THE SECRET HISTORY OF GOLD

A grab-bag of facts and figures on humankind’s favorite metal.

Gold, writes Frisby, is the definitive currency: “I hand you a gold coin; its value is immediately transferred from me to you.” This differs from the standard currencies of the world—the euro, dollar, yuan, and so forth—in being a tangible item, as opposed to an abstraction of fiat, backed by law and governmental decrees. Gold is universal, recognized for its value just about everywhere, whereas those fiat currencies can be created at no cost to the issuer, allowing for uncontrolled growth, deficit, and debt. Frisby, writing from Britain, backs up this observation with data from that economy: If wages matched house prices in London, he argues, “well, there isn’t enough space on the page to print the zeros,” and while house prices have risen by 71 times over the last half-century, fiat wages have risen only threefold. Were gold backing the currency, by his account, then prices and wages would be in closer step. In a libertarian mode, he concludes, “The money’s worth has been eroded not by time, but by government.” His book is full of useful material, though it’s a bit of a data dump: On one page, he recounts that gold is older than Earth, on another the fact that gold futures are the “second-most heavily traded asset in the world”—here he explains the workings of cryptocurrency (he’s in favor of it), there the intricacies of the postwar Bretton Woods international monetary agreement and the eventual drift away from the gold standard. The reader may suffer a bit of whiplash, and, all in all, the title notwithstanding, there aren’t many secrets revealed, but that and the sometimes careening organization doesn’t diminish the overall value of the book.

A bit scattered, but with a lode of good information.