Yigal Arkin

Monumental Money stands as a fantastic introduction to the history of American paper currency. Not only does the book provide a good guide and photographic history of the changes made to the currency over the years, short histories and overviews of American monetary history throughout the years are concise and give just enough information for the reader to understand changes without becoming bogged down in policy or economics.

The highlight of the book are the color depictions of each different series of bill presented, both those removed from circulation and those still in circulation for every denomination. Brief histories of the design of the bills, including biographies of the statesmen on the fronts and buildings and abstract designs on the reverses of the bills are a welcome addition to help understand how our currency has evolved. Each denomination follows the same formula for its description which makes for an easy reference, but no new revelations about any of the figures is provide (not that they're needed in a work such as this.)

My only slight critique was the division of the text into three parts. Part One describes all the notes currently in circulation, Part Two provides a history of American paper currency from the Colonies to present, and Part Three describes all the high denomination notes ($500 through $100,000) in the same manner as Part One. Personally, I would have preferred to have Part Two's history first, and then a combination of Parts One and Three into one long list outlining the denominations from $1 through $100,000. This is a relatively minor critique, however, and doesn not come close to detracting from the value of Monumental Money as a fine introductory resource for monetary historians and collectors alike.… (más)