During the century after 1750, Great Britain absorbed much of the world's supply of gold into its pockets, cupboards, and coffers when it became the only major country to adopt the gold standard as the sole basis of its currency. Over the same period, the nation's emergence was marked by a powerful combination of Protestantism, commerce, and military might, alongside preservation of its older social hierarchy.
In this rich and broad-ranging work, Timothy Alborn argues for a close connection between gold and Britain's national identity. Beginning with Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, which validated Britain's position as an economic powerhouse, and running through the mid-nineteenth century gold rushes in California and Australia, Alborn draws on contemporary descriptions of gold's value to highlight its role in financial, political, and cultural realms. He begins by narrating British interests in gold mining globally to enable the smooth operation of the gold standard. In addition to explaining the metal's function in finance, he explores its uses in war expenditure, foreign trade, religious observance, and ornamentation at home and abroad. Britons criticized foreign cultures for their wasteful and inappropriate uses of gold, even as it became a prominent symbol of status in more traditional features of British society, including its royal family, aristocracy, and military. Although
Britain had been ambivalent in its embrace of gold, ultimately it enabled the nation to become the world's most modern economy and to extend its imperial reach around the globe.
All That Glittered tells the story of gold as both a marker of value and a valuable commodity, while providing a new window onto Britain's ascendance after the 1750s.
Industry Reviews
"A praiseworthy feat, as much for Alborn's methods as for his resultsEL.The extensive inventory of digitized sourcesELis remarkable and may facilitate a new way of seeing the pastEL.By designELAlborn's book reflects the interest of those Britons who wrote, read, and were written about when it came to goldEL.Alborn is skilled at navigating the cultural contradictions swirling about gold; he is also artful in choosing the term coinagesELas a way to connect
culture to commerce without getting lost in the details of politics or finance." -- Paul Lucier, Victorian Studies
"All That Glittered: Britain's Most Precious Metal from Adam Smith to the Gold Rush is a praiseworthy feat, as much for Alborn's methods as for his results. Over ten thousand sources were surveyed, scanned, and searched (with the assistance of ten Ph.D. students duly praised in the acknowledgments) to discover the multiple meanings of gold. The extensive inventory of digitized sources -- from gothic romances, travelogues, poems, and plays to currency
pamphlets, encyclopedias, newspapers, and political polemics -- is remarkable and may facilitate a new way of seeing the past." -- Paul Lucier, Victorian Studies
"Deftly blending cultural and economic history...All That Glittered is a mining project in its own right. Online prospecting opened unexpected shafts, yet rather than dazzle with chartsDLthere is one "word cloud"DLAlborn spins the data into a seamless narrative spanning the 150-odd years between the Brazilian gold rush and the Californian and Australian gold rushes." -- Kris Lane, American Historical Review
"It is the thesis of Tim Alborn's remarkable All That Glittered that those British cities (and many others) became internationally hegemonic at the same time as (and perhaps because) their inhabitants rejected gold as a regular marker of social class. Britons idealized gold as the basis for their state monetary system while simultaneously rejecting its display by private individuals. Gold was somehow both the foundation of strong, lasting institutions
and a possible indicator of deep moral failings....Too good a historian to force his materialâAlborn freely admits tensions, complications, or counter-examples." -- Rebecca L. Spang, Times Literary Supplement
"In All That Glittered, Timothy Alborn accomplishes that rare feat-a history that is at once finely grounded and spectacularly creative. This book recasts the geopolitics of gold, its monetary career, and its mesmerizing claim to define civilization itself." -- Christine Desan, author of Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism
"Tim Alborn has a reputation as one of the most original historians of modern Britain, and All That Glittered yet again shows his ability to transform debates. His novel and imaginative approach to the culture of gold shows how it was castigated as useless adornment or praised laudable distinction, wasted in Iberian idleness or used in British enterprise. These shifting and contested meanings are complemented by a subtle grasp of how Britain lost and
obtained its gold through paying allies in war or by trade.ÂÂ Here is an impressive fusion of cultural and economic history, told with great insight and style." -- Martin Daunton, University of Cambridge
"A polished exploration of the debates over gold in the long eighteenth century, this book succeeds in transforming gold from a technical instrument of the fiscal-military state to a conducting medium for many of the sacred cows of British national identity. It is a dazzling example of the kind of explorations and analysis of the complexities of cultural value and exchange now possible through searchable historical corpora. Alborn's All That Glittered
is a treasure trove of contemporary references and an unalloyed pleasure." -- Martin Hewitt, Anglia Ruskin University
