A Nation of Counterfeiters : : Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States / / Stephen Mihm.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Mihm, Stephen,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2009]; ©2007
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource
• Other title: Frontmatter --; CONTENTS --; ILLUSTRATIONS --; Prologue: Confidence and the Currency --; 1. Bordering on Alchemy --; 2. Cogniac Street Capitalism --; 3. The Bank Wars --; 4. The Western Bankers --; 5. Passing and Detecting --; 6. Ghosts in the Machine --; 7. Banking on the Nation --; Epilogue: Confidence in the Country --; ABBREVIATIONS --; NOTES --; A NOTE ON SOURCES --; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --; INDEX
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9780674041011; 9783110442205; 9783110459517; 9783110662566
• DOI: 10.4159/9780674041011
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Stephen Mihm.

Prior to the Civil War, the United States did not have a single, national currency. Counterfeiters flourished amid this anarchy, putting vast quantities of bogus bills into circulation. Their success, Mihm reveals, is more than an entertaining tale of criminal enterprise: it is the story of the rise of a country defined by freewheeling capitalism and little government control. Mihm shows how eventually the older monetary system was dismantled, along with the counterfeit economy it sustained.