ABSTRACT
The gold standard is a subject that has garnered much attention, but its geography remains strangely uncharted. Monetary systems in which gold coin and assets convertible into gold provided the basis for the domestic circulation are commonly portrayed as the normal state of affairs prior to 1913. England, in this view, was on the gold standard for two centuries, ever since Sir Isaac Newton, in his role as Master of the Mint, set a high silver price for the gold guinea in 1717, driving full-bodied silver coins out of circulation. Portugal, which relied heavily on the British market for exports and on British industry for imported manufactures, adopted gold in 1854. Germany’s accession to the gold standard dated from her Bismarckian unification. In conventional accounts, virtually the entire world was on some form of gold standard during the final part of the nineteenth century.
