You can trust the prolific and ever-entertaining British author Dominic Frisby to produce a most timely book on a most relevant asset class. In The Secret History of Gold: Myth, Money, Politics & Power, released last year in Britain but only available in the US from May, this excellent writer and storyteller takes us along on a truly epic journey.

From the Mongols, to probably history’s richest man, to Rome, and the lively portrayal of gold rushes in the 1800s—the California and Alaskan ones, perhaps biggest of all—we get a quick-paced, overview vision of humanity’s relationship with gold, plus ounces of historical nuggets.

The book is very reminiscent in pace and tone of the reading experience in Frisby’s 2019 Daylight Robbery—a similarly-entertaining and wide-ranging investigation into the history of taxation. About Alexander the Great—better known for his conquests than his monetary policy—Frisby writes that,

. . .[he] might have conquered with his armies, but he consolidated with money: by taking control of gold and silver supply and using it to impose his currency, the most international money the world had ever seen.

. . .[he] might have conquered with his armies, but he consolidated with money: by taking control of gold and silver supply and using it to impose his currency, the most international money the world had ever seen.

There’s a great Marco Polo quotes about seigniorage in China (“money he pays out costs him nothing at all”), and the astonishing history of touchstones (“a piece of dark stone. . .used to test the purity of gold or silver”), to which I confess having been unaware. The golden dreams of Colonial Spanish........

© Eurasia Review