Birth of the Financial Thriller
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€25.99
1970s
A01=Mikkel Krause Frantzen
Author_Mikkel Krause Frantzen
Category=DSBH
Category=DSK
contemporary literature
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
finance fiction
financial thriller
financialization
forthcoming
genre studies
Marxist literary criticism
popular culture
Product details
- ISBN 9781399516419
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 30 Sep 2026
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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Discover the untold story of the financial thriller, a genre pioneered by Canadian banker-turned-author Paul Erdman from a Swiss prison cell. Starting with the publication of The Billion Dollar Sure Thing in 1973, this book explores the genre’s evolution as a popular and even vulgar genre of financialisation, characterised by volatile plots centred on currency speculation where the central mystery is money, not murder. By contextualising the rise of financial thrillers within the dramatic events of the 1970s, such as the abolition of the Bretton Woods system and the oil crises, this book illustrates how a genre found the world of finance during a particular historical moment, but also how the world of finance found its genre. This compelling narrative connects the past to our present financial landscape, making it essential for anyone interested in the intersection of economic, literary and cultural history.
Mikkel Krause Frantzen is Associate Professor at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen. He is the author of several books, including Going Nowhere, Slow (2019), Klodens Fald (2021) and Slutspil (2024), and a literary critic at the Danish newspaper Politiken. He has been part of the research project “Finance Fiction - Financialization and Culture in the Early 21st Century”, co-edited the book Finance Aesthetics – A Critical Glossary (Goldsmiths Press, 2024) and has written extensively on financialisation and financial fictions of the 1970s from Paul Erdman to William Gaddis.
