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Does research exist on propaganda conveyed via colonial currency?

I'm drafting a literature review and need to locate key texts and theoretical frameworks. I'm looking for historians, anthropologists, or art historians who have specifically tackled this not just economic histories of currency, but analyses of its symbolic and psychological impact as an instrument of colonial propaganda.

 

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By Willey Answered 3 years ago

Yes, and I would recommend starting with interdisciplinary journals like Material Culture Review or Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. Key scholars include Erika Waters on the British Empire's "monetary messaging," and Jack Hoskings on comparative imperial iconography. Don't neglect the foundational economic historians like G. Balachandran, who contextualize the propaganda within hard monetary policy. For theory, apply ideas from Benedict Anderson's "imagined communities" and James Scott's "public transcripts" to read coins as tools for making the abstract empire tangibly present in everyday palm.

 

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