Morals and Markets: The Development of Life Insurance in the United States

Richard Swedberg, Cornell University:
This book is as fresh in its argument and creative approach as when it originally appeared in 1979. The argument is both sociologically and existentially relevant, as in all of Zelizer's work. The approach can be characterized as a skillful and unique way of theorizing in economic sociology that draws equally on values and social relations. Morals and Markets is a gem and a classic.

Mark Granovetter, Stanford University:
Life insurance seemed like such a simple and obvious product, until Zelizer pointed out that it is not. When we learn that it was once shameful to purchase what is now a moral obligation, we are brought up short by the shifting social and symbolic content of consumption. There are rewarding revelations in every chapter of this groundbreaking work.

Frank Dobbin, Harvard University:
Viviana Zelizer has revolutionized thinking about the modern economy. While Polanyi offered an asterisk to history by detailing how the British elite was convinced to relinquish its moral responsibility for peasants and accept a market for free labor, Zelizer shows how makers of all kinds of new markets have to build moral underpinnings. Morals and Markets will never go out of style.

Paul DiMaggio, New York University:
A milestone that launched two major areas of research: on the morality of economic action (a topic central to Adam Smith but abandoned by his successors); and on the normalization and institutionalization of new economic forms. As America debates the moral dimensions of health insurance, and as the world copes with the rise of bitcoin and other private currencies, this classic study, graced by impeccable research and stunning insights, has never been more relevant.

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