Book Recommendations from RSF Social Finance

For the second in our series in which we ask you, the tenant organizations, to recommend some books to your neighbors, we have a list provided by RSF Social Finance. We hope you enjoy learning about their work, and if your organization is interested in sharing a list of your own, please contact the library.

RSF Social Finance (RSF) is a pioneering non-profit financial services organization dedicated to transforming the way the world works with money. In partnership with a community of investors and donors, RSF provides capital to non-profit and for-profit social enterprises addressing key issues in the areas of Food & Agriculture, Education & the Arts, and Ecological Stewardship.

This selection of books is about money, its role in the economy, and in our lives. RSF Social Finance’s work stands at the intersection of money and spirit, and how money can best be used to support initiatives for healing culture and the environment such that it serves human aspirations. Money is not a singular thing, but rather comes alive in its three primary functions of purchase, loan, and gift. These transactions hold great potential for transformation. These books touch on many of these aspects, have served as inspiration for our work as a social finance organization, and hopefully will inspire others to transform how they think about money and their role as economic citizens.

Rudolf Steiner. (1933). World-economy: the formation of a science of world-economics : a series of 14 lectures, given at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland, from 24th July to 6th August. London: Rudolf Steiner Publ. Co.

John Bloom. (2009). The genius of money: essays and interviews reimagining the financial world. Great Barington, MA: SteinerBooks.

Siegfried E. Finser. (2006). Money can heal: evolving our consciousness and the story of RSF and innovations in social finance. Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks.

Woody Tasch. (2008). Inquiries into the nature of slow money: investing as if food, farms, and fertility mattered. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Pub.

Lynne Twist and Teresa Barker. (2003). The soul of money: transforming your relationship with money and life. New York: Norton.

Jacob Meedleman. (1991). Money and the meaning of life. New York: Doubleday/Currency.

James Buchan. (1997). Frozen desire: the meaning of money. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Lewis Hyde. (1983). The gift: imagination and the erotic life of property. New York: Random House.

Niall Ferguson. (2008). The ascent of money: a financial history of the world. New York: Penguin Press.