The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World's Most Powerful Money

在這部野心勃勃且具開創性的美元歷史中，財經記者與經濟學者布蘭登·格里利（Brendan Greeley）針對我們金錢的起源——以及那些向其屈服的人民與國家——提出了一個全新的論點。

「本書充滿了令人震驚的細節，同時也是嚴謹的金融史，其結論非常適合我們這個動盪的時代：統治者與邊界來來去去，但美元的壽命比我們對主權與控制的幻覺還要長。」——艾文·歐斯諾斯（Evan Osnos），《有錢人與超級遊艇》（The Haves and Have-Yachts）作者。

美國的金錢就是全球的金錢——世界上幾乎每個國家都以美元簽署國際契約，且在 2023 年，全球央行持有近 6.7 兆美元的儲備，是任何其他貨幣的三倍。今日，美國的全球霸權很大程度上取決於其生產並向世界銷售無限量國債的能力，這些美元支撐了美國在 20 世紀的爆炸性增長，並資助了其在 21 世紀的大規模戰爭。美國權力與美元已成為同義詞。

然而，在這部輝煌的 500 年歷史中，布蘭登·格里利主張美國對美元的主權是一種幻象——美元在流向殖民地海岸之前，就已經賦予並摧毀了多個國家，且沒有任何國家或國王曾經或能夠真正控制它。格里利將時間回溯至 15 世紀聖約阿希姆斯塔爾（St. Joachimsthal）銀礦中作為「大勒」（taler）誕生的美元，揭示了美元最初是如何作為商人與銀行家的商品而繁榮——那是一種深受全球信任的大型銀幣，即便將其從地底挖出的礦工都難以獲得同樣的白銀作為報酬。格里利追蹤了一條跨越時空的迷人且複雜的路徑，從 17 世紀西班牙白銀帝國核心的工業崩潰，到殖民地時期馬里蘭州美國紙幣美元的誕生、19 世紀紐奧良的銀行倒閉，以及在大蕭條期間創造出自家美元的愛荷華州哈瓦登小鎮。在每一個令人驚訝的轉折點，格里利都顛覆了關於全球貨幣的假設，並抽離出數世紀以來關於美元如何製造以及它們究竟為誰服務之間的緊張關係。

《萬能的美元》（The Almighty Dollar）以其獨特的廣度，拆解了美國創造或曾真正控制美元的迷思。透過細緻的研究以及對過去與現在的商人、君主與普通大眾生動的描繪，格里利展示了美元如何成為美國最大的出口品，催生出一個讓富人致富、卻讓該國其他產業受苦的龐大金融產業。

In this ambitious and groundbreaking history of the dollar, financial journalist and economic scholar Brendan Greeley makes a new argument about the origins of our money—and the people and nations who have surrendered to it.

“Brimming with startling details, this is also serious financial history with a conclusion ripe for our unsettled times: Rulers and borders come and go, but the dollar has outlasted our illusions of sovereignty and control.”—Evan Osnos, author of The Haves and Have-Yachts

America’s money is global money—nearly every nation in the world writes international contracts in dollars, and in 2023, central banks around the world held nearly $6.7 trillion in dollar reserves, three times any other currency. Today, the United States’ global hegemony rests largely on its ability to produce unlimited treasury bonds that are sold around the world, dollars that supported America’s explosive growth in the twentieth century and funded its massive wars in the twenty-first. American power and the American dollar have become synonymous.

Yet in this brilliant 500-year history, Brendan Greeley argues that America’s sovereignty over the dollar is an illusion—that the dollar had already empowered and destroyed nations long before it washed up on colonial shores, and that no country or king has or can ever truly control it. Reaching back to the dollar’s birth as the taler in the 15th-century silver mines of St. Joachimsthal, Greeley reveals how the dollar first thrived as a commodity for merchants and bankers—a big, silver coin that was trusted around the world, even as the miners who pulled it from the ground had trouble getting paid in that same silver. Greeley traces a captivatingly complex path across time and place, from the industrial collapse at the heart of Spain’s 17th-century silver empire, to the birth of American paper dollars in colonial Maryland, 19th-century New Orleans bank failures, and the small town of Hawarden, Iowa, which created its own dollars during the Great Depression. At every surprising turn, Greeley upends assumptions about global currencies and draws out the centuries-old tension between how dollars are manufactured and whom they actually serve.

Singular in its breadth, The Almighty Dollar dismantles the myth that America created or has ever truly controlled the dollar. Through meticulous research and vividly rendered stories of merchants, monarchs, and everyday people both past and present, Greeley shows how the dollar became America’s greatest export, spawning a vast financial industry that enriches the wealthy, even as the rest of the country’s industries suffer.