Download or read book Gold How it Shaped History written by Alan Ereira and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2024-11-30 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gold is not what we think. It is usually discussed in the context of wealth and art but this book has a broader subject, so fundamental that it has been largely unremarked. Informed by a mass of recent discoveries and a South American indigenous perspective, it offers a new way of understanding the history of civilization. Gold has been coinage, treasure and adornment. But it has been much more, as the hidden driver of wars and revolutions, the rise and fall of empires and the transformation of societies. As the sun traveled east to west across the sky, gold, incorruptible and corrupting, flowed west to east, hand to hand across the world. That flow has brought empires to grow and collapse and driven plunder, conquest and colonization. It brought about wars and revolutions, empowered new forms of arts and science and created the capitalist consumer economy that dominates us now. All the gold people ever shaped still exists, shining as new; it can be mislaid but never decays. Right from its first appearance on the west shore of the Black Sea, long before the rise of Egypt and Mesopotamia, gold crowned the first proto-king. Ever since, it has been regarded as value incarnate with transcendental power. The quantity we take has been increasing steadily for 6,500 years. Now extraction accelerates. Our gold mountain has doubled in the last fifty years. Yet its price increases faster. While the quantity doubled, its buying power multiplied by six. What does gold do that makes us want it so much? As Alan Ereira reveals in this skilfully woven narrative, gold is the hidden actor that shapes our story.
Download or read book War and Gold written by Kwasi Kwarteng and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world was wild for gold. After discovering the Americas, and under pressure to defend their vast dominion, the Habsburgs of Spain promoted gold and silver exploration in the New World with ruthless urgency. But, the great influx of wealth brought home by plundering conquistadors couldn't compensate for the Spanish government's extraordinary military spending, which would eventually bankrupt the country multiple times over and lead to the demise of the great empire. Gold became synonymous with financial dependability, and following the devastating chaos of World War I, the gold standard came to express the order of the free market system. Warfare in pursuit of wealth required borrowing -- a quickly compulsive dependency for many governments. And when people lost confidence in the promissory notes and paper currencies issued during wartime, governments again turned to gold. In this captivating historical study, Kwarteng exposes a pattern of war-waging and financial debt -- bedmates like April and taxes that go back hundreds of years, from the French Revolution to the emergence of modern-day China. His evidence is as rich and colorful as it is sweeping. And it starts and ends with gold.
Download or read book A Global History of Gold Rushes written by Benjamin Mountford and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nothing set the world in motion like gold. Between the discovery of California placer gold in 1848 and the rush to Alaska fifty years later, the search for the precious yellow metal accelerated worldwide circulations of people, goods, capital, and technologies. A Global History of Gold Rushes brings together historians of the United States, Africa, Australasia, and the Pacific World to tell the rich story of these nineteenth century gold rushes from a global perspective. Gold was central to the growth of capitalism: it whetted the appetites of empire builders, mobilized the integration of global markets and economies, profoundly affected the environment, and transformed large-scale migration patterns. Together these essays tell the story of fifty years that changed the world.
Download or read book The Nature of Gold written by Kathryn Morse and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2009-11-23 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1896, a small group of prospectors discovered a stunningly rich pocket of gold at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers, and in the following two years thousands of individuals traveled to the area, hoping to find wealth in a rugged and challenging setting. Ever since that time, the Klondike Gold Rush - especially as portrayed in photographs of long lines of gold seekers marching up Chilkoot Pass - has had a hold on the popular imagination. In this first environmental history of the gold rush, Kathryn Morse describes how the miners got to the Klondike, the mining technologies they employed, and the complex networks by which they obtained food, clothing, and tools. She looks at the political and economic debates surrounding the valuation of gold and the emerging industrial economy that exploited its extraction in Alaska, and explores the ways in which a web of connections among America’s transportation, supply, and marketing industries linked miners to other industrial and agricultural laborers across the country. The profound economic and cultural transformations that supported the Alaska-Yukon gold rush ultimately reverberate to modern times. The story Morse tells is often narrated through the diaries and letters of the miners themselves. The daunting challenges of traveling, working, and surviving in the raw wilderness are illustrated not only by the miners’ compelling accounts but by newspaper reports and advertisements. Seattle played a key role as “gateway to the Klondike.” A public relations campaign lured potential miners to the West and local businesses seized the opportunity to make large profits while thousands of gold seekers streamed through Seattle. The drama of the miners’ journeys north, their trials along the gold creeks, and their encounters with an extreme climate will appeal not only to scholars of the western environment and of late-19th-century industrialism, but to readers interested in reliving the vivid adventure of the West’s last great gold rush.
