Creation stories -- From metal to money: producing the "just penny" -- Commodity money as an extreme sport: flows, famines, debasements, and imitation pennies -- The high politics of medieval money: strong coin, heavy taxes, and the English invention of public credit -- The social stratigraphy of coin and credit in late medieval England -- Priming the pump: the sovereign path towards paying for coin and circulating credit -- Interests, rights, and the currency of public debt -- Reinventing money: the beginning of bank currency -- Re-theorizing money: the struggle over the modern imagination -- The 18th century architecture of modern money -- Epilogue to the 18th century: the gold standard in an era of inconvertibility -- Conclusion: From blood to water.