History of Monetary Systems

by Alexander del Mar

This book covers the history of money and finance. It is the result of fifteen years of research by the author, Alexander Del Mar, in great libraries and coin collections of Europe. He traced the historical development in all ages of which any coinage or other numismatic remains exist. He reveals in the great states of antiquity that money was a pillar of the constitution, its usage, its meaning in different countries at different times and how private coinage originated. It describes it's physical component and the discussion about its value, whether the value of money constitutes the metal or paper from which it is made or its numerical relation, and what governmental body should control this.

Genres: Economics

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1896

About the author

Alexander del Mar, also Alex Delmar (1836–1926), was an American political economist, historian, numismatist and author. He was the first director of the Bureau of Statistics at the U.S. Treasury Department from 1866–69.

Del Mar was a rigorous historian who made important contributions to the history of money. During the mid-1890s, he was distinctly hostile to a central monetary role for gold as a commodity money, championing the cause of silver and its re-monetization as a prerogative of the state.

He believed strongly in the legal function of money. Del Mar dedicated much of his free time to original research in the great libraries and coin collections of Europe on the history of monetary systems and finance.

He died 7 Jan. 1926 in Little Falls, New York.

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

In full disclosure I should have researched more about this book before I picked it up. I have a degree in economics and enjoy reading books on monetary systems however this book is really more about the history of coinage. He has an exhaustive knowledge of the types of coins, their values and so forth but it never actually talks about the monetary system. It covers exchange rates to a degree and if you really are interested in why coins have the names they do you can find a lot here. I got to around page 350 of the 450ish some pages and then gave up.