Battles for the Standard (Modern Economic and Social History: 3)

the long version

"This is a history of the monetary developments in the international economy of the nineteenth century. It reviews the monetary developments in the core economies of the period: Britain, the United States, France and India. Particular attention is given to the expansion of the gold standard in the context of the intense national and international debates about the role of precious metals and examines the conflict between supporters of gold, silver and bimetallism, both in terms of competing financial and economic theories and in terms of the varying social and cultural backgrounds that informed them. The main thrust of the work is that the sheer plurality of ideas and contexts helped to ensure the eventual victory of the gold standard, despite the inherent superiority of bimetallic systems."--Jacket.