The Social Meaning of Money

Zelizer's core argument — that money is never truly impersonal, that people earmark, label, and emotionally charge it in ways orthodox economics ignores — is one of the most generative ideas in economic sociology, and this book makes it with rigor and real historical evidence. The prose is accessible by academic standards and the argument has aged well. It is squarely a scholarly text, but advanced general readers curious about how money actually works in human relationships will find it rewarding.