I took a bunch back in the day, and I liked Economics of Money and Banking[1] (by Perry Mehrling) more than most other courses. It's partly a history of the Ame

I took a bunch back in the day, and I liked Economics of Money and Banking[1] (by Perry Mehrling) more than most other courses. It's partly a history of the American financial system, and partly a tour of some modern financial instruments and institutions. The focus is on how things work and why they're designed as they are, and not so much on how things are priced. Deposits, bonds, commodity futures, central banks, how it all fits together, what purpose it all serves -- how it's not just gambling or an abstract game used to extract money from the productive economy. One of the stated aims of the course is to get you in a position where you can read the Financial Times without going cross-eyed, and it works really well to give a clarifying framework for understanding market concepts outside the course's scope. Another I really liked was "The Modern and the Postmodern" by Michael Roth. I don't know if that course would work well "at your own pace" though, the reading and peer essay feedback was a big part of it. 1: https://www.coursera.org/learn/money-banking https://www.coursera.org/learn/money-banking