ABSTRACT
The introduction briefly lays out this volume’s central preoccupations with the culture of innovation in the modern world and the consequences that novel market practices have had on various societies. It then explains the themes that bind together the volume’s three parts. Part I, Imagining New Markets, shows different views of “America”—as a settlers’ promised land and as a refuge for capital. Part II, Navigating Markets, explores different outlooks and social habits in connection to emerging practices in investment and speculation. This part deals with particular market actors as they engage with new markets, focusing on the interplay between economic “rationality” and affect as means of engaging with rapidly changing market norms. Part III, Controlling Markets, investigates where the state figures in. This part focuses on the relationship between new and/or rapidly expanding markets and attempts to regulate or untether these economies from state control. In addition to the unifying ties between chapters in the same section, the editors’ introduction highlights certain themes—the importance of trust, the fine line between confidence, and the interplay between the familiar and the novel in the process of legitimating new services and commodities.
