A Review of ARJUN APPADURAI, BANKING ON WORDS: THE FAILURE OF LANGUAGE IN THE AGE OF DERIVATIVE FINANCE. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2016, 180 pp.

K e y w o r d s: derivatives, financial market, risk, uncertainty, economic anthropology. t o c i t e: Vymyatnina yu., ‘a review of arjun appadurai, Banking on Words: the Failure of language in the age of derivative Finance. chicago, Il: chicago university press, 2016, 180 pp.’, Forum for Anthropology and Culture, 2018, no. 14, pp. 240–252. d o i: 10.31250/1815-8927-2018-14-14-240-252 u r l: http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/eng014/vymyatnina.pdf 240 FORUM FOR ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE 2018 No 14 It should be stressed that from the point of view of innovation in the field of anthropological theory this book should be evaluated by specialists in that discipline, and it may be assumed that this has already been done in the various reviews of the book that have appeared (see, for example: [Fraga 2016; Maurer 2016; Chandra 2017]) . What is offered here is entirely an economist’s view . From an economist’s point of view, the book poses a number of important questions which are being widely discussed at the moment within the economists community, and an outside viewpoint may be of interest . At the same time, a number of elements in the book will seem debatable, not to say peculiar, to an economist . First we shall formulate the basic theses, as reckoned by an economist, and then see what, on the whole, he or she might derive from Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance . As far as one can understand from the introductory chapter and the text of the book itself, Appadurai proposes to examine derivatives yulia Vymyatnina European University at St Petersburg 6/1A Gagarinskaya Str., St Petersburg, Russia yv@eu.spb.ru Arjun Appadurai, Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2016, 180 pp. The book under review is an attempt to understand the latest financial crisis of 2008–9 by analysing the derivatives market through the lens of economic anthropology. The book is more of an open invitation to consider the nature of modern financial market using the example of derivatives. It poses questions, such as the essence of market price, the border between risk and uncertainty, the fair share of financial sector in the economy, but it does not provide the answers. Considered from an economist’s point of view, Appadurai’s book lacks a clear understanding of the economic gist of the phenomena under study. This, alongside with incorrect and mixed up usage of economic terms and absent understanding of the latest developments of economics science, makes the book a difficult reading for professionals beyond economic anthropology and related fields. However, the questions posed in the book and the opinion from outside of the economic science will provide food for thought for those economists who get through the mentioned difficulties.