What you study
You study the mechanism of money itself, through its history. This is not about coin prices. With 2,700 years of real specimens and primary material, you build the ability to answer “what is money?” from the ground up.
What you gain here
You will be able to answer six questions in your own words, not by rote memorization, but by explaining with concrete examples.
What is money?
The three functions—medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value—are visible from the very first coins.
Asked “what is money?”, you can answer from the side of function.
The nature of inflation
You can trace the mechanism by which the value of currency is diluted, using historical examples.
You will be able to separate “prices are rising” from “the currency is weakening”, and say what is happening to the purchasing power of money.
Credit and the state
You will understand the conditions under which paper holds value, and the moment that system collapses.
When a currency is losing its credit, you know where to look.
The relationship between gold and paper
You can trace the establishment and abandonment of the gold standard in chronological order.
You will be able to tell, step by step, how humanity built the promise of value and how it broke it.
Bad money and good money
From the history of devaluation and recoinage, you will learn to discern the quality of a currency.
From the weight, fineness and stamp of a single coin you will read part of the issuing system and its age, and see where written sources have to take over.
How far can past and present be compared?
You learn to separate the structures that recur across ages from the differences in institutions, technology and society.
You will be able to say, with evidence, what is alike and what is different between then and now. What this school does not teach is how to predict what comes next.
Curriculum
First the general journey takes you once around 2,700 years. Then you choose courses along four axes — method, themes, people, liberal arts — and go down into them. Every path begins with the entrance course, “Source criticism”.
Entrance & method
What to believe and what to doubt. It begins with the craft of treating a single coin as a historical source. Counting, reading, telling apart — weight, image, legend, provenance, and the discipline of research.
What this axis gives you Faced with an object, you can find out for yourself where and when it is from, and show your evidence.
Living in the present — practice
Not being deceived, reading numbers and documents, household money, how money works in plain words, the state and you, the principles of growing and protecting, the future, people, and how to learn. Principles are international; examples come from many countries. History builds the bridge to today.
What this axis gives you You can read your own wallet, your own account and your own paperwork, and decide for yourself. This is the everyday side of a school that recommends no products.
Chronological history
From before the first coin to the present, age by age. Each age is one textbook, read with real objects, an exercise at the end of every chapter, and the structures that still shape today.
What this axis gives you You can place a coin in its age and in the system that produced it, and say what came before and after.
Cross-cutting themes
Recoinage, inflation, war and money, paper, forgery, the death of a currency. You look for the same movement across countries and ages, and lift out the structures that recur through 2,700 years.
What this axis gives you Faced with an event today, you can say, with evidence, what it shares with the past and where it differs.
Chains of people
Those who changed money, and those money changed. The one who made the decision and the one who bore its pain, traced as a single chain.
What this axis gives you You can name the person whose judgement changed an institution, and the people whose burden made it work.
Liberal arts — the neighbouring disciplines
Money cannot be read by money alone. Metallurgy, law, religion, art, mathematics, geography — you look at coinage from the disciplines next door.
What this axis gives you You can read a coin not only as a record of the economy, but as a record of technology, belief and beauty.
Reading order by goal
There is a lot of material, so here are four orders to read in, by goal. Each goes from one course to the next.
- Starting from zero
GoalSee in one pass how money went from weight to stamp, and from stamp to promise.
First milestoneFinish chapter 1 of vol. 11 and say in one line how the world of the scale differs from the world of the stamp.
Required firstNone — every path can be started from its first course. What an individual course assumes is stated on that course’s page
Easier if read firstSource Criticism — Chapter 1 (free) is enough. You need not finish the whole volume first.
- Understanding money today
GoalExplain in your own words, from their history, how deposits, government bonds, central banks and digital money relate. Starting from an event (the 2007–09 crisis, say) is fine.
First milestoneFinish one event in vol. 19 and state its numbers by the measure each one uses.
Required firstNone — every path can be started from its first course. What an individual course assumes is stated on that course’s page
Easier if read firstThe World of the Gold Standard — Read first, and the birth and death of the gold standard gain depth.
- Money in Japan
GoalRead twelve centuries of Japanese money from the side of recoinage and law.
First milestoneFinish chapter 1 of vol. 16 and say what served as money before coins.
Required firstNone — every path can be started from its first course. What an individual course assumes is stated on that course’s page
Easier if read firstSource Criticism — Chapter 1 (free).
- Reading a coin yourself
GoalDescribe the coin in your hand yourself, in three steps: observe, identify, catalogue.
First milestoneFill in the observation sheet of lesson 1 in vol. 13 with a coin from your wallet.
Required firstNone — every path can be started from its first course. What an individual course assumes is stated on that course’s page
Easier if read firstSource Criticism — Chapter 1 (free).
The material
All of it made in-house, with a source attached to every photograph of a real coin. Enrolment opens all of the following at no further cost.
Languages: Japanese plus English, Chinese, French, German, Spanish and Italian (textbooks and courses; 7 in all)
Who this material is made with
Material cannot be made alone. We borrow pieces from those who hold them, and ask specialists to supervise a course. A name can be shown only once something has been made with it. For now, only the door is open.
If you would like to try it first
No registration needed. Part One of the journey (five chapters), the first chapter of every route and the entrance course are open to all.