Dr. Vieira is the most un-Harvard-lawyer-like Harvard lawyer you will ever meet. The "Dr." comes from his Ph.D. in chemistry from the same institution, which he earned a few years before he went back and got his J.D. He is among the foremost Constitutonal scholars in the U.S., and the undisputed expert on the history and Constitutional Law of Money and Banking.
If you *really* want to learn something about American History, the History of Money, or the devolution over the past 150 years of what passes for 'Law' in these united States, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Pieces of Eight is an exhaustive, detailed, and copiously footnoted (but highly readable, and routinely fascinating) compilation, synthesis, and exegesis of the history and Constitutional Law (and un-Constitutional 'law'!) of money and banking in the U.S, and is the result of a lifetime of research by a tenacious, literate, and scary-smart dude who is 3 for 4 in front of the Supreme Court.
If you want to know what the Framers of the Constitution *really* knew about money -- actually, quite a lot, certainly MUCH more than our purported "statesmen" today -- and why they put VERY specific language in the Constituton to ensure the proper rôle of money and banking consistent with a Free society, this book lays it out in stark, clear terms. In particular, if you want the definitive, airtight (and sordid) answers to politically incorrect questions such as "Why has nobody ever challenged the *clearly* unconstitutional Fed's constitutionality in court?", this book is the *only* place you're going to find them.
As Dr. Vieira mentions in his recent announcement at the gata.org website, the first printing came along at a time when our monetary, economic, and political situation was only marginally less dire than it is today, but even so, marginally enough that Pieces of Eight received less notice at the time than it so overwhelmingly deserves. In the intervening time, the book has begun to become recognized, and our situation has deteriorated to the point at which even the most obtuse among us have begun to sense that something is deeply, deeply, wrong, even if they can't put their finger on what it is. Pieces of Eight nails the source of the wrongness indelibly to the wall. In the words of an Amazon review appearing as of this writing: "Reading the last few chapters of this the 2d edition released in 2002 is like reading prophecy about the economic situation that the US is experiencing in 2009."
People who know me well know I'm definitely not one to go around spouting Bible verses, but in this case, one sticks out -- Hosea 4:6 "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Dr. Vieira is taking the risk that there are a sufficient number of people out there who care enough about our Republic to take the effort to learn what TRULY went wrong, and how to fix it. If there are not, and the free market of ideas (what little is left of it and the 1st Amendment, anyway) does not choose to support it, then we are all truly, utterly, and completely screwed anyway.
Is that the case? Or will you do what is necessary, NOW, to read this book, and ensure that this powerful "sword of knowledge" does not remain sheathed?
