This book is a historical analysis of the gold standard from 1880-1914 focusing on the origins and workings of the gold standard as an international system. The system functioned smoothly until the onset of the First World War, when the foundations began to weaken. By the end of the 1920s the gold standard had been abandoned by most countries until the disastrous attempt to revive it in the 1930s. This book is comprehensive and definitive.