It is a pleasure to review this book, chiefly because it was a pleasure to read. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the substance of Simon Gleeson's analysis, it is presented with a lightness and elegance of expression that is especially difficult in this area of law. For my part, I found myself in fundamental agreement with much of Gleeson's analysis, which made the reading more pleasurable still.
The book's title recalls chapter one of Dr F A Mann's The Legal Aspect of Money, called “The Conception of Money”. Like that chapter, it has the audacity to proceed from the question noted by Jevons to cause intellectual vertigo – “What is money?” However, it chooses a different approach to that taken by Mann. One of Charles Proctor's major contributions to that text in the sixth edition – and one of his major departures from the pre-commitments of its namesake – is an expanded treatment of economists’ efforts to understand money. Gleeson, too, has engaged in depth with economic theories of money and combined these with the insights that historical and sociological studies afford. The result is, in my view, an admirable step (further) in the right direction. It will provide an interesting point of comparison with the forthcoming eighth edition of Mann on the Legal Aspect of Money.
The Legal Concept of Money is noteworthy for dealing directly – indeed, one feels that this is the catalyst for Gleeson's contribution at this time – with the challenges posed to conventional legal conceptions of money by technological developments. Each chapter concludes with a brief application of Gleeson's theoretical analysis to the problem of “virtual currencies”. In this regard, it is worth noting that “virtual currencies” is not appropriate as a general term for the digital financial assets that have sprung up in the ten years since the launch of Bitcoin. A moniker like “cryptoassets” is more suitable. But Gleeson is concerned only with those cryptoassets – and other, non-blockchain digital assets – that function like money, thus making his choice of terminology apposite.
The book comprises ten chapters, commencing with “What is Money?” and moving to “Money, Government, and Sovereignty”, “Money and Credit”, “Money and Value”, “The Rise of Private Payment Instruments”, “Banking, Payments and Money”, “The Legal Character of Money”, “Private...
