Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America

Levy, Jonathan

ISBN 10: 0674047486 / ISBN 13: 9780674047488

Published by Harvard University Press, 2012

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674047486
• ISBN 13: 9780674047488
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: good

About this title

Synopsis

Until the early nineteenth century, ";risk"; was a specialized term: it was the commodity exchanged in a marine insurance contract. Freaks of Fortune tells the story of how the modern concept of risk emerged in the United States. Born on the high seas, risk migrated inland and became essential to the financial management of an inherently uncertain capitalist future.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 s

About the Author

Jonathan Levy is Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago.