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Summary: Really about monetary policy
Review: Bernstein is one of the great contemporary business writers, having produced books about risk and market theory. So when he takes on gold, he doesn't write about jewelry -- he writes about gold as currency, which leads him to write about monetary policy and the gold standard. He does this pretty well, so if you're interested in those topics (as I am), then you'll have a hard time finding a better account than this book.
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Summary: From reader yogibearbull in IL
Review: Bernstein's The Power of Gold has moved from #3732 (9/22/00)to #94 (9/27/00)in Amazon sales rank!--this is simply amazing for a book on the yellow metal which has supposedly lost its luster. Book's official publication date is just this month--September 2000. It may soon hit the bestseller list at this rate. Bernstein tells a story which is shocking, gory, fascinating, and interesting. It has weak beginning and end, but great middle. Items are well referenced and footnoted. Bernstein does not have a pro or con view on gold as an investment in this book, but he seems skeptical of the current paper currency system and the gold situation. He does not believe that we have seen last of the gold story. I think that any one reading the book will be motivated to have some exposure in gold as a hedge for the unknown future. Tales in the book describe the fate of those who failed to hedge and got caught up with the fads of their times.
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Summary: As good as gold
Review: Except for a brief explanation of what gold is, and a few of the major gold rushes, "The Power of Gold" is essentially the economic history of gold. That isn't neccessarily a bad thing, the only major flaw with the book in my opinion is when the Europeans/Americans wrangle over the gold standard. The last section involving how much gold is a dollar or a pound is just plain dull. However, most of the book a fascinating look at our fascination with the magic metal. My favorite history books are written by novices, since the author usually enjoys his subject enough to write about it, and Bernstein does have an enthusiasm over his subject that is infectious. So, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of gold or even modern money.
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Summary: A look at gold for what it really is...
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it answered many of my nagging questions about gold's history and in some cases financial history. While I was well prepped by other comments on how this was more a "history" book rather than an "investment" book, I didn't expect the degree of insight it would offer me into our existing monetary system. I found that insight rounded out the book very well. Given the evolution in our financial and monetary system over the past few centuries, it amazes me to see the number of people who are still enamored with gold. The only real justification for holding gold is to be insured against a catastrophic event hitting the global financial system. Given that gold earns nothing waiting for that unlikely day, every investor has to ask them self how much they are willing to pay for that insurance. Peter Bernstein makes a fairly compelling case to look at gold for what it really is today - a commodity. Gold did have it's day in the sun, but that sun has now set...
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Summary: Should be a part of your library !
Review: I've got all of Peter Bernstein's books - he is to economics, finance and operations research what Carl Sagan is to science. Makes the subject come alive, and well worth every cent !
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Summary: Dense, somewhat boring but will probably endure
Review: It appears from the obvious publisher-placed comments that I may be one of the few people who has actually READ this book. With his no-doubt legions of researchers, Peter Bernstein obviously has his facts at hand, and they are plentifully strewn throughout the book. But this is not a business book, it is a history book about the enduring lure of the element Au. It took me about a week to finish this, and I found much of it interesting. But overall, I thought that it read like a well-researched thesis that will probably stand the test of time. There are some truly fascinating stories in it, and it is well written, but don't expect this book to tell you how to find gold or how to make enough money to buy gold. It is what it is: the history of a metal that has never lost its lustre.
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Summary: Not bad.
Review: Not your typical gold book (most are Buy Gold Now! type books - this is an honest history), the author is a true historian that writes in a very easy to read and compelling style. I actually laughed out loud twice while reading his footnotes! One of the best books out there for getting a historical look at gold and its role in our world. Also gets you current on the last 100 years of the forces driving the international money supply. Bernstein also wrote Against The Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, another great read and hard to put down (a must for any gambler/investor).
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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 !!
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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.
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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.
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