ABSTRACT
The aim of A History of Gold and Money is modestly stated as an attempt ‘to provide some clarification of the problems which historically money has raised’. A History of Gold and Money is precisely that. Vilar sets out to explain the role of precious metals by describing the history of their use as a monetary medium from ‘primitive’ and ‘Ancient’ times up to the early twentieth century. A wide range of explanations can be assessed and an archaeology of the complex relationship between money and society be reconstructed. The bulk of the rest of the book is concerned with subsequent developments in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially with attempts to maintain the flow of precious metals, the rise of new institutions for the management of money (banking, etc) and the actual history of circulation in Europe itself.