Download or read book The Power of Gold written by Peter L. Bernstein and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2005-12-13 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Gold written by Boyle and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 687 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: GOLD: History and Genesis of Deposits is the product of an effort by the Society of Economic Geologists to publish materials that will expand knowl edge concerning timely, specific topics important to the study of economic geology and to economic geologists. A volume on gold was selected for a general review-type publication because of the importance of the gold mining industry in the 1980s. The officers and council of the Society of Economic Geologists authorized the preparation of this book on gold in 1981, and Dr. Robert W. Boyle was selected as its author. Dr. Boyle has extensive experience in the study of gold deposits. He has an international reputation and a broad interest and understanding of the gold mining industry, the origin of gold deposits, and the history of gold as a metal and ore from prehistoric times to recent. Dr. Boyle uses important publications on gold deposits as source materials to document the various pathways of geological thought over time to introduce the reader to modern concepts. The book contains a wealth of information concerning gold.
Download or read book Two Sides to the Coin written by Adam Wasserman and published by Adam Wasserman. This book was released on 2010 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of gold throughout the world from antiquity to the early twenty-first century, describing its value to humanity, and discussing its usage in art, jewelry, palaces, temples, and tombs, along with the role it has played in historic events.
Download or read book Gold written by Blaise Cendrars and published by Peter Owen Publishers. This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In January 1848, John Augustus Sutter, "the first American millionaire," was ruined by one blow of a pickaxe. That blow revealed gold in one of the streams in Sutter's Californian estate, triggering the Gold Rush that brought hordes of greedy miners from every corner of the world to Sutter's vast domain. This is the story of this bankrupt Swiss paper maker who abandoned his family and made his way to America to seek his fortune. From New York he pushed westward, eventually acquiring a huge tract of land of which he was virtually an independent ruler and which was on the point of making him "the richest man in the world" when the Gold Rush brought disaster. For the last 30 years of his life, Sutter tried vainly to get compensation from the U.S. government. He died in 1880, a broken old man. This is a work of breathless pace, fantastic humor, and soaring invention: an extraordinary story extraordinarily told.
Download or read book The Lure of Gold written by Hans-Gert Bachmann and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2006-10-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dazzlingly illustrated story of how the world's most beautiful element has influenced the art, economy, and society of every civilization. When Hesiod, the Greek poet of the eighth century B.C., recounted the history of the world as he understood it, he described the legendary first generation of mortal men, who lived in peace and ease, as the “people of gold.” Nearly three millennia later, we still refer to a particularly happy or prosperous era as a “golden age.” The reason Hesiod’s metaphor translates so perfectly into our own idiom is that the mystique of gold, the quintessential precious metal, is truly universal. The very scarcity of gold accounts for part of its allure and much of its monetary value: the total volume of gold ever mined, from prehistory to the present day, would probably fit inside a cube with sides just twenty yards (18 m) long. Yet gold’s incredible material properties also contribute to its appeal. Gold does not corrode, so it never loses its brilliant luster, and it can be chased, embossed, punched, drawn into wires, hammered foil-thin, and shaped in countless other ways. This engaging book reveals that the ways in which gold, in turn, has shaped humanity are no less numerous. Since prehistory, for example, artisans have fashioned gold into ritual objects and high-status ornaments; beginning in the sixth century B.C., gold served as currency; and even in the modern era it has encouraged wars of conquest and triggered frantic gold rushes. Each chapter is devoted to one historical epoch, explaining how people of that time mined and refined gold, and how they used it for cultural and economic purposes. Two hundred gorgeous color photographs illustrate golden objets d’art as diverse as the funerary masks of Tutankhamen; intricate Celtic jewelry; a figurine of “El Dorado,” a pre-Columbian chief said to ritualistically cover his entire body in gold dust; bejeweled medieval reliquaries and crucifixes; and even Gustav Klimt’s gold-drenched canvas The Kiss. With its authoritative yet lively text and these arresting illustrations, The Lure of Gold sets, as it were, the gold standard for books on material culture.
