"It is almost impossible to categorise Enchantments of Mammon. This monumental labour of love took two decades to write. There have been marvellous studies of contemporary capitalism published in recent years, for example Wolfgang Streeck’s How Will Capitalism End? But this is an extraordinary work of intellectual history as well as a scholarly tour de force, a bracing polemic and a work of Christian prophecy. It perhaps should have been at least three books. But it is beautifully written and a magnificent read, whether or not one follows the author all the way to his final destination in this journey of the pilgrim soul in the capitalist wilderness."

"Many argue that in this world of consumption we have lost our soul. But McCarraher explains that capitalism has its own 'enchantment' (a word that he uses a little too often), but it is 'the enchantment of Mammon'. To analyse this magic, the author provides us with a beguiling 800-page tour de force in which not only well-known theorists (Marx, Weber, etc.) are analysed, but a host of less well-known figures: poets, artists, sociologists, theologians, advertisers, business gurus (the religious term is appropriate), philosophers, and entrepreneurs [...] However enjoyable the book, obviously the fruit of much labour, it has its limitation. It is almost exclusively about the United States. Europe is there only as Britain, and only as the precondition for American capitalist development. Moreover, the enchantment that he deals with is mainly a Protestant one. There is hardly a mention of the Catholic view of capitalism. [...] Besides, I am not sure that the case for capitalism as a religion is made. What we face is a religious defence of capitalism. Such defence is necessary when one thinks that so much of literature depicts capitalists (and the pursuit of money) in pejorative terms. [...] Worshipping money is, after all, a metaphor. No one really worships money in the way some worship Jesus or Allah. Many like to spend it or to accumulate it, and, if they feel a little guilty or if they want to feel good, they will give to charity, thus 'buying' their place in heaven."

"While written from a Christian perspective, the book is not evangelizing, and it has something to teach us all. At its heart, it is a moral critique of capitalism. McCarraher wants us to see that we are living in a system that, in failing to answer our most human needs, is literally inhumane. But this is not a book that asks us to slow down, smell the roses, and so on. That kind of ethical injunction is as tired as it is futile—and it is also, McCarraher thinks, an intellectually bankrupt analysis of the modern condition, told by theorists such as the sociologist Max Weber and the philosopher Charles Taylor, but also in popular culture. Once upon a time, this story goes, we inhabited an enchanted universe, in which we understood our place in the cosmos. Life in the past may have been hard, but at least it made sense. The transition to modernity, though, came with a cost: our lives might be materially better, but they have been drained of meaning. We are, in a word, 'disenchanted.' We are tasked, then, with crafting meaning for ourselves—whether by finding meaningful work, falling in love, or doing yoga. McCarraher contends that this whole story is disastrously misguided; it keeps us from seeing how capitalism functions, and why it continues to exert so much appeal. Disenchantment, he argues, never happened. Our world is still soaked with meaning, just as it was in the Middle Ages. We are not abandoned to a universe of moral relativism and nihilism, because capitalism and its prophets have offered an astonishingly stable set of alternatives. 'Capitalism,' McCarraher insists, 'is a love story.' What he means is that the market translates the poetry of our desire into the prose of institutions and exchange. [...] It is telling that The Enchantments of Mammon is not written solely in the argumentative mood. It often comes closer to scripture than scholarship, despite the fact that it is heavily footnoted and rooted in a wide range of up-to-date research from multiple disciplines. The sheer mass of the work is astonishing, all the more impressive for being written in unflaggingly rapturous prose. It will not be to everyone’s taste, but McCarraher has done his best to write as though modern scholarship might speak in the voice of the King James Bible."

"McCarraher’s book is a highly rewarding and powerful expression of the longing for a more hospitable way of living and a potent call to orient ourselves towards our capacities as caring, creative, and convivial beings, rather than the nasty horde of hustlers Mammon insists that we are. As Americans move toward a new administration looking to be fully aligned with the misenchantments of money and technology [...] McCarraher’s book is a welcome wake-up call and a reminder that while we didn’t compose the narrative we live inside, we do have choices about the ending. So thank you, Professor McCarraher, for helping us to think outside the temple."