Rating: 
Summary: ERROR
Review: page 44
"A pound was equal to 20 shillings and a shilling was equal to twelve pence - a system that lasted from Norman times unntil the 1980's, when Britain finally yielded and adopted the decimal denominations long in use everywher else."page 197
"Britain .. abandoned their historic shillings and pence for the metric sysyem in 1969." It was infact 15th Febuary 1971
A date etched on my mind even though I was in short trousers ! A good book spoiled by a silly error !!
Rating: 
Summary: A Powerful Study
Review: Peter Bernstein has written a fascinating account of the role of gold throughout history. This book should help solidify him in the front rank of current economic writers. Starting with the physical properties of the metal which help explain its attraction to cultures around the world, Bernstein traces the evolution of the precious metal from the time of Croesus through the abandoment of the Bretton Woods system. The book is as much a sociological study as a financial treatise and readers looking for a strictly economic argument about the merits/demerits of a gold standard should probably look elesewhere. Having worked for a money management firm who was the largest owner of gold equities in the world, I am familiar with the obsession of the true believers and they will not be satisfied with this account. But true believers aside, perhaps the most powerful argument that Bernstein makes is a question - namely, why should the pace of human economic development be controlled by the vagaries of nature and changes in extraction technology.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Nuggets, But Not 24 Carats
Review: Peter Bernstein has written an overview of the relationship between money and gold throughout the centuries. This book serves up many interesting stories of gold and its service as money or as a financing instrument. In this, the book entertains. However, I found it to be somewhat disjointed as it moved from place to place and time to time chasing the illustrious metal as it assumed its different forms in kingdoms and nations far and wide. My sense after finishing the book was that it was somewhat incomplete -- and that the author could not precisely focus on what the books focus was. While he mentions the twin uses of gold -- both as money and adornment throughout the book, almost all of the tales and statistics are relating to monetary gold. Also, for much of the latter half of the book, his focus is on the development of banking and financial instruments -- and their replacement of gold as a medium of exchange and a source of finance. Perhaps a better title would have been "Money through the Ages" or something that reflected the breadth of the journey the reader takes while stopping briefly at various historical events involving gold, coin, money, banking, minting and finance. Not to say that the book isn't informative or interesting for the most part -- it is. I learned many new anecdotes and information from the author -- much of it fascinating. For example, the "Great" Kublai Kahn printed money that was backed by his will only, centuries ago. And it worked; apparently fear of not accepting the Kahn's paper was enough to make it a working medium of exchange. The Bank of England resisted machine minting with raised edges for years after the technology was available, even though the country was losing a fortune to clippers and shavers of hand stamped coin. West Africa was long a source of gold to Europe across the Sahara via long camel caravans and in barter on the coast (where the local custom was that Europeans would bring goods they thought appropriate to a place and then leave. The Africans would then take the goods and leave an amount of gold -- neither side ever seeing the other in the ultimate "hand-shake" deal). For centuries, Europe was frustrated in not discovering the location of the mines. One also reads of the Spanish gold caravans, the California and Klondike Gold Rushes, the era of nations moving gold from one vault to the next in the same New York bank to settle balance of payments and Nixon's abandonment of a gold tie to the dollar in the early 1970's. It is interesting to see how completely wedded to gold some governments became, particularly in the late 1800's early 1900's. England, and other nations, were willing to see millions become unemployed rather than change the exchange rate - a position that sent Winston Churchill into his period of dormancy in the 1920's. FDR shocked the establishment - particularly if unsurprisingly Herbert Hoover, by setting gold at $35 dollars and ounce. In fact, the last third of the book relates story after story of smart men who were thought to absolutely understand the crucial relationship of gold to the money of their nation - and how almost all of them saw their policies produce completely the reverse of what they desired. For more than 100 years, the money men of Europe and the United States believed an unchangeable gold standard was the only route to growth and prosperity. The one astute observer, if contrarian, was Benjamin Disraeli, who observed in 1895 that "Our gold standard is not the cause, but the consequence of our commercial prosperity." His observation fell on deaf ears, only to be illustrated as possibly the right relationship after the turmoil of the 1920's and the Great Depression forced countries to begin to unhitch their currencies from absolute and unchanging values as measured in gold. All of the information and stories are somewhat loosely tied together. Although it is apparent to the reader that the central point to the book is how money developed and gold's role in the various systems, I don't think the author traced the development as well as one might have or drew conclusions that would have made this interesting collection of stories into one story. Maybe I expected to much from an author who developed the story of insurance and risk better in his work "Against the Gods," but I thought this had a more thrown together feel. Most of the information is interesting and even fascinating in some places. All in all, it is a decent survey of gold, money and the development of finance if one is interested in the topic.