It is remarkable that the idea of the pre-World War I gold standard as a symbol for a truly liberal economic order, characterized by truly free and unhampered capital transfers, has resisted for so long. Originated among post-World War I financier elites and policymakers, it not only dominated thinking behind attempts at resuscitating the imagined “first era of globalization” in the 1920s, but also hampered or seriously delayed efforts to correct much exchange-rate dogmatism after the outbreak of the Great Depression. Especially because of the esthetic appeal of an economic order cleansed of assumedly aberrant political interference, the first gold standard era has retained its followers.

At the same time, there has been a steady current in the literature stressing the historical and regional contingency characterizing the pre-1914 gold standard era. As early as 1940, Nogaro wondered whether the gold standard could be rightly said to have existed at all; in 1964 Belgian economist Triffin addressed the standard's myths. Bloomfield's classic work showed how the gold standard of the nineteenth century differed in practice from the laissez-faire ideas of policymakers and intellectuals in the 1920s. More recently, economists as Bordo, Flandreau, and others have tried to substantiate these conjectures in mathematical models, making sense of the structure and implications of a monetary order differentiated according to center and periphery.

What has unfortunately been missing in the literature, are very detailed descriptions of policymaking at the micro-level, especially for the world's periphery. Steven Bryan's The Gold Standard at the Turn of the Twentieth Century is a very valuable attempt to do just that. In two case studies, one on Argentina, the other one on Japan, he eloquently rejects the interpretation of the gold standard's as carried by internationalist ideas as a shallow reading of events. For peripheral countries, reasons to go on gold were very much the “amusements of the [Londoner's] newspaper” Keynes referred to in the famous quote from The Economic Consequences of the Peace: (anti-British) economic rivalry and empire.

Argentina, Bryan argues, is a prime example of the former. The analysis is precise, and avoids the trap of picturing the policymaking process as a self-evident, linear event. Describing the debate in the polarities of English liberalism versus Listian developmentalism, Bryan carefully shows how Pellegrini, within the constraints of domestic politics, worked towards gold standard adoption within the mold of distinctly national goals. Indeed, when Pellegrini invoked liberalist and internationalist ideas, he did so in order to show their inapplicability to developing countries (including England in the past!)

Japan's ambitions, on the other hand, were yet different. In the politically volatile region of (East-)Asia, it saw the gold standard as a shortcut towards militarism and imperialism. Again, Bryan takes great care not to confuse the disproportionally heavy weight of Finance Minister Matsukata Masayoshi's opinion with the ideological patchwork of the whole policymaking constituency. Industrialists (bent on expanding exports to gold and silver standard countries) were represented, as were the country's academic economists, with their penchant for bimetallism. Yet they were ultimately overruled by Matsukata, who was not afraid to sabotage or manipulate the findings of the 1894 Commission on the Monetary System; who heavy-handedly pushed his own agenda (military buildup) when deciding to receive the Chinese indemnity in gold, and not as 50 percent silver/50 percent gold; and so on. Very helpful as well are the manifold references to economic journalism of the day, and the respective strands of economic thought they stood for. Slightly longer than the Argentinean case study, I felt that Bryan devoted more time to the Japan story; or it may be that sources for studying Japan's gold standard adoption are more numerous and better organized. In any case, I felt great satisfaction with his discussion.

This being said, a book review should also address shortcomings. In a paradoxical way, the book's greatest strength at once constitutes a weakness. Determined to provide a very intricate picture of the policymaking process, Bryan was prevented by time and/or resources and/or editorial limits to include more cases, possibly exploring yet other reasons why countries went on gold. On a related note, the great detail of the cases will mostly appeal to specialists, who, I suppose, will mostly want to consult the book for either the Argentinean or the Japanese case (and probably I would too, were it not for this review). Yet, in view of Bryan's ambitions and his clearly flawless command of primary sources, this really is a minor concern, which should certainly not distract us from the book's scope or achievements.

In short, I strongly recommend this book for economic history students, and researchers doing historical research on economic and political reasons for adopting a hard peg.