● Coined: The Rich Life of Money and How Its History Has Shaped Us
By Kabir Sehgal
Review via Financial Times
Kabir Sehgal, a vice-president at JPMorgan, started out to write a book about the 2008 financial crisis, but got carried away and ended up in the Galápagos Islands. After poring over research on financial crises, he was driven to research on human behaviour related to money, which led him to behavioural economics. He then questioned the roots of behaviour, and delved into evolutionary economics, which led to evolution itself, and the notion that exchange — according to some, the purpose of money — is an evolutionary adaptation. From there it was a short hop to the Galápagos to watch a fish eat parasites off a turtle. Mutually beneficial exchange — later facilitated by money — has its roots at the cellular level, and here at the cell, Sehgal finally must rest, at least until we arrive at the next topic in the book.
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