The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession Audiobook
The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession Audiobook
- Eric Conger
- Random House (Audio)
- 2000-10-03
- 6 h 0 min
Summary:
Over the centuries, gold had stirred the passions for power and glory, for beauty and security, and even for immortality. No additional object has commanded so much veneration over such a long time frame. The most stunning feature of the long history is definitely that precious metal led most of the protagonists in the theatre in to the ditch. Yellow metal had them, rather than the other method around.
Power and enthusiasm start out with the magical, religious, and artistic qualities of yellow metal. & about THE ENERGY of Gold: THE ANNALS of the Obsession nbsp;As the storyplot advances from primitive uses to the invention of coinage and the transformation of gold into money and the gold standard, gold talks even more loudly of power since it acquires increasing importance as cash. Ultimately, the publication confronts the continuing future of yellow metal, in a world where silver has been relegated towards the periphery of global finance.
On the way, we fulfill Moses and Midas, Croesus and Crassus, Byzantine emperors and humble miners, unscrupulous moneyers and ransomed kings, Francisco Pizzaro and Benvenuto Cellini, Charlemange and Charles de Gaulle, Richard I and Richard Nixon, Asian monarchs and Arab potentates, Isaac Newton and Winston Churchill, David Ricardo and John Maynard Keynes, as well as the Forty-Niners as well as the speculators who forced gold to $850 an ounce in 1980. It has been an icon for greed and an emblem of rectitude, and a vehicle for vanity and a badge of power that has shaped the destiny of humanity through the age groups.
In the end, this story is a morality tale. The quest for eternity will never be happy by gold, or by other things we select to rpelace precious metal. Gold as a finish in itself is certainly meaningless. Hoarding will not create wealth. Platinum makes sense only as a means to a finish; to beautify, to adorn, to exchange for what we wish and need.