Gold-standard

Edwin Kemmerer, "The Money Doctor", wrote this excellent approach to the Gold Standard to be understood for any undergraduate student. The simplicity and the scope of the analysis makes it a necessary part of the economic historian's book collection. With the experience Mr. Kemmerer had teaching and researching at Princeton University, as well as being an advisor of many goverments from the beginning of this century until his last days, he has the simpliest realistic examples to explain the different Gold Standard epochs.

Going through the Gold Exchange Standard, the Gold Bullion Standard and the Bretton Woods System he surveys quickly, but deeply, the way these monetary systems worked and how they died.

As a conclusion, Edwin Kemmerer's book should be considered a classical on Gold Standard, next to Barry Eichengreen's books. The simplicity of the book and the variety of themes it describes makes it an excellent buy.

This is a collection of Bordo's scholarly work on the Gold Standard. It's mostly academic in style and contains quite a lot which will be beyond the generalist reader. Also, there is little here that will be new for those who know the topic well.

What I did like was the introductary chapters which describe how the system worked at different times and also how differently its workings were percived amongst central figures at the time. I found this very useful since most texts would have you believe that the system was a smooth functioning and uniform entity. It obviously wasn't. Thank you MB for this valuable insight.

This book contains a very clear and concise explanation of all the key concepts in science, complete with sample questions throughout the chapters. Material is presented logically, and no time is wasted with extraneous details, it get's right to the point. There are 3 sample exams as well, and each has a detailed answer key, which is of key significance in helping one learn from their mistakes.

I used the book, particularly Eichengreen's chapter on modern perspectives, for a scholarly article I am writing. My field is speech communication rather than economics, and it seemed like a reasonably coherent book to me.

This book would probably make a good textbook for a college course on international financial affairs, but for someone like myself who just wanted to know what the gold standard was, this book is like pulling teeth. Mr. Eichengreen's "Golden Fetters" just goes into too much detail. By page nine of the introduction I wished I hadn't bought the book, by page 30 I was ready to donate it to the local library. If you live and breathe the stock market or international finance, this book may be for you. I'll just wait for a good documentary on the subject on television.

Barry Eichengreen's classic tale of financial hubris and mismanagement is almost ten years old. But it's still riveting. It's a broad-sweep introduction for generalists and financial buffs alike. And it's very well written too.

The book begins by describing the inner workings of the gold standard and how it evolved from its inception in the 1800s. This part may be a bit dry for generalists, but once underway all the terms become quite easy to understand. It's worth persevering since WW1changed the way the world worked. In particular, the after effects of the war made staying on gold much more difficult for countries experiencing persistent balance of payments deficits.

After that, Eichengreen goes on a tour of the interwar years and aims to show why the collapse of the gold standard and the plunge into depression had nothing to do with the US stock market and everything to do with rivalries and mismanagment on an international scale. The US crash was a symptom of an international crisis, not the cause.

All the classic powderkegs are there. The UK's mindless attempt to rejoin the gold standard at the overvalued, pre-war rate. Vindictive French domestic politics and the hyperinflations in continental Europe. Vindictive French attempts to humiliate the Germans over reparations. Bank runs in Germany and Austria. French and American attempts to bend the rules of the Gold Standard for their own national interests. Wild swings in capital flows from Europe to the US and back again. And the cataclysmic days of 1931 when the whole system collapsed under the weight of banking crises and currency contagion - in ways very similar to Asia in 1997.

After the crash, we get down to the Great Depression and who fared the best. This part is much shorter since it isn't as complicated. Basically, those countries that devalued quickly and went the free market route fared much better than those that didn't. Sweden was a star performer. The US can be found towards the back of the class. Dear old Blighty gets full marks for going solo, although more recent evidence shows this had more to do with throwing in the towel than playing with new ideas.

Strangely there's little mention of Japan. Nippon took a beating in the late 1920s while the yen remained fixed to gold. Once sterling devalued, the Japanese followed suit. The recovery was swift and full blooded. But the central bank forgot to stop the printing press once growth returned and ended up fighting hyperinflation in the late 1930s. So Eichengreen's line that giving up was the great panacea isn't quite as true as he'd have you believe.

