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The Gold Standard: An Alternative History of the Twentieth Century
What would the twentieth century have looked like on a gold standard? What would have happened to the state without its money printer? What would have happened to prices, wages, living standards, capital markets, politics, energy production, technology, and education?
In The Gold Standard, internationally bestselling author Saifedean Ammous answers these questions with a unique alternative history that is one-third history, one-third novel, and one-third economic analysis.
In 1911, French aviation pioneer Louis Blériot partners with the Wright brothers to build the Blériot Transport Corporation (BTC)—an airplane-based decentralized peer-to-peer gold-settlement network. Dismissed by economists and the press as a doomed eccentricity, BTC alters world history in 1915 when it offers Europeans the chance to escape central bank war inflation by exporting their wealth to neutral countries. The result is a global financial panic that bankrupts the world’s major central banks and destroys their currencies. The World War comes to an abrupt end, and the fiat money experiment is strangled in its crib.
A new world order emerges around a free-market decentralized gold standard, and an entirely different twentieth century unfolds. Hard-money savings make capital plentiful and cheap, accelerating technological progress and increasing energy production. The death of central banking and the rise of a free market in banking force financial institutions to become safer and more responsible. Governments become accountable service providers, while citizens become customers who expect—and receive—better service at a lower cost year after year.
Much more unfolds in this gripping, serious, and thought-provoking story written in Ammous’s trademark engaging style.
In The Gold Standard, internationally bestselling author Saifedean Ammous answers these questions with a unique alternative history that is one-third history, one-third novel, and one-third economic analysis.
In 1911, French aviation pioneer Louis Blériot partners with the Wright brothers to build the Blériot Transport Corporation (BTC)—an airplane-based decentralized peer-to-peer gold-settlement network. Dismissed by economists and the press as a doomed eccentricity, BTC alters world history in 1915 when it offers Europeans the chance to escape central bank war inflation by exporting their wealth to neutral countries. The result is a global financial panic that bankrupts the world’s major central banks and destroys their currencies. The World War comes to an abrupt end, and the fiat money experiment is strangled in its crib.
A new world order emerges around a free-market decentralized gold standard, and an entirely different twentieth century unfolds. Hard-money savings make capital plentiful and cheap, accelerating technological progress and increasing energy production. The death of central banking and the rise of a free market in banking force financial institutions to become safer and more responsible. Governments become accountable service providers, while citizens become customers who expect—and receive—better service at a lower cost year after year.
Much more unfolds in this gripping, serious, and thought-provoking story written in Ammous’s trademark engaging style.
430 pages, Hardcover
Published November 10, 2025
45 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
About the author
Saifedean Ammous
19 books593 followersSaifedean Ammous is an internationally best-selling author and economist. In 2018, Ammous authored The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, the best-selling book on bitcoin, published in 36 languages. In 2021, he published The Fiat Standard: The Debt Slavery Alternative to Human Civilization, available in 12 languages. In 2023, he published Principles of Economics, a comprehensive introduction to economics in the Austrian school tradition. Saifedean teaches courses on the economics of bitcoin, and economics in the Austrian school tradition, on his online learning platform Saifedean.com, and also hosts The Bitcoin Standard Podcast.
Saifedean was a professor of Economics at the Lebanese American University from 2009 to 2019. He holds a PhD in Sustainable Development from Columbia University, a Masters in Development Management from the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering from the American University of Beirut.
Saifedean was a professor of Economics at the Lebanese American University from 2009 to 2019. He holds a PhD in Sustainable Development from Columbia University, a Masters in Development Management from the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering from the American University of Beirut.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 3, 2025
The Gold Standard offers a sharp and accessible look at why sound money matters. Saifedean Ammous explains economic concepts with clarity and purpose, showing how monetary incentives shape real-world behavior. Insightful, timely, and very worth reading.
December 16, 2025
I usually do not write reviews and only rate books for my own reference, but this one encouraged me to share a few thoughts. Before anything else, I want to acknowledge that the author clearly states in the introduction that he is aware of the limitations and potential pitfalls of crafting a fictional alternative history. He openly notes that he does not want to mislead readers or waste their time with a narrative that pretends to be factual. I appreciate this honesty and self awareness, and it sets a thoughtful foundation for the book.
With that said, while I enjoyed the read and have genuinely liked the author's other works, I felt that The Gold Standard sometimes falls into a simplification fallacy when reimagining how history might have unfolded under a different monetary framework. Changing a single event or variable in the past does not produce a future where only that element is altered. Real history is a complex adaptive system, shaped by countless interdependent forces that interact in unpredictable ways.
For example, many major technologies such as nuclear energy, GPS, and the internet emerged directly from military driven incentives. In a world without major conflicts or geopolitical pressures, the motivations and pathways for such innovations would have been very different, and in some cases might not have existed at all. Human psychology adds additional complexity, since we cannot assume that people would behave, innovate, or take risks in the same way within an entirely different economic and historical environment.
Bitcoin provides another useful illustration. It did not arise in a vacuum but emerged specifically because of the flaws, frictions, and limitations of the modern fiat and banking system. Without those imperfections, the cypherpunks and Satoshi would not have been motivated to combine the technologies and ideas that ultimately became Bitcoin. Even after its creation, Bitcoin grew through trial and error and inspired thousands of alternative coins, many of which experienced significant market failures. This messy, adaptive process reflects how innovation typically evolves in the real world rather than through clean, linear change.
So while The Gold Standard is an engaging and imaginative thought experiment, and while the author is transparent about its limitations, the narrative sometimes oversimplifies the complex nature of historical development, technological evolution, and human behavior. It is a compelling story, but the real world is far more intricate than any neatly constructed alternative model.
Despite these critiques, I would still recommend this book. It is thought provoking, enjoyable, and worth reading for anyone interested in monetary history and economic imagination. I look forward to learning from and reading more of Saifedean's work
Disclaimer: This review reflects my own thoughts and opinions, AI assisted for clarity and proofreading.
With that said, while I enjoyed the read and have genuinely liked the author's other works, I felt that The Gold