Gold: The Race for the World's Most Seductive Metal

Gold is a great read, and is full of unexpected and little known information about gold mining (and mineral mining in general), and gold's role in economics. It might stimulate a greater curiosity in mining and geology on general. The range of subjects is breath-taking, from the gold pursuit of the Spanish on the New World to the West African gold empires to the history of the linkage of gold to currency to the development of gold based financial derivatives. I would love to have a long dinner with the author, just to hear what was left out!Criticisms are the weak organization, which is a challenge at best with so many sub-topics, and relatively little discussion of the environmental and social effects plaguing modern mining, especially when gold prices are so high. Indeed, the New York Times ran an article about massive recent off-the-books and illegal mercury imports into Indonesia, to support low level mining of gold.I am sure one could write much longer about the subject...but alas, the book must be of finite length!

I'm an academic who studies gold mining, so I was interested to read this book. It is an excellent overview of prospecting, gold mining, and gold markets. Hart moves easily between stories of his visits to gold mines and his interviews with financial experts. A major part of the book involves his retelling of the history of gold mining. Hart's prose is more than well-written, it is lively and at times epigrammatic ("gold mining is its own country"). It's impressive that he is able to explain heap leaching and gold hedging in terms that not only make sense to the nonspecialist, but actually makes these topics as interesting to us as they are to the engineers and financiers that make their living from them.Its worthwhile to compare this book with Bernstein's "The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession," which is the other major popular book on the subject of gold. Bernstein's book is older, more widely read, and tells a much more conventional story of gold, with more attention to the history of gold. It is also reads like it was written by a committee and punched up by a consultant. Hart's story is much more up to date and much better told, and brings a welcome focus to the post-2008 world of gold (especially after 2008, when the gold radically increased in value). If you had to chose to read only one book on gold, I'd recommend Hart's book over Bernstein's.That said, there are imperfections in this book. The book is clearly conceptualized and has an overarching narrative -- Hart wants to show us that our desire for gold is ultimately irrational, and leads to gold rushes (both geological and financial) that lead to dangerous and unpredictable outcomes for people caught up in them. Its a valuable lesson. But I feel Hart could have done a better job using this theme to lead us through the material in the book. Also, the chapters seem unfocused at times. Hart has trouble not telling a good story when he runs across one, and as a result chapters sometimes veer off in unexpected directions (the conquest of the Ashanti and the Brink's-Mat Heist are good examples of this). Hart's discussion of the impact of mining on developing nations doesn't draw on any of the social science in this area. And in a story of gold rushes in Africa, mightn't we expect more on the history of gold rushes in California, Australia or Alaska? In a book of this scope, I suppose its inevitable that only some topics get attention, and one drawback of this is that some readers may find the topics they care about discussed to little, or not enough.But overall, I give the book high marks. It conveys the excitement of mining without degenerating into overheated prose, and gives a good sense of the world of gold mining (particularly on the ground) to readers who will probably never run a sluice, let alone a flot mill. Insiders in the mining world will have to wade through some of what they know already to get at the bigger picture. But there's no doubt this is an excellent first step for readers interested in gold, especially for those wanting to go deeper -- half of the book is endnotes.Here's a list of the topics by chapter:The first chapter deals with illegal miners in South Africa.The second chapter tells the story of Spanish conquest in the new world and the role of gold in that story. The account of Pizarro's capture of Atahualpa here is better than that in Guns, Germs, and Steel.The third chapter examines the role of gold and silver in the world economy, especially in the nineteenth century, and covers arguments about bimetallism and the gold standard, topics that not every author manages to make as interesting as Hart does.The fourth chapter discusses Nixon's decision to decouple the dollar from gold.The fifth chapter is an account of the Carlin Trend in Nevada and the rise of a modern mining industry that exploits microscopic gold finds.The sixth chapter focuses on the growth of Barrick gold.The seventh chapter moves to China and tells the story both of the Linglong gold mine, and of the history of Chinese gold mining in general, with a focus on the changing relationship the government has to artisanal and medium-scale mining.The eighth chapter discusses the difficulties that majors have getting a foothold in China and the dangers of nationalization.Chapter nine describes the secretive world of gold trading and the securitization of gold as a commodity.Chapter ten continues this discussion of secrecy by describing the more secretive, and at times criminal, aspects of the gold market, ranging from bank robberies to price fixing.The last two chapters describe gold mining in Africa, both in Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The book describes both artisanal mining and the large-scale Kibali mine.So in sum, I'd highly recommend this book, despite its occasional imperfections.

This is collection of stories about the mining of gold and the exploitation of the people who mine it. It's a combination of the current world and the history of its exploration and extraction. The section on South Africa is very gritty and sad. The section on the Pizarro brothers and the unintended consequences of the import of gold into Europe is excellent. The author avoids a lot of technical jargon in ore processing but you get an accurate sense that it is not good for the local environment. For a book that's not really about monetary gold, some of the good and the bad points of the gold standard are discussed with clarity. The notes and index are excellent.Now, why do I knock of two stars? This sort of book about people and places cries out for photographs, maps, and diagrams. Hey, Simon and Schuster editors: a picture is worth a thousand words. You get no sense of depths, distances, etc without maps and diagrams. One minus star for some of the stories that are (a) boring and (b) don't following a beginning-middle-end narrative. You just get the middle: After being with Ralph Roberts for 26 pages, one never learns where he wound up after 1960.For its flaws, it is a book worth reading to get a perspective on gold's role in the modern world.

An excellent history of gold. I highly recommend for anyone who is considering buying gold. I was amazed at the amount of gold being traded on a daily basis. I was also fascinated by how volatile the price of gold is. The book made me think a lot about how currencies are manipulated. The story I missed was how gold and oil prices relate in this era of sanctions being placed against other countries. With the possibility of peace with Iran, there is a chance that oil prices may drop some simply due to the reduction of the transaction cost of oil due to dollars not being available to Iran.

Not sure that I agree with his assumptions about the value of gold. A strong argument can be made that there is a de facto gold standard in the world. His world view is leftist but so many are. Worth the read for the insightful descriptions globally. Reading Bernstein next.

"Gold", sheds light on the most mysterious commodity it the world.I'm not a gold bug, but interested in economics and found the book very well written and worth reading.

Kind of boring. Not technical enough. There are better books on Gold out there. Bernstein's Gold book is the right choice not this one.