All told, Golden Fetters is great. While it lacks facts and figures on banking problems and doesn't really provide convincing evidence on contagion, it works really well as a diary of contrasting fortunes in Europe and the US after the guns fell silent in 1918. If you like history then this is for you.

Eichengreen does it again. His easy-reading prose takes the reader through the monetary meanders of the post-WWI scenario, alternating historical narrative with clear, in-depth looks into economic theory and economic thought. The book features a comprehensive analysis of the intricacies of the interwar gold standard. The international conferences, the German hyperinflation, the roller-coaster of the Franc between 1924 and 1926 and the monetary determinants of the Great Depression are studied with extreme accuracy. This magnificient account will not disappoint either the academic reader or the learned non-specialist.

A collection of ads and drawings of silverplate patterns. I have 5 different patterns that we collect. This book only had 2 of the five.

This book has lots of nice pictures and drawings that show good detail of the different patterns. There are lots of patterns to choose from including some that are very old. The only problem is that it doesn't really have a good variety of brands. Also, it took me a while to figure out where the values are. Once I figured that out, I got real tired of flipping back to the front cover over and over to see what my pieces were worth. However, if you've got the right brands this could be the perfect book for you!

If you have an old set of silverplate or odd pieces, especially older ornate pieces of flatware,this is a good guide, well illustrated, with many reproductions of original catalogs. I found pattern names of several odd serving pieces which led to a search for matching place settings.

I don't like this book. In fact I'm going to return it. It doesn't explain things well. I recommend Princeton Review stuff. But be careful whatever you get. Ask around. Its the only way.

I found the science review to be very clear, lots of illustrations especially clear review in organic chemistry and physics. I felt there could have been more verbal review info but the 3 exams were tough enough to make up for it. Overall: excellent!

I used this lab plus the Sybex CCNA e-Trainer for 3 weeks and passed 640-507 with a 945/1000 score. This lab isn't perfect as it doesn't replicate the entire IOS command set, but it does give you what you need to become a CCNA.

The Sybex Gold lab edition takes most router commands at any piont in the labs, and just like real routers they accept short abriviations of commands, unlike Cisco's v-labs that require the exact command in full syntax for each short activity. The writen lab activities cover about 1/4 of the most important information from the first four semesters of the Cisco Netwoking academy,
's lab program, it very convientaly puts togeather important second semester information with fourth semester information and it does a good job. This lab is not built the same way as the official Cisco lab set up, and you can't change the change the serial lines...

Instead of buying routers, I bought the Sybex CCNA Virtual Lab. It was good and I gave it a great Amazon rating. However, this is, and I am guesing here, the Second edition, which basically is just more routers, switches and hosts to configure and work within a fixed network environment. Works great, with more supported commands and worth every cent --much better then any Cisco software product! You MUST get the Todd Lammle Sybex CCNA Study Guide to read along with this product and then practice the labs. Good luck!

This book, by far, goes on my list of one of the worst books I have ever had the displeasure of reading. Pseudo-clever theoretical jumps about texts that oversimplify and completely decontextualize what the texts say. For example, "The Yellow Wallpaper," commonly thought to present a woman who is confined by her husband/doctor in the attic to lead to her eventual madness. According to Michaels, the short story is not about confinement and restriction, but about over-production of hysteria that the unnamed narrator is forced to engage in because of the ideology of her society. Interesting? maybe. Insightful about the Yellow Wallpaper? Not at all. If you are into post-structural theory masturbating over itself 244 pages, please buy this book.

Brillant and acute, if not somewhat idiosyncratic, close-readings of U.S. literary naturalistic texts. Michaels's buoyant prose and the oblique angles he takes in historicizing the texts make for a provoking, worthwhile read. His arguments concerning the masochistic contract (revision of the more conventional deleuzean understanding) and his exploration of the question 'why does the miser save?' are among the most compelling and thrilling close-reads--rather than 'applying theory' to the texts at hand, he offers ways in which the texts themselves produce critical theory. Fabulous work.

Fist of all for 75$ I would have expected the catalogue to be in color not only the cover and the back...
Secondly for Ancient coins such as Greek, Roman & Byzantine, It would have helped if an approximate weight for each coin was included...

Fist I would say for 75.00 , I would expect color when it comes to showing gold coins in a hard bound edition. The only color is on the paper cover. The book lacks depth in the largest market for collectors, U.S.A. . Not impressive !