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book: The Birth of the Financial Thriller
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The Birth of the Financial Thriller

Making a Killing in the 1970s
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2025

About this book

Illustrates how the financial thriller is deeply intertwined with the economic transformation of the 1970s and considers the genre’s enduring legacy in today's financialised world

  • Offers the first in-depth analytical and theoretical account of the financial thriller genre
  • Provides a new framework for understanding the literary and economic history of the 1970s, linking the rise of financial thrillers to significant economic events such as the abolition of Bretton Woods and the oil crises
  • Anatomizes the genre’s thematic trinity of money, gold, and oil, its stereotypical characters, its volatile plots, and its pedagogical and moral impulses
  • Demonstrates the genre’s relevance to contemporary financial fictions and financial capitalism
Discover the untold story of the financial thriller, a genre pioneered by Canadian banker-turned-author Paul Erdman from a Swiss prison cell. Starting with the publication of The Billion Dollar Sure Thing in 1973, this book explores the genre’s evolution as a popular and even vulgar genre of financialisation, characterised by volatile plots centred on currency speculation where the central mystery is money, not murder. By contextualising the rise of financial thrillers within the dramatic events of the 1970s, such as the abolition of the Bretton Woods system and the oil crises, this book illustrates how a genre found the world of finance during a particular historical moment, but also how the world of finance found its genre. This compelling narrative connects the past to our present financial landscape, making it essential for anyone interested in the intersection of economic, literary and cultural history.

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    Frontmatter

    i
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    Contents

    v
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    Acknowledgements

    vi
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    Introduction: 1973 – A Monument to Radical Instants

    1
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    Chapter 1 A Genre of Crisis, a Crisis of Genre

    24
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    Chapter 2 Holy Trinity: Money, Gold and Oil (the Brave New World after Bretton Woods)

    42
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    Intermezzo I: Funny-Money Land

    68
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    Chapter 3 A Question of Character

    76
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    Chapter 4 The Bull and the Bear, or, The Thrilling Drama of Finance

    113
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    Chapter 5 The Author as Mansplainer: Pedagogical and Moral Lessons

    146
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    Bibliography

    180
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    Notes

    192
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    Index

    218
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
February 18, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781399516426
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
232
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https://doi.org/10.1515/9781399516426
eBook ISBN: 9781399516426
Keywords for this book
Literary Studies
Audience(s) for this book
For universities and colleges of further and higher education
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