Money, Coinage and Colonialism

"Money, Coinage and Colonialism demonstrates how the study of material forms of money can reveal often contradictory forms of adaptation, negotiation and identity construction during colonial cultural interactions. The authors explore a stimulating selection of global contexts, ranging from 600 BCE to the twentieth century."

Christopher Howgego, Professor, University of Oxford and Research Keeper, Ashmolean Museum

"An invaluable collection revealing how money and coinage were powerful players in both prehistoric and historic colonial encounters. Linking material and immaterial spheres, Money, Coinage and Colonialism offers novel insights from around the world into the mechanisms, values and discourses at the heart of colonial projects. Whether enforced or developed through on-site negotiations, the authors ably demonstrate how currencies form a vital part of global history and cultural heritage. A must-read contribution for scholars working across archaeology, material culture and colonial history."

Lynn Meskell, Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) Professor, Department of Anthropology, School of Arts & Sciences, Penn Museum, and Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania

"This is a path-breaking book that establishes the centrality of control of money and the economy to the colonial project. Its appeal lies in the rich and diverse range of interdisciplinary case studies that cut across chronological and geographic boundaries."

Himanshu Prabha Ray, Fellow, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

"From the first millennium BCE to the twentieth century, the arrival of colonialism has often meant the arrival of money. However, this is seldom examined as a cultural phenomenon by archaeologists and has been virtually absent in postcolonial discussions. The present book redresses this situation by showing the relevance of currency and its materiality in understanding colonial ideologies, identities and processes of cultural hybridisation. The volume, global in scope, shows through a diversity of thought-provoking case studies that the introduction of money has never been straightforward, but always subject to negotiations, appropriations and resistance. This is a must-read for anybody interested in the history and archaeology of colonialism, as well as in theoretically informed approaches to numismatics."

Alfredo González-Ruibal, Researcher, Institute of Heritage Sciences, Spanish National Research Council

Part 1 Powerplay

1. Viking Money and Colonisation in Ninth‑Century England

Rory Naismith

2. The Late Medieval Colonial Condition of the Southern Balkans and the Aegean in the Light of Coinage

Julian Baker

3. Keep Out the Coins! Colonialist Approaches to Northern Norway by the German Hansa?

Jon Anders Risvaag

4. Exchanging Coins in Colonial Bombay: Coin Collectors and Scholars at the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society

Shreya Gupta

5. Japanese Invasion Money in the Dutch East Indies and Indonesia (1942–1965): Objects of Violence, Oppression and Resistance

Pim Möhring

Part 2 Crossovers

6. Republican Rome in Colonial Discourses: "Consuming" Provincial Coinages in the Eastern Mediterranean

Georgia Galani

7. Monetisation, Wealth and Material Histories in the Colonial Andes

Noa Corcoran‑Tadd

8. First Contacts, First Exchanges, First Coins: The Surprising and Slow Monetisation of the French West Indies in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century

Jérôme Jambu

9. Of Paper and Metals. East African Societies, Colonialism and the Materiality of Money

Karin Pallaver

Part 3 Entanglements

10. Carthaginians, Italiots and Greeks: Colonial Coin Iconography in Sicily and Southern Italy, 500–200 BCE

Ulrike Wolf

11. Massalia’s Different Monetary Impact: North and South

John Creighton

12. Hybrid Dirhams at Rus’ Markets. Coins and Colonisation along the Viking Eastern Trade Routes in the Tenth Century CE

Florent Audy

13. Crusades, Colonies and Coins: Strategies and Subversion in the Medieval Baltic Sea

Nanouschka Myrberg Burström