careers.

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A HISTORY OF FINANCE AND UNEVEN GEOGRAPHICAL DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA

South African Geographical Journal ◽

10.1080/03736245.1998.9713641 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 80 (1) ◽

pp. 23-32 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

P. BOND

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

History Of ◽

History Of Finance

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Contingency and Mysticism from Economics to Finance: Knight, Ayache, DeLillo

Theory Culture & Society ◽

10.1177/02632764211030547 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 026327642110305

Author(s):

Jordan Sjol

Keyword(s):

Theoretical Analysis ◽

The Other ◽

Recent History ◽

Characteristic Form ◽

Philosophical Account ◽

Recent Developments ◽

History Of ◽

Risk Uncertainty ◽

History Of Finance

The recent history of finance has been widely portrayed, by both critics and practitioners, as a story about risk. As pointed out by Mary Poovey, focusing on risk entails forgetting uncertainty. In this paper, I argue forgetting uncertainty leads to an inability to distinguish between rational and mystical modes of financial thinking. Using literary-theoretical analysis, I read three exemplary texts across each other: Frank Knight’s seminal 1921 treatise, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, which helped justify the modern corporate financial form; Elie Ayache’s 2010 The Blank Swan, a philosophical account of derivatives trading that exemplifies more recent developments in finance; and Don DeLillo’s 2013 Cosmopolis, a novel that remediates the structures of thought implied by the other texts’ philosophical commitments. This textual nexus allows me to explicate the characteristic form of financial mysticism, rendering it visible against claims that derivatives and financial theory have fully rationalized finance.

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