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Nuggets, But Not 24 Carats
Review: Peter Bernstein has written an overview of the relationship between money and gold throughout the centuries. This book serves up many interesting stories of gold and its service as money or as a financing instrument. In this, the book entertains. However, I found it to be somewhat disjointed as it moved from place to place and time to time chasing the illustrious metal as it assumed its different forms in kingdoms and nations far and wide. My sense after finishing the book was that it was somewhat incomplete -- and that the author could not precisely focus on what the books focus was. While he mentions the twin uses of gold -- both as money and adornment throughout the book, almost all of the tales and statistics are relating to monetary gold. Also, for much of the latter half of the book, his focus is on the development of banking and financial instruments -- and their replacement of gold as a medium of exchange and a source of finance. Perhaps a better title would have been "Money through the Ages" or something that reflected the breadth of the journey the reader takes while stopping briefly at various historical events involving gold, coin, money, banking, minting and finance. Not to say that the book isn't informative or interesting for the most part -- it is. I learned many new anecdotes and information from the author -- much of it fascinating. For example, the "Great" Kublai Kahn printed money that was backed by his will only, centuries ago. And it worked; apparently fear of not accepting the Kahn's paper was enough to make it a working medium of exchange. The Bank of England resisted machine minting with raised edges for years after the technology was available, even though the country was losing a fortune to clippers and shavers of hand stamped coin. West Africa was long a source of gold to Europe across the Sahara via long camel caravans and in barter on the coast (where the local custom was that Europeans would bring goods they thought appropriate to a place and then leave. The Africans would then take the goods and leave an amount of gold -- neither side ever seeing the other in the ultimate "hand-shake" deal). For centuries, Europe was frustrated in not discovering the location of the mines. One also reads of the Spanish gold caravans, the California and Klondike Gold Rushes, the era of nations moving gold from one vault to the next in the same New York bank to settle balance of payments and Nixon's abandonment of a gold tie to the dollar in the early 1970's. It is interesting to see how completely wedded to gold some governments became, particularly in the late 1800's early 1900's. England, and other nations, were willing to see millions become unemployed rather than change the exchange rate - a position that sent Winston Churchill into his period of dormancy in the 1920's. FDR shocked the establishment - particularly if unsurprisingly Herbert Hoover, by setting gold at $35 dollars and ounce. In fact, the last third of the book relates story after story of smart men who were thought to absolutely understand the crucial relationship of gold to the money of their nation - and how almost all of them saw their policies produce completely the reverse of what they desired. For more than 100 years, the money men of Europe and the United States believed an unchangeable gold standard was the only route to growth and prosperity. The one astute observer, if contrarian, was Benjamin Disraeli, who observed in 1895 that "Our gold standard is not the cause, but the consequence of our commercial prosperity." His observation fell on deaf ears, only to be illustrated as possibly the right relationship after the turmoil of the 1920's and the Great Depression forced countries to begin to unhitch their currencies from absolute and unchanging values as measured in gold. All of the information and stories are somewhat loosely tied together. Although it is apparent to the reader that the central point to the book is how money developed and gold's role in the various systems, I don't think the author traced the development as well as one might have or drew conclusions that would have made this interesting collection of stories into one story. Maybe I expected to much from an author who developed the story of insurance and risk better in his work "Against the Gods," but I thought this had a more thrown together feel. Most of the information is interesting and even fascinating in some places. All in all, it is a decent survey of gold, money and the development of finance if one is interested in the topic.
Rating:
Summary: Packed With Knowledge!
