A History of Gold and Money

1450-1920

Pierre Vilar, Judith White

• Publisher: Verso
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781789600575
• Edition: 2
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Economic History
• Index: History

For much of human history, the motive force behind war, conquest, social conflict and world exploration has been the drive to acquire gold. From the ancient world of Croesus to the wealthy dynasties of Renaissance Italy, from the earliest European explorations into Africa, America, and Asia to the gold rushes of the nineteenth century and the banking crises that lay beyond them, Pierre Vilar depicts the awesome power of avarice to structure the world in which we live. The insidious power of gold and money is the subject of this enlightening and entertaining history.
The age of exploration brought an influx of treasure into Western Europe, prompting disputes between theologians and early economists over the causes of inflation in the sixteenth century. In time, American silver distorted metropolitan Spanish society beyond recognition. Vilar goes on to examine the roots of the modern banking and financial systems in institutions founded in Holland, England and France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. And in the nineteenth century, the gold rushes of Australia, California and South Africa generated new modifications in the international monetary system.
Vilar concludes the story of these developments with a discussion of the crisis of the 1920s that, in the wake of the world credit crash of 2008, is more pertinent than ever. A History of Gold and Money provides a unique work of synthesis on the role of money in modern economic history.
The Verso World History Series: This series provides attractive new editions of classic works of history, making landmark texts available to a new generation of readers. Covering a timespan stretching from Ancient Greece and Rome to the twentieth century, and with a global geographical range, the series will also include thematic volumes providing insights into such topics as the spread of print cultures and the history of money.

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents 
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Introduction: Gold in World History
• Chapter 2: Primitive Times and the Ancient World
• Chapter 3: Some Observations on the Middle Ages
• Chapter 4: The Conjuncture and Price Movements, 1450–1500
• Chapter 5: African Gold and Genoese-Iberian Discoveries
• Chapter 6: Portugal, Spain and the Gold Trade
• Chapter 7: The Spanish Discovery of Caribbean Gold
• Chapter 8: The Conjuncture of 1450–1530
• Chapter 9: The Beginnings of the Price Revolution
• Chapter 10: The Price Revolution and the Channels of Trade
• Chapter 11: Bullion and Portuguese Commerce
• Chapter 12: The Gold and Silver of the Americas
• Chapter 13: Innovations in the New World
• Chapter 14: Potosí
• Chapter 15: Huancavelica and the Distribution of American Silver
• Chapter 16: Gold and Silver in Castile
• Chapter 17: The Spanish Debate on Precious Metals
• Chapter 18: The Price Revolution in France
• Chapter 19: French Monetary Theory
• Chapter 20: The Price Revolution in Italy
• Chapter 21: Bullion in the European and Colonial Economies, 1500–1800
• Chapter 22: The Monetary Role of the Bank of Amsterdam
• Chapter 23: The Establishment of the Bank of England
• Chapter 24: English Expansion and Brazilian Gold
• Chapter 25: Monetary Stabilisation and Economic Change in Spain
• Chapter 26: From Colbert to Law
• Chapter 27: The 18th Century Conjuncture
• Chapter 28: Bullion and the Ancien Regime
• Chapter 29: Banking and Credit in France, 1726–1790
• Chapter 30: Banking and Credit in England, 1726–1790
• Chapter 31: Mexican Silver and the European Conjuncture
• Chapter 32: Money in the French Revolution
• Chapter 33: Monetary Problems in England, 1797–1819
• Chapter 34: The 19th Century Conjuncture
• Chapter 35: The Relationship between Prices and the Output of Gold
• Chapter 36: In Search of a Global but not One-sided Explanation
• Appendices
• Index of Names
• Index of Authorities