The Currency of Desire

'As copiously erudite as it is intellectually ambitious, The Currency of Desire explores the long history of the "libidinal economy" as a potent, figurative force that plays at the intersection between economic rationality and psychic life - interest and identity, profit and loss, saving and spending. Metaphors are "symptoms" of survival, Bennett lucidly argues, in a striking narrative that explores the on-going struggle between economic rationality and erotic energy.' (Professor Homi K. Bhabha, Director of the Humanities Centre, Harvard University) 'It is an irresistible coupling: money and sex. David Bennett's new book displays his extraordinary erudition, which he presents with both eloquence and punch. A great read!' (Professor Joanna Bourke, Birkbeck, University of London, author of The Story of Pain (2015) 'Love or money, lust or labour power - what is it that makes the world go round? In The Currency of Desire, David Bennett offers a rich history of experiments in thinking and living according to models of monetary or libidinal circulation - from Marx to Freud, and from the early Soviet Union to nineteenth-century New England. If sexuality is like a primum mobile for the movements of subjective life, then how is this related to broader urges to spend or save, to put out or hold back, for individuals and for larger societies of every kind? Highly charged reading.' (Professor Rachel Bowlby, University College London, author of Everyday Stories) 'David Bennett's ambitious survey of the political, economic and psychic currency of desire - whether for physical pleasure or, its substitute, money - is a masterpiece of historical and psychoanalytic scholarship. Always eloquent and accessible, The Currency of Desire take us on a truly transdisciplinary journey, critically analysing every theoretical bump and twist in the economies of desire over the last 300 years of European history, taking us right up to the present moments of libidinally invested "saving", "investing" and "spending", now increasingly divorced from guilt, shame and, some might say, pleasure. A quite remarkable endeavour.' (Professor Lynne Segal, Birkbeck, University of London, author of Out of Time (2013)