Review: Peter L. Bernstein's history of gold is about much more than just the lure of precious metal - it's about man's relationship with wealth, his desire for prosperity and his lust for power. The story he tells presents an unflattering portrait of the human character. The book demonstrates how thirst for gold's twin uses - adornment and currency - has driven humankind to countless atrocities. This volume is so elegantly written that it deserves its own gold-leaf pages. Bernstein traces the transformation of gold into money, beginning at the dawn of historic time and ending by asking if gold will ever again recover its status as the standard for establishing the value of money. We [...] highly recommend this fine book for anyone fascinated by all that glitters, and for students of economic history as well.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting but flawed history
Review: The long history of gold, while not without its amusing moments in antiquity, seems an unnecessary prolegomena to the main thrust of the book, which is more urgently directed toward the policy measures undertaken by the US and Europe since about 1850.I would in any event hate to have a great swatch of readership conclude from Bernstein's identification of Charlemagne as, and I quote from p. 58, the Merovingian King of the Franks. The descendants of Merovech became progressively weaker until the line was replaced by the line of Mayors of the Palace of whom Charles Martel was the first. It was Pepin the Short, father of Charlemagne, who founded the Carolingian line. Moreover, it would be rash to place much emphasis on any gold coinage he might have generated. The localization of trade during the Carolingian period brought with it an emphasis on silver, or else barter. While his monetary system was a significant forerunner to that of England, it was not of much economic significance at the time. In fact, it is a peculiarity of this period to display one of monetary history's anomalies: the Merovingian sources (Gregory of Tours for one) contain impressive stores of gold as bullion or money, while the more hopeful looking Carolingian period in W. Europe is dominated by silver. Mr. Bernstein would have done better to pick one or two vignettes of interest from the period importantly earlier than 1750 and concentrated on the modern history of gold.
Rating:
Summary: Golden History
Review: This book gives a good history about mankind's love affair with the yellow metal. Helps to understand why its is still valued when it is no longer used as money.
Rating:
Summary: Show me the money
Review: This book is packed with anecdotes tracing the history of gold and its place in the monetary system. The stories are generally interesting. However this book is not as good as Against the Gods, lacking that book's succinctness. The Power of Gold also falls short by failing to connect the history of gold with the present status of gold and the present status of money generally. Given gold is valued largely because of shared perceptions of its value, similar to money, this is a major fault in content of the book. It left me vaguely unsatisfied.
Rating:
Summary: Power of gold
Review: Very in depth book on monetary perspective of gold through the ages. Explains how the change in the supply of gold affected various European country economies thru the ages. The book is written from a Western perspective. The author explains how changes in the supply of gold/M1 causes inflation or deflation in Europe during the Middle ages and more recent times. There are one or two inconsistancies between early chapters and later chapters. Overall, a very readable book for someone interested in the economic world around us.
Rating: 
Summary: Gold obsession or paper fetish?
Review: While Peter Bernstein is an engaging writer, his perspective on gold and silver is in many ways quite superficial. The subtitle of the book - "The History of an Obsession" - betrays his real agenda, which is to subtley pooh-pooh gold's historic monetary role as being the result of a kind of psychological disorder. Bernstein's anti-precious metals bias becomes especially apparent in his discussion of the monetary history of Asia and in his discussion of the world-wide abandonment of the gold standard in the 20th Century. From reading the Asian chapter, one would scarcely realize that much of Asia was effectively on a silver standard for hundreds of years, and that at least in China this situation was brought about because of repeated failures of paper money experiments. Asians learned through bitter experience that a natural commodity whose stock is beyond the control of politicians is essential for preserving purchasing power in the face of social upheavals. Likewise, Bernstein's tale of the alleged deflationary tendencies of gold causing the Great Depression and eventually necessitating the fiat paper money we have today is utter nonsense. For one thing, prices were very stable during the heyday of the gold standard (and throughout much of the rest of history for that matter); far from being deflationary, numerous studies have documented that the purchasing power of gold has been extraordinarily stable over many centuries. For another thing, the instability of the post-World War I financial system was strictly a banking phenomenon; both the expansion of the money stock in the 1920's and the rapid collapse of the money stock in the early 1930's was almost entirely due to the irresponsible manner in which central banks mismanaged the creation and destruction of money substitutes, especially bank and savings accounts. Rather than stabilize the financial system by getting rid of fractional reserves, Franklin Roosevelt and his successors have chosen instead to continually bail it out by inflationary means. The institutionalization of inflation, not any monetary defects of gold itself, is the real reason why governments tried to minimize gold's monetary role during the 20th Century. The sad truth is that our current ruling class has a vested interest in the continual depreciation of the dollar. It also has a vested interest in risking a hyperinflationary collapse of the global economy, replicating on a world-wide scale what happened to Germany in 1923 and to many other countries throughout the thousand-year history of the paper money fetish. It is too bad that Bernstein's readers won't learn the real lessons of monetary history from him, otherwise they might learn to trust paper less and develop a healthy "obsession" with gold too.
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