ENGLISH

The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life

By Paul Seabright

Book information

Publisher
Princeton University Press
Year
2010
ISBN
0691146462, 9780691146461
LCC
HM708 .S43 2010
Open Library ID
OL23945433M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
2 MB (1801958 bytes)
Edition
Revised
Pages
397\397
Topic
Economy
Time added
2011-01-26 19:25:26

Description

The Company of Strangers shows us the remarkable strangeness, and fragility, of our everyday lives. This completely revised and updated edition includes a new chapter analyzing how the rise and fall of social trust explain the unsustainable boom in the global economy over the past decade and the financial crisis that succeeded it. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, history, psychology, and literature, Paul Seabright explores how our evolved ability of abstract reasoning has allowed institutions like money, markets, cities, and the banking system to provide the foundations of social trust that we need in our everyday lives. Even the simple acts of buying food and clothing depend on an astonishing web of interaction that spans the globe. How did humans develop the ability to trust total strangers with providing our most basic needs?

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