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God and Mammon: Chronicles of American Money
Award-winning essayist Lance Morrow writes about the partnership of God and Mammon in the New World—about the ways in which Americans have made money and lost money, and about how they have thought and obsessed about this peculiarly American subject. Fascinated by the tracings of theology in the ways of American money Morrow sees a reconciliation of God and Mammon in the working out of the American Dream.
This sharp-eyed essay reflects upon American money in a series of individual life stories, including his own. Morrow writes about what he calls “the emotions of money,” which he follows from the catastrophe of the Great Depression to the era of Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Donald Trump. He considers money’s dual character—functioning both as a hard, substantial reality and as a highly subjective force and shape-shifter, a sort of dream. Is money the root of all evil? Or is it the source of much good? Americans have struggled with the problem of how to square the country’s money and power with its aspiration to virtue.
Morrow pursues these themes as they unfold in the lives of Americans both famous and Here is Thomas Jefferson, the luminous Founder who died broke, his fortune in ruin, his estate and slaves at Monticello to be sold to pay his debts. Here are the Brown brothers of Providence, Rhode Island, members of the family that founded Brown University. John Brown was in the slave trade, while his brother Moses was an ardent abolitionist. With race in America a powerful subtheme throughout the book, Morrow considers Booker T. Washington, who, with a cunning that sometimes went unappreciated among his own people, recognized money as the key to full American citizenship. God and Mammon is a masterly weaving of America’s money myths, from the nation’s beginnings to the present.
This sharp-eyed essay reflects upon American money in a series of individual life stories, including his own. Morrow writes about what he calls “the emotions of money,” which he follows from the catastrophe of the Great Depression to the era of Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Donald Trump. He considers money’s dual character—functioning both as a hard, substantial reality and as a highly subjective force and shape-shifter, a sort of dream. Is money the root of all evil? Or is it the source of much good? Americans have struggled with the problem of how to square the country’s money and power with its aspiration to virtue.
Morrow pursues these themes as they unfold in the lives of Americans both famous and Here is Thomas Jefferson, the luminous Founder who died broke, his fortune in ruin, his estate and slaves at Monticello to be sold to pay his debts. Here are the Brown brothers of Providence, Rhode Island, members of the family that founded Brown University. John Brown was in the slave trade, while his brother Moses was an ardent abolitionist. With race in America a powerful subtheme throughout the book, Morrow considers Booker T. Washington, who, with a cunning that sometimes went unappreciated among his own people, recognized money as the key to full American citizenship. God and Mammon is a masterly weaving of America’s money myths, from the nation’s beginnings to the present.
176 pages, Hardcover
Published November 24, 2020
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131 people want to read
About the author
Lance Morrow
21 books14 followersLance Morrow was an American essayist and writer, chiefly for Time magazine, as well as the author of several books. He won the 1981 National Magazine Award for Essay and Criticism and was a finalist for the same award in 1991. He had the distinction of writing more "Man of the Year" articles than any other writer in the magazine's history and has appeared on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and The O'Reilly Factor. He was a former professor of journalism and University Professor at Boston University.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 12, 2021
This is a good time to read God and Mammon. It’s as up to date as can be, weaving the events of 2020 into analyses of personal lives, eras and theories of “What is America?” All of the current rhetoric on America’s soul and past is not “right” or “wrong.” It’s impossible to write a “fly on the wall” history of anything, including one’s own life. I like Morrow’s statement that we are all born into a different planet depending on our birthdates. As a member of Morrow’s generation, I became alert to what had molded us both, such as our parents’ struggles in the Great Depression. Also, as a former English major, I was fascinated by his discussion of some writers (Fitzgerald, Defoe, Dreiser, etc.) as well as movers and shakers (Booker T. Washington, William Kaiser, etc.).
January 10, 2021
This is an intriguing exploration of the uneasy relationship between money (greed) and religion and, of course, politics in American history. With his fine prose, Lance Morrow tells us a good deal about ourselves in 2020 by reviewing where we have been in the last century or so. His career-long position as a leading journalist has provided personal encounters with some of the leading figures involved, and his wide reading with insight into many others, from Joe McCarthy to Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and many others. His reflections on race and racism are especially enlightening and troubling. It is not a long book, and yet long on wisdom. A great pleasure to read.
January 18, 2021
My father volunteered for half of his life in the grass, among the roots, to reform campaign finances in the state of California. He won–until the state supreme court declare corporations are people too. They have the right to fund politicians as much as they want. His little war against toxic capitalism and the money elite as he called them was over. He died.
Lance Morrow brought back so many of the epic battles my father fought out at the dinner table, in the garden, on trails in the Sierras, in the tide pools of Monterey Bay where he showed me Cannery Row. Then the book and then "The Grapes of Wrath" then "Between the Pacific Tides" by the real Doc in Cannery Row. I became a scientist looking for good explanations.
Lance's telling of this history is more real because he was there. Still, you can hear my fathers chuckles as Lance gives good explanations.
Lance Morrow brought back so many of the epic battles my father fought out at the dinner table, in the garden, on trails in the Sierras, in the tide pools of Monterey Bay where he showed me Cannery Row. Then the book and then "The Grapes of Wrath" then "Between the Pacific Tides" by the real Doc in Cannery Row. I became a scientist looking for good explanations.
Lance's telling of this history is more real because he was there. Still, you can hear my fathers chuckles as Lance gives good explanations.
October 28, 2021
Is Currency the Currency of American History?
