The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Peter L. Bernstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 8, 2004

Incorporating myth, history and contemporary investigation, Bernstein tells the story of how human beings have become intoxicated, obsessed, enriched, impoverished, humbled and proud for the sake of gold. From the past to the future, Bernstein's portrayal of gold is intimately linked to the character of humankind.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the first chapter of his book The Power of Gold, Peter Bernstein quotes the immortal words of King Ferdinand of Spain, who once declared: "Get gold, humanely if possible, but at all hazards--get gold." As ensuing chapters reveal, man's obsession with finding, keeping, selling, and evaluating gold has rarely been a humane adventure and has always been a hazardous one. Digging deeply into history's treasury of torrid tales and complicated deals, Bernstein examines gold's lure with an economist's passion for quantification, a historian's eye for detail, and a sociologist's feel for its consequence.

Useless as a metal for most practical purposes, gold originally held value as decoration and adornment for the wealthy ancients. Later, it was minted and used as coins by the Lydians in 635 B.C. That, Bernstein goes on to reveal, put gold on a path from the concrete to the abstract, from evidence of wealth to the standard behind wealth in other forms, and finally to the tenuous place it holds in today's virtual world of credit cards and computer chips. Along the way lie wild stories of lives destroyed, fortunes won and quickly lost, and values transformed: the massacre by the Spanish invader Pizarro, whose small band of men decimated the formidable army of Emperor Atahualpa, "the Inca," through more duplicity than military skill; the roller-coaster ride of the 1890s, when the rippling impact of the Baring Brothers bank crisis in Britain sent the isolated United States into an economic meltdown; and the surplus of the Gold Coast natives of Timbuktu, who willingly traded their gold for much-needed salt, ounce for ounce.

Bernstein is a great storyteller. His accounts of mythological, ancient, and recent history ooze with odd and entertaining details that bring each successive tale of obsession to life. If not for his skill, the sheer volume of events collected here--presented more anecdotally than systematically--would be overwhelming. In the end, though, it is Bernstein's fascination with the power of gold to entangle and entrap its possessors, and its ultimate ability to change the course of entire eras and civilizations, that makes his book as fascinating as it is informative. A dense but entertaining read. --S. Ketchum --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

"[T]he quest for gold" has been "gluttonous," says Bernstein, tracing the metal's impact on human myth and history: gold has inspired art, battles, conquests and discoveries, including Columbus's trip to the New World, where he hoped to secure enough gold to buy back the Holy Sepulcher from the Muslims. Bernstein makes clear the metal's virtues: it's so malleable that one ounce can be stretched into a 50-foot wire or pounded into 100 square feet, and it lasts forever (4,500-year-old Egyptian dental work, he notes, is good enough for today's mouths). Bernstein's gift for storytellingAwith just the right touch of acerbic wit (on the myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece, he summarizes, "The story does not have a happy ending, because Jason was a compulsive social climber")Aand his presentation of the paradox of how and why such a soft and simple metal has been afforded such value help make this work a winning account of human obsession, comprehensive, entertaining and enlightening. A knowledge of economics might help during the last third of the book, when Bernstein moves from ancient times to modern day and describes the economic chaos that followed WWI. By then gold was no longer the domain of legend; it had become a commodity, the standard against which powerful nations measure their wealth. But Bernstein, author of the bestselling Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, livens up his intricate economic discussion with tales such as the one about the Harvard Business School professor who got into trouble with his dean for withdrawing his gold from the Harvard Trust Company during a gold standard-related panic in 1933. As the title promises, Bernstein does deliver a page-turning history of the not-so-heavy metal and its influence on people through the ages. $250,000 ad/promo; first serial to Worth. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; First edition. edition (November 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470091002
• ISBN-13: 978-0470091005
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 8.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #648,464 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter L. Bernstein's nine books include the worldwide bestseller Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk. Bernstein is also an economic consultant and publisher of Economics and Portfolio Strategy, a semimonthly letter for institutional investors.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Intersting anecdotes, September 28, 2006

By 

HuckFinn - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession (Hardcover)

And an intersting read, but basically no more than a damnation of Gold itself.
The author delights, toward the end of the book , how wonderful it is to have been liberated from the shackles of the yellow metal. But one can't help but wonder if he sees the irony in the statement. The book itself is a collection of historical lessons that show the very same pattern he praises. Hard currency , perverted to fractional , inevitably fiat. The result is always the same. Massive increase in currency and punishing inflationary consequences. The author offers absolutely no argument as to why it should end differently this time. In fact , the author's tone is almost condescending as he reviews the history of Gold as money. Oh! Our generation and our economists and leaders are just ever so much smarter than their predecessors! Metal-backed currencies are characterized by the author as some quaint, antiquated ideal that constrained mankind. Yet I note in almost all cases where civilization deviated from the practice , the reason was War , and the consequence was inflation , speculation and eventually ruination. To see people, especially economists , ignore history , certainly a history as oft-repeated and essentially resulting in the same effect, is cringe-inducing.
The brave new world of Gold-as-jewlery and jewelry only remains to be seen. The price of both Gold and Silver have outperformed almost all other asset classes since the publication of the book , and there are rumblings of going back to a monetization of Silver in Mexico as I type.
It is easy for the economist to see, in hindsight, the folly of mankind. But I'll wager that Human nature has not changed as much as the author thinks. There is no mathematical formula for them to use to determine the "value" of Gold , and so I think they are confused, skeptical and mistrusting of it. I'll offer a single number for them though , based on history. Positive one. That is the correlation coefficient between the price of Gold... and fear. Bad times will come again as they inevitably do , and Gold and Silver will again see value as both a store of wealth, protection against inflation, and method of transacting commerce.

40 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dense, somewhat boring but will probably endure, October 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession (Hardcover)

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 2000 Edition has more text, February 24, 2008

By 

J. Elliott - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession (Hardcover)

The older edition (Aug 30, 2000) has more pages (448 instead of 304) but costs more ($39.00). Comparing the table of contents between the 2 editions, it appears that the first 14 chapters and 207 pages are identical between the two editions but the new 2004 illustrated edition may have discarded or condensed some of the later chapters. The older 2000 edition is still available from Amazon if you look further down in search results for this title.