"Since money is customarily viewed as a means rather than end, desire for money itself (and not the things it can buy), which for Yuran is the very structure sustaining money, remains unrecognized in economic thought except as pathology. This impasse provides a powerful foundation for Yuran’s alternative account. [...] Yuran’s moves from the mundane and contemporary to high theory and historical myths, and across conceptual divides, are effective. An important strand of argument emerging from these explorations ties money with the consumer economy by showing that money’s quality as endlessly exchangeable depends on every other commodity not being so. This structural argument, developed from Marx, offers deep insights about the commodity at the same time that it traverses the material/symbolic dichotomy informing histories of money and shows a continuity between our own form of symbolic money and older ones based in material substances like gold. [...] While What Money Wants advances a compelling critique of orthodox thought and an alternative account of economic phenomena, Yuran’s emphasis on persistence and inescapable trauma left me wondering whether What Money Wants offers a route out of the social structures it critically theorizes. Critical theory has often flagged the social as theoretical remedy. Yuran, however, conceptualizes a social that is not only incomprehensible to individual subjects but also persisting (diachronically) and all encompassing (synchronically); the social itself thus becomes a malady that cannot, on these theoretical terms, be overcome."

"After reading this book three times, I still find myself wondering what exactly it is that Noam Yuran wants. Or more precisely, what was intended with What Money Wants. Is this a book about money? If so, it has several curious digressions and does not offer an entirely consistent account of desire. Or is this volume intended as a challenge to orthodox economics? If so, there is little engagement with contemporary heterodox economists, though there is some attention paid to Keynes. Or is this a literature review, though admittedly an excellent one, that has grown a bit too large and has tried to become a book? [...] What Money Wants offers a series of provocations rather than a single argument, and amidst these speculations patient economic and cultural sociologists will find a treasure trove of novel ideas and approaches to well‐known texts. As Keith Hart remarks in his preface, the book is frustrating and rewarding in equal measure. [...] Though the manuscript could have been better served editorially – repetitive phrases may try the patience of even sympathetic, interested readers – What Money Wants is based on admirable scholarship."