American history is complex and sometimes contradictory. The same can be said of money or wealth or, if you prefer, mammon. At times either can reflect virtue at its grandest. At other times either can reflect the basest of human motivations. In “God and Mammon” Lance Morrow, a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages, argues that the two are inextricably intertwined, and American history is explained by the drive for wealth.
Certainly, there is some truth in Morrow’s thesis. And, in fact, it is important truth that should not be dismissed or even minimized. But the question remains open as to whether the connection is definitive or merely important. I think the latter, believing that America is fundamentally a history based on ideals, but that, as imperfect beings, we often have allowed those ideals to be distorted by pecuniary objectives, to say nothing of motivations of power (I think it an open debate as to whether the lust for money reflects the lust for power or vice versa – both are simply reflections of our human propensity toward idolatry).
In a series of 24 short essays and an epilogue, Morrow examines various aspects of American history through a pecuniary lens, with an eye for relating to our present times of division, dissension, concerns over inequality (economic, racial, and otherwise) and pandemic-driven anger and isolation. His topics range from Jefferson and slavery, to Grant and “the struggle between virtue and power”, the Depression, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, “Robinson Crusoe” and “Moby Dick”, Gatsby and Babbitt and Dodsworth, the history of journalistic bias, and so much more. It is a sweeping diagnosis in 159 pages.
Yet, I am not fully persuaded. I thought often of Morrow’s caution about Jefferson and his personal participation in the horrible institution of American slavery, specifically his relationship with Sally Hemmings: “One must avoid anachronism. They belonged to their time and its ways.” In some ways this is among the greatest lessons for today in this very interesting book, a lesson that is utterly rejected by today’s increasingly influential “cancel culture” and “critical theory” proponents. We can learn, but we often are inadequate to judge, from history. History and its nuances must never be forgotten or rejected. That’s a valuable aspect of this book.
The relationship between God and mammon is significant. Jesus is recorded as having more to say about money than almost any other topic. Something on the order of ten percent of the verses in the four Gospels talk about money. The very title of Morrow’s book comes from Matthew and Luke. Paul warned his protégé, Timothy, that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10 NIV), a verse which often has its context twisted (love of money, not necessarily money itself, which at least theoretically has no moral dimension; “a root of all kinds of evil”, not the determinative “the root of all evil”). But the messages are clear, idolatry of money, or anything else, is a corruption. We should understand the effect it has had on our history, our culture, our present and our past, and, most importantly, on our individual selves. That’s another valuable takeaway.
In summary, a very interesting book and recommended.
American history is complex and sometimes contradictory. The same can be said of money or wealth or, if you prefer, mammon. At times either can reflect virtue at its grandest. At other times either can reflect the basest of human motivations. In “God and Mammon” Lance Morrow, a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages, argues that the two are inextricably intertwined, and American history is explained by the drive for wealth.
Certainly, there is some truth in Morrow’s thesis. And, in fact, it is important truth that should not be dismissed or even minimized. But the question remains open as to whether the connection is definitive or merely important. I think the latter, believing that America is fundamentally a history based on ideals, but that, as imperfect beings, we often have allowed those ideals to be distorted by pecuniary objectives, to say nothing of motivations of power (I think it an open debate as to whether the lust for money reflects the lust for power or vice versa – both are simply reflections of our human propensity toward idolatry).
In a series of 24 short essays and an epilogue, Morrow examines various aspects of American history through a pecuniary lens, with an eye for relating to our present times of division, dissension, concerns over inequality (economic, racial, and otherwise) and pandemic-driven anger and isolation. His topics range from Jefferson and slavery, to Grant and “the struggle between virtue and power”, the Depression, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, “Robinson Crusoe” and “Moby Dick”, Gatsby and Babbitt and Dodsworth, the history of journalistic bias, and so much more. It is a sweeping diagnosis in 159 pages.
Yet, I am not fully persuaded. I thought often of Morrow’s caution about Jefferson and his personal participation in the horrible institution of American slavery, specifically his relationship with Sally Hemmings: “One must avoid anachronism. They belonged to their time and its ways.” In some ways this is among the greatest lessons for today in this very interesting book, a lesson that is utterly rejected by today’s increasingly influential “cancel culture” and “critical theory” proponents. We can learn, but we often are inadequate to judge, from history. History and its nuances must never be forgotten or rejected. That’s a valuable aspect of this book.
The relationship between God and mammon is significant. Jesus is recorded as having more to say about money than almost any other topic. Something on the order of ten percent of the verses in the four Gospels talk about money. The very title of Morrow’s book comes from Matthew and Luke. Paul warned his protégé, Timothy, that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10 NIV), a verse which often has its context twisted (love of money, not necessarily money itself, which at least theoretically has no moral dimension; “a root of all kinds of evil”, not the determinative “the root of all evil”). But the messages are clear, idolatry of money, or anything else, is a corruption. We should understand the effect it has had on our history, our culture, our present and our past, and, most importantly, on our individual selves. That’s another valuable takeaway.
In summary, a very interesting book and recommended.
December 2, 2020
Lance morrow is such a great writer of our times. His articles always articulate a unique perspective on our current world. You can only smile and admit that he sees and captures the essence of our political system and wonder how you missed it. That being said, I had high expectations for this book. There were many moments that met those expectations but also many parts were a letdown and didn’t really tell me all that much about America today. I need someone to explain our world to me and this book didn’t quite do that.
June 5, 2022
Very interesting. Good for discussing many different topics. Confusing at times. Too many ideas in each chapter.
August 13, 2024
I enjoyed the reflections but it was hard to grasp the main point. I did enjoy how the author was very thoughtful and went all over the political divide.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews