Promotional Information

In one lifetime modern finance theory has revolutionized the arts of canny investing. MacKenzie knows this exciting story, and he tells it well. -- Paul A. Samuelson, MIT, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences Donald MacKenzie has long been one of the world's most brilliant social and historical analysts of science and technology. Here he provides an original, astute, and exhaustively researched account of the development of finance theory and the ways in which it is intertwined with financial markets. An Engine, Not a Camera is essential for anyone interested in markets and the forms of knowledge deployed in them. -- Karin Knorr Cetina, University of Konstanz and The University of Chicago An Engine, Not a Camera is a compelling, detailed, and elegantly written exploration of the conditions in which finance economists help to make the world they seek to describe and predict. Donald MacKenzie has long been without equal as a sociologist of how late modern futures are brought into being and made authoritative. This is his best work yet. -- Steven Shapin, Franklin L. Ford Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University

About the Author

Donald MacKenzie is Professor of Sociology (Personal Chair) at the University of Edinburgh. His books include Inventing Accuracy (1990), Knowing Machines (1996), and Mechanizing Proof (2001), all published by the MIT Press. Portions of An Engine, not a Camera won the Viviana A. Zelizer Prize in economic sociology from the American Sociological Association.

Reviews

An Engine, Not a Camera provides an insightful appreciation of the ways in which financial models influence and shape the world they seek to understand.-Anthony Hopwood, Times Higher Education Supplement

A brilliant, extremely lucid account of the connections between financial economics and the development of futures, options, and derivatives markets between the 1950s and 2001.