Download or read book Going for Gold written by Jack H. Morris and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2010-05-10 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Details how Newmont Mining revolutionized the gold mining industry and remains the second largest gold miner in the world Jack H. Morris asserts that Newmont is the link between early gold mining and today’s technology-driven industry. We learn how the company’s founder and several early leaders grew up in gold camps and how, in 1917, the company helped finance South Africa’s largest gold company and later owned famous gold mines in California and Colorado. In the 1960s the company developed the process to capture “invisible gold” from small distributions of the metal in large quantities of rock, thereby opening up the rich gold field at Carlin, Nevada. Modern gold mining has all the excitement and historic significance of the metal’s colorful past. Instead of panning for ready nuggets, today’s corporate miners must face heavy odds by extracting value from ores containing as little as one-hundredth of an ounce per ton. In often-remote locations, where the capital cost of a new mine can top $2 billion, 250-ton trucks crawl from half mile deep pits and ascend, beetle-like, loaded with ore for extraction of the minute quantities of gold locked inside. Morris had unique access to company records and the cooperation of more than 80 executives and employees of the firm, but the company exercised no control over content. The author tells a story of discovery and scientific breakthrough; strong-willed, flamboyant leaders like founder Boyce Thompson; corporate raiders such as T. Boone Pickens and Jimmy Goldsmith; shakedowns by the Indonesian government and monumental battles with the French over the richest mine in Peru; and learning to operate in the present environmental regulatory climate. This is a fascinating story of the metal that has ignited passions for centuries and now sells for over $1,000 an ounce.
Download or read book City of Gold written by Ann Gorra and published by Agio Publishing House. This book was released on 2010-09 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CITY OF GOLD gives the readers a view of Cagayan de Oro's history through the stories of people who have made the place their home. Read about the local Boy Scout who crossed paths with General Douglas MacArthur, one of the icons of WW II, at the Cagayan de Oro port; the young girl who witnessed the 97-kilometer Bataan Death March and later emerged as one of Cagayan de Oro's most influential women; the trader who fled war-torn Jolo, settled in the city and became a successful shirt designer; the inventor of the ubiquitous motorela; "Lady Love," the first female DJ of the city's first live FM radio outlet, who later built our Radyo Bombo station; and many others. Cagayan de Oro is no ordinary city because of these extraordinary people. And they tell us their fascinating stories in the CITY OF GOLD. "Truly an enjoyable read... gives a vivid picture of the uniqueness of Cagayan de Oro as well as an intimate look into the personal lives of the prominent Kagay-anons who shaped the CITY OF GOLD. Wonderful job, Annie." -- Irene Yatco, publisher and editor of the Philippine Journal, Vancouver, British Columbia ABOUT THE AUTHOR, ANN GORRA Ann Gorra was born in Balingasag, Misamis Oriental, and moved at the age of two with her family to Cagayan de Oro. She studied mass communication from Silliman University and then worked as a TV host in Cagayan de Oro. Ann emigrated to the North America in 1989 and now lives with her husband in Vancouver, Canada. She returns regularly to the city of her childhood, and maintains contact with many Kagay-anons living in the Philippines and around the world. Ann has written articles about Filipino-Canadians for the Philippine Daily Inquirer in Manila and for Filipinas, a magazine based in Daly City, California.
Download or read book A Splendid Exchange written by William J. Bernstein and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2009-05-14 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Financial Times and Economist Best Book of the Year exploring world trade from Mesopotamia in 3,000 BC to modern globalization. How did trade evolve to the point where we don’t think twice about biting into an apple from the other side of the world? In A Splendid Exchange, William J. Bernstein, bestselling author of The Birth of Plenty, traces the story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. Journey from ancient sailing ships carrying silk from China to Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly on spices in the sixteenth; from the American trade battles of the early twentieth century to the modern era of televisions from Taiwan, lettuce from Mexico, and T-shirts from China. Bernstein conveys trade and globalization not in political terms, but rather as an ever-evolving historical constant, like war or religion, that will continue to foster the growth of intellectual capital, shrink the world, and propel the trajectory of the human species. “[An] entertaining and greatly enlightening book.” —The New York Times “A work of which Adam Smith and Max Weber would have approved.” —Foreign Affairs “[Weaves] skillfully between rollicking adventures and scholarship.” —Pietra Rivoli, author of The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy
Download or read book New World Gold written by Elvira Vilches and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-05-15 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The discovery of the New World was initially a cause for celebration. But the vast amounts of gold that Columbus and other explorers claimed from these lands altered Spanish society. The influx of such wealth contributed to the expansion of the Spanish empire, but also it raised doubts and insecurities about the meaning and function of money, the ideals of court and civility, and the structure of commerce and credit. New World Gold shows that, far from being a stabilizing force, the flow of gold from the Americas created anxieties among Spaniards and shaped a host of distinct behaviors, cultural practices, and intellectual pursuits on both sides of the Atlantic. Elvira Vilches examines economic treatises, stories of travel and conquest, moralist writings, fiction, poetry, and drama to reveal that New World gold ultimately became a problematic source of power that destabilized Spain’s sense of trust, truth, and worth. These cultural anxieties, she argues, rendered the discovery of gold paradoxically disastrous for Spanish society. Combining economic thought, social history, and literary theory in trans-Atlantic contexts, New World Gold unveils the dark side of Spain’s Golden Age.
