Hymans:The Changing Color of Money sides'worldviews actually had much in common.Similarly,in the icono- graphic domain,what this study would emphasize in the case of'Marianne' is that around 1870 a national consensus developed to depict France as a young woman donning classical robes. At this level of abstraction,the predictions of an Inglehart-Meyer perspective in the currency iconography area would be as follows.On one axis,in line with the Inglehart-Meyer observation of the dispersion of social initiative,we would expect a shift from depictions of actual or metaphorical actors who embody the state,to depictions of societal actors such as economic classes,and finally to depictions of individual,non-state actors.On the other axis,in line with the Inglehart-Meyer observation on the changing goals of life,we would expect a shift from depictions of godlike or ornamental figures in classical or antique garb (a reflection of traditionalist life goals),to depictions of figures involved in the 'real world'of politics, economics and social struggles (a reflection of materialist life goals),and finally to depictions of figures from a concrete time period engaged in the cultural or scientific pursuits (a reflection of post-materialist life goals). Table I suggests examples of the kinds of images that might reflect different positions along the two Inglehart-Meyer axes,with examples from the American case.The Inglehart-Meyer point of view would expect that over time,the bulk of images on currency would move down the diagonal from left to right.By contrast,the traditional 'state as pedagogue'idea would expect that there would be little change in iconography over time, with the bulk of the images falling in the top row of the table. 3.Iconography of European National Currencies Over Time The Database To test the hypotheses,I created a database of human figures on European paper money from the onset of national central banks in the 19th century to the present day.The creation of this database was possible thanks to a numismatic publication,the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money,which offers detailed descriptions and,in most cases,reproduces images of the banknotes (Pick et al.,1994;Bruce and Shafer,2001). Three notes are in order about the range of data collected for this project. First,the work has focused on the currencies of the current 15 members of the EU (plus East Germany).The work could easily be followed up with similar studies of other states and regions,however.Second,the work has started by focusing on paper money,but a study of coinage could be a natural complement to this work.Third,the work has focused on depictions of human figures.This choice results from two primary factors-first,the 9 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.Further reproduction prohibited without permission.Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission