Gold has always attracted the human gaze. Shiny and bright, highly malleable, and coveted due to its rareness, gold quickly established itself as the cornerstone of every economic system, from the Romans in antiquity to modern economies. The rise of paper money facilitated exchanges, but even those bills were technically exchangeable for a quantity of gold at any point.
In the United States, two World Wars and several economic recessions and depressions finally forced the decoupling of what was called the gold standard. The gold standard served to peg the value of each dollar bill to a specific amount of gold, but as the economy grew it became increasingly difficult to keep the amount of dollars in the economy in relative balance to the amount of gold. There was simply too much economic activity, which required much more flexibility than was provided by having the U.S. dollar pegged to gold.
How the Gold Standard Works explains the chemical properties of gold, how it is mined and refined, and how it has been used in the past and today to support the economy of nations. Despite its loss of status as an economic standard, gold today remains one of the most precious metal. Fans of the economy will appreciate the thoroughness of this volume and its exploration of the gold standard and how, even today, it gold influences our economy.
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