Annotated bibliography · 61 works
Library
The books, papers and official documents our essays are built on, each with a short note on why it matters. Links go only to publishers of record, archives and official sites.
Origins: credit, clay and coin
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(1992). Before Writing, Volume I: From Counting to Cuneiform. University of Texas Press.
Book The full statement of the argument that small clay tokens used for counting goods led, through sealed envelopes, to the first written tablets.
Discussed in Before Coins: Credit, Tallies and Clay
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(1996). How Writing Came About. University of Texas Press.
Book A shorter, more accessible version of the same thesis, well illustrated and suitable for a first reading.
Discussed in Before Coins: Credit, Tallies and Clay
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(1913). What Is Money?. The Banking Law Journal.
Paper A diplomat’s forceful case that money is credit rather than a commodity, rediscovered by economists and anthropologists decades later.
Discussed in Before Coins: Credit, Tallies and Clay
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(1985). Barter and Economic Disintegration. Man, New Series, vol. 20.
Paper An anthropologist’s review of the evidence on barter, often cited for its conclusion that no pure barter economy has ever been described.
Discussed in Before Coins: Credit, Tallies and Clay
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(2011). Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Melville House.
Book A sweeping, argumentative history that places credit and debt, not coins, at the beginning of money. Stimulating and much debated.
Discussed in Before Coins: Credit, Tallies and Clay
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(1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. W. Strahan and T. Cadell, London.
Book The founding text of classical economics. Book I, chapter 4 contains the barter story that later scholars set out to test.
Discussed in Before Coins: Credit, Tallies and Clay
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(5th century BC). Histories. Many modern translations.
Book The Greek historian’s account of Lydia and its kings, including his remark that the Lydians were the first to strike coins of gold and silver.
Discussed in The Invention of Coinage in Lydia
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(2004). The Invention of Coinage and the Monetization of Ancient Greece. University of Michigan Press.
Book A careful study of how coinage arose and how it changed economic life and thought in the Greek world.
Discussed in The Invention of Coinage in Lydia
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(2004). Money and the Early Greek Mind. Cambridge University Press.
Book Argues that the spread of coinage shaped early Greek philosophy and tragedy by making abstract, impersonal value familiar.
Discussed in The Invention of Coinage in Lydia
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(2000). King Croesus’ Gold: Excavations at Sardis and the History of Gold Refining. Harvard University Press.
Book The excavation report on the gold refinery at Sardis, essential for understanding how pure gold coins became possible.
Discussed in The Invention of Coinage in Lydia
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(1910). The Island of Stone Money: Uap of the Carolines. J. B. Lippincott.
Book An early anthropological account of Yap and its rai stones, the source of the much-retold story of the stone at the bottom of the sea.
Discussed in The Stones of Yap and Money as Memory
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(1998). Money Is Memory. Journal of Economic Theory, vol. 81.
Paper A short theoretical paper arguing that money is, at heart, a substitute for a perfect shared record of past transactions.
Discussed in The Stones of Yap and Money as Memory
Paper, banks and the gold standard
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(1996). Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000–1700. University of California Press.
Book The standard scholarly history of Chinese money in the age of paper notes, from the Song to the rise of silver.
Discussed in Paper Money, from Song China to Europe
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(c. 1300). The Description of the World. Many modern editions, often titled The Travels.
Book The Venetian’s account of the Mongol empire, including his astonished description of the Great Khan’s paper money.
Discussed in Paper Money, from Song China to Europe
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(1729). A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper-Currency. Pamphlet, Philadelphia.
Book A young printer’s argument that a well-managed paper money could serve a growing colonial economy.
Discussed in Paper Money, from Song China to Europe
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(1997). John Law: Economic Theorist and Policy-Maker. Oxford University Press.
Book A balanced account of Law’s ideas and of the French system that rose and fell between 1716 and 1720.
Discussed in Paper Money, from Song China to Europe
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(1994). A History of Money: From Ancient Times to the Present Day. University of Wales Press.
Book A comprehensive single-volume history, useful as a reference for dates and institutions.
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(2014). Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism. Oxford University Press.
Book A legal historian’s account of how English money was designed by law and politics, from medieval coinage to the Bank of England.
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(1923). A Tract on Monetary Reform. Macmillan.
Book Keynes’s early book on monetary stability, in which he called the gold standard a barbarous relic.
Discussed in The Gold Standard and Its End in 1971
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(1992). Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919–1939. Oxford University Press.
Book The influential argument that the interwar gold standard spread and deepened the Great Depression.
Discussed in The Gold Standard and Its End in 1971
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(1996). Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System. Princeton University Press.
Book A concise history of international monetary arrangements from the classical gold standard to floating currencies.
Discussed in The Gold Standard and Its End in 1971
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(2013). The Battle of Bretton Woods. Princeton University Press.
