Review of Geld und Magie: Eine okonomische Deutung von Goethes Faust

The first thing that must be said about this book is that, despite the claim that it is a “vollständig überarbeitete Ausgabe,” this is simply not the case. Although the subtitle may have changed (originally “Deutung und Kritik der modernen Wirtschaft anhand von Goethes Faust”), the story it tells twenty years later remains in effect the same. I shall return to the significance of this for those of us interested in Goethe Age economics, but first I will address Binswanger’s argument, the additions made to the second edition, and the value of this type of economic commentary on Goethe and Faust