In this exciting new book, Peter L. Bernstein, who chronicled the evolution of risk in his recent bestseller, Against the Gods, tells the story of history's most coveted, celebrated, and inglorious asset: gold. From the ancient fascinations of Moses and Midas through the modern convulsions caused by the gold standard and its aftermath, gold has led many of its most eager and proud possessors to a bad end. Gold had them, rather than the other way around. And while the same cycle of obsession and desperation may reverberate in today's fast-moving, electronically-driven stock markets, the role of gold in shaping human history is the striking feature of this tumultuous tale. Such is the power of gold.

This fascinating account begins with the magical, religious, and artistic qualities of gold and progresses to the invention of coinage, the transformation of gold into money, and the gold standard. The more important gold becomes as money, the more loudly it speaks of power-even more loudly than when it served as an entry to Heaven or a symbol of omnipotence. Ultimately, the book confronts the future of gold in a world where it appears to have been relegated to the periphery of global finance.

From the Bible to the Gold Rush era to modern day Fort Knox and beyond, unforgettable characters stride through these pages. Contemplate gold from the diverse perspectives of monarchs and moneyers, potentates and politicians, men of legendary wealth and others of more plebeian beginnings; from Asia Minor's King Croesus to Rome's noted speculator Crassus, to Byzantine emperors and humble miners, Venice's Marco Polo and Spain's Francisco Pizarro, to Charlemagne and Charles de Gaulle, Richard I and Richard Nixon, Isaac Newton and Winston Churchill, Britain's economists David Ricardo and John Maynard Keynes, and Christopher Columbus and the Forty-Niners. Perhaps most remarkable are the frantic speculators who pushed gold to $850.00 an ounce in 1980 just as their counterparts twenty years later drove Internet stocks to exorbitant heights.

Whether it is Egyptian pharaohs with depraved tastes, the luxury-mad survivors of the Black Death, the Chinese inventor of paper money, the pirates on the Spanish Main, or the hardnosed believers in the international gold standard like the United States' President Herbert Hoover, gold has been the supreme possession. It has been an icon for greed and an emblem of rectitude, as well as a vehicle for vanity and a badge of power that has shaped the destiny of humanity through the ages. As Bernstein muses, "The joke is that nothing is as useless and useful all at the same time."

Far more than a tale of romantic myths, daring explorations, and the history of money and power struggles, The Power of Gold suggests that the true significance of this infamous element may lie in the timeless passions it continues to evoke, and what this reveals about ourselves.

Though he proceeds in roughly chronological order, US Historian and economist Bernstein aspires neither to a complete history of the precious metal nor a systematic analysis of its role in economics and culture. Rather he explores those events and stories involving gold that most appeal to him as illustrative of the desperation and ultimate frustrations that have inflamed human behavior.
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"Bernstein...gives us a multifaceted depiction of the powerful pull gold has...his grasp on things financial...is firm, and he's admirably adept at explaining them."

--New York Times Book Review

The best-selling author of Against the Gods reveals the dramatic record of human nature reflected in the ways human beings have behaved in relation to gold throughout the history of civilization.

Praise for Peter Bernstein and the power of Gold

"The story of gold-in all its splendor and mythology, its fascinationfor individuals and nations alike. . . . Peter Bernstein is up to the challenge. His spritely exposition is a fine read even as it makes us think and reflect." --Paul A. Volcker, Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve

"Admirably written...a wonderfully interesting view;-not alone of gold but of the greater economic history. Like other of his work, it is assured of a wide readership." --John Kenneth Galbraith Professor of Economics Emeritus, Harvard University

"This book is a noble treatment of the most noble of elements.The Power of Gold is a brilliant and unexpected taleof three thousand years of a metal as virtual reality." --Steve Jones author, Darwin's Ghost: The Origin of Species Updated

"Hats off! We are in the presence of a master...to read with such delight in its manner as to pass too quickly over the subtlety of its understanding and the astonishing width and depth of Bernstein's knowledge." --Roger G. Kennedy Director Emeritus, National Museum of American History

"...a fascinating story...wittily written, and full of original insights...Peter Bernstein has once more written a brilliant book, both highly instructive and entertaining." --Pierre Keller former senior partner, Lombard Odier &Cie, Geneva

Includes bibliographical references (p. 397-407) and index.

PETER L. BERNSTEIN combines the zest of a historian with the meticulous analytical powers of an economist. He is the author of seven books in economics and finance, including Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk and Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street. He is also President of Peter L. Bernstein, Inc., an economic consultancy to institutional investors, which he founded in 1973 after many years of managing billions of dollars in individual and institutional portfolios. He has lectured widely throughout the U.S. and abroad and has received the highest honors from his peers in the investment profession.

Prologue: The Supreme Possession.

A METAL FOR ALL SEASONS.

Get Gold at All Hazards.

Midas's Wish and the Creatures of Pure Chance.

Darius's Bathtub and the Cackling of the Geese.

The Symbol and the Faith.

Gold, Salt, and the Blessed Town.

The Legacy of Eoba, Babba, and Udd.

The Great Chain Reaction.

The Disintegrating Age and the King's Ransoms.

The Sacred Thirst.

THE PATH TO TRIUMPH.

The Fatal Poison and Private Money.

The Asian Necropolis and Hien Tsung's Inadvertent Innovation.

The Great Recoinage and the Last of the Magicians.

The True Doctrine and the Great Evil.

The New Mistress and the Cursed Discovery.

The Badge of Honor.

The Most Stupendous Conspiracy and the Endless Chain.

THE DESCENT FROM GLORY.

The Norman Conquest.

The End of the Epoch.

The Transcending Value.

World War Eight and the Thirty Ounces of Gold.

Epilogue: The Supreme Possession?

Notes.

Bibliography.

Index.