Book A detailed narrative of the 1944 conference and the rivalry between Keynes and Harry Dexter White.
Discussed in The Gold Standard and Its End in 1971
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(1960). Gold and the Dollar Crisis. Yale University Press.
Book The book that set out the dilemma at the heart of the Bretton Woods system, years before it broke.
Discussed in The Gold Standard and Its End in 1971
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(1992). Money Mischief: Episodes in Monetary History. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Book Essays on monetary history, opening with Friedman’s comparison of the stones of Yap with gold held in the vaults of New York.
Discussed in The Stones of Yap and Money as Memory
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(2013). Money: The Unauthorised Biography. Bodley Head.
Book A lively account of money as a social technology of credit and record-keeping, beginning with Yap.
Discussed in The Stones of Yap and Money as Memory
Ledgers and accounting
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(1494). Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita. Paganino Paganini, Venice.
Book The mathematical encyclopaedia whose short treatise on bookkeeping carried the Venetian method of double entry into print.
Discussed in Double-Entry Bookkeeping and the Merchants of Venice
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(1957). The Merchant of Prato: Francesco di Marco Datini. Jonathan Cape.
Book A classic portrait of a fourteenth-century merchant built from his surviving letters and account books.
Discussed in Double-Entry Bookkeeping and the Merchants of Venice
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(2014). The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Rise and Fall of Nations. Basic Books.
Book A history of accounting as a political force, from Florentine merchants to modern states.
Discussed in Double-Entry Bookkeeping and the Merchants of Venice
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(2011). Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance. Allen & Unwin.
Book A readable history of double-entry bookkeeping centred on Pacioli and its long afterlife.
Discussed in Double-Entry Bookkeeping and the Merchants of Venice
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(1949). Scientific Bookkeeping and the Rise of Capitalism. The Economic History Review, New Series, vol. 1.
Paper A sceptical response to the claim that double entry made capitalism possible.
Discussed in Double-Entry Bookkeeping and the Merchants of Venice
Cryptography and distributed computing
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(1976). New Directions in Cryptography. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 22, no. 6.
Paper The paper that brought public-key cryptography into the open literature, with a method for agreeing a secret key over a public channel.
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(1978). A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems. Communications of the ACM, vol. 21, no. 2.
Paper The RSA algorithm, the first widely used practical scheme for public-key encryption and digital signatures.
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(1978). Secure Communications over Insecure Channels. Communications of the ACM, vol. 21, no. 4.
Paper Merkle’s puzzles, an early method for establishing a shared secret, first conceived while he was a student.
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(1982). The Byzantine Generals Problem. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, vol. 4, no. 3.
Paper The classic formulation of how computers can agree when some of them may be faulty or dishonest.
Read the source · Discussed in Hashcash, b-money and Bit Gold: the Precursors
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(1991). How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document. Journal of Cryptology, vol. 3.
Paper Linking timestamps in a hash chain so that no one can backdate a document, an idea cited three times in the Bitcoin whitepaper.
Read the source · Discussed in Hashcash, b-money and Bit Gold: the Precursors
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(2002). The Sybil Attack. Peer-to-Peer Systems (IPTPS 2002), Springer.
Paper Shows why open networks cannot count participants without some cost to creating identities.
Discussed in Hashcash, b-money and Bit Gold: the Precursors
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(1998). Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption. MIT Press.
Book Two cryptographers on the policy fights of the 1990s over encryption and surveillance.
Discussed in The Cypherpunks and the Dream of Private Money
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(2001). Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government — Saving Privacy in the Digital Age. Viking.
Book A journalist’s narrative of public-key cryptography, the cypherpunks and the crypto wars.
Discussed in The Cypherpunks and the Dream of Private Money
Digital cash and the Bitcoin whitepaper
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(1983). Blind Signatures for Untraceable Payments. Advances in Cryptology: Proceedings of Crypto 82, Plenum Press.
Paper The invention of the blind signature and its application to private electronic payments.
Discussed in Chaum, DigiCash and the First Digital Cash
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(1985). Security without Identification: Transaction Systems to Make Big Brother Obsolete. Communications of the ACM, vol. 28, no. 10.
Paper Chaum’s broad vision of pseudonyms, credentials and payments designed for privacy.
Read the source · Discussed in Chaum, DigiCash and the First Digital Cash
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(1990). Untraceable Electronic Cash. Advances in Cryptology — CRYPTO ’88, Springer.
Paper Electronic cash that works offline, revealing the identity only of someone who spends a coin twice.
Discussed in Chaum, DigiCash and the First Digital Cash
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(1993). Pricing via Processing or Combatting Junk Mail. Advances in Cryptology — CRYPTO ’92, Springer.
Paper The first proposal to use computational effort as a cost on sending messages: the seed of proof of work.