Download or read book Forged in Gold written by Larry Gragg and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-05 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by Dr. Larry Gragg, Curators' Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus of History at Missouri University of Science and Technology, Forged in Gold tells the tale of our university's 150-year history, from its hardscrabble "country academy" origins in the 1870s to its position today as one of the nation's top STEM-focused research universities.The coffee-table style book weaves iconic campus events and historical photos into a deeper appreciation for the way the campus has shaped the world, from the post-Civil War Industrial Age to the space race and beyond. Explore the rich backstories and little-known history of Missouri S&T as you get to know this land-grant institution on an entirely new level.
Download or read book Pyrite written by David Rickard and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-08 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most people have heard of pyrite, the brassy yellow mineral sometimes known as fool's gold. Pyrite behaves like stone and shines like metal, and its dual nature makes it a source of both metals and sulfur. Despite being the most common sulfide mineral on the earth's surface, pyrite's bright crystals have attracted the attention of many different cultures, and its nearly identical visual appearance to gold has led to tales of fraud, trickery, and claims of alchemy. Pyrite occupies a unique place in human history: it became an integral part of mining culture in America during the 19th century, and it has a presence in ancient Sumerian texts, Greek philosophy, and medieval poetry, becoming a symbol for anything overvalued. In Pyrite, geochemist and author David Rickard blends basic science and historical narrative to describe the many unique ways pyrite is integral to our world. He explains the basic science of oxidation, showing us why the mineral looks like gold, and inspects death zones of present oceans where pyrite-related hydrogen sulfide destroys oxygen in the waters. Rickard analyzes pyrite's role in manufacturing sulfuric acid and discusses the significant appearance of the mineral in literature, history, and the development of societies. The mineral's influence extends from human evolution and culture, through science and industry, to our understanding of ancient, modern, and future earth environments. Energetic and accessible, Pyrite is the first book to show readers the history and science of a mineral that helped make the modern world.
Download or read book Brief History of the Gold Standard GS in the United States written by Craig K. Elwell and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2011-10 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. monetary system is based on paper money backed by the full faith and credit of the fed. gov't. The currency is neither valued in, backed by, nor officially convertible into gold or silver. Through much of its history, however, the U.S. was on a metallic standard of one sort or another. On occasion, there are calls to return to such a system. Such calls are usually accompanied by claims that gold or silver backing has provided considerable economic benefits in the past. This report reviews the history of the GS in the U.S. It clarifies the dates during which the GS was used, the type of GS in operation at the various times, and the statutory changes used to alter the GS and eventually end it. It is not a discussion of the merits of the GS. A print on demand oub.
Download or read book U S History Grades 6 12 written by George R. Lee and published by Mark Twain Media. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mark Twain U.S. History: People and Events 1607–1865 social studies book highlights the decisions and events that have played an important part in shaping America during that time. This middle school history book includes profiles of the people who made those decisions and a timeline of events. U.S. History: People and Events takes your students on a journey through America’s past and challenges them with activities to spark discussion and deepen their understanding for how America came to be. These activities include: -map analysis -discussion questions -graphic organizers -research opportunities Mark Twain Media Publishing Company proudly creates engaging supplemental books and decorations for middle-grade and upper-grade classrooms. Designed by leading educators, Mark Twain products cover a range of subjects, including science, language arts, fine arts, government, social studies, history, character, and conduct.