Discussed in Hashcash, b-money and Bit Gold: the Precursors
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(1988). The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto. Circulated privately and later posted to the cypherpunks list.
Text A one-page prediction that cryptography would transform commerce and government.
Discussed in The Cypherpunks and the Dream of Private Money
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(1993). A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto. Dated 9 March 1993.
Text The cypherpunks’ statement of purpose: privacy, anonymous transactions and the principle that cypherpunks write code.
Discussed in The Cypherpunks and the Dream of Private Money
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(1998). b-money. Published on the author’s website.
Text Two protocols for money and contracts among pseudonymous participants; the first reference in the Bitcoin whitepaper.
Read the source · Discussed in Hashcash, b-money and Bit Gold: the Precursors
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(2002). Hashcash — A Denial of Service Counter-Measure. Technical report.
Paper The full description of Hashcash, the proof-of-work scheme cited in the Bitcoin whitepaper.
Read the source · Discussed in Hashcash, b-money and Bit Gold: the Precursors
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(2005). Bit Gold. Unenumerated (weblog).
Text Szabo’s description, dated by him to 1998, of costly-to-produce digital tokens chained together and registered by a group of servers.
Discussed in Hashcash, b-money and Bit Gold: the Precursors
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(2008). Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. Announced on the Cryptography Mailing List.
Paper Nine pages, twelve sections and eight references. Our essay reads it section by section.
Read the source · Discussed in Reading the Bitcoin Whitepaper, Section by Section
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(2016). Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: A Comprehensive Introduction. Princeton University Press.
Book A university textbook that explains the technical design carefully and without promotion.
Discussed in Reading the Bitcoin Whitepaper, Section by Section
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(2019). Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency. Princeton University Press.
Book A cultural history of digital cash from Chaum to Bitcoin, attentive to the people and their ideas.
Discussed in Chaum, DigiCash and the First Digital Cash
Institutions, regulation and central bank money
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(2012). Virtual Currency Schemes. ECB report, October 2012.
Official document One of the first official studies of Bitcoin and similar schemes by a major central bank.
Discussed in From Code to Institutions: How Regulators Responded
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(2018). Directive (EU) 2018/843 (Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive). Official Journal of the European Union.
Official document Brought crypto exchange services and custodian wallet providers within EU anti-money-laundering law.
Read the source · Discussed in From Code to Institutions: How Regulators Responded
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(2021). Updated Guidance for a Risk-Based Approach to Virtual Assets and Virtual Asset Service Providers. FATF guidance, October 2021.
Official document How the international anti-money-laundering standards, including the travel rule, apply to crypto-asset businesses.
Discussed in From Code to Institutions: How Regulators Responded
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(2022). Prudential Treatment of Cryptoasset Exposures. Bank for International Settlements, December 2022.
Official document The international standard on how much capital banks must hold against crypto-asset exposures.
Discussed in From Code to Institutions: How Regulators Responded
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(2023). Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 on markets in crypto-assets (MiCA). Official Journal of the European Union, 9 June 2023.
Official document The EU’s comprehensive framework for crypto-asset issuers and service providers.
Read the source · Discussed in From Code to Institutions: How Regulators Responded
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(2023). Regulation (EU) 2023/1113 on information accompanying transfers of funds and certain crypto-assets. Official Journal of the European Union.
Official document Extends the travel rule to crypto-asset transfers in the EU from 30 December 2024.
Read the source · Discussed in From Code to Institutions: How Regulators Responded
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(1935). 100% Money. Adelphi.
Book The case for requiring banks to hold reserves equal to their deposits, an ancestor of later debates on public digital money.
Discussed in Central Bank Digital Currencies: an Old Idea in New Form
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(1987). The Case for Preserving Regulatory Distinctions. Restructuring the Financial System, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
Paper Includes Tobin’s proposal for a safe, deposit-like currency offered to the public by the state.
Discussed in Central Bank Digital Currencies: an Old Idea in New Form
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(2020). Central Bank Digital Currency: Opportunities, Challenges and Design. Discussion Paper, March 2020.
Official document An early, thorough discussion by a major central bank of what a digital currency for the public would involve.
Discussed in Central Bank Digital Currencies: an Old Idea in New Form
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(2020). Report on a digital euro. ECB report, October 2020.
Official document The document that opened the euro area’s formal work on a digital euro.
Read the source · Discussed in Central Bank Digital Currencies: an Old Idea in New Form
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(2021). CBDCs: an opportunity for the monetary system. Annual Economic Report 2021, chapter III.
Official document The central banks’ bank sets out the case for keeping central bank money at the heart of digital payments.
Read the source · Discussed in Central Bank Digital Currencies: an Old Idea in New Form
Know a primary source we should add? Write to info@knowlesta.com. We list works for their historical value; a listing is not an endorsement of any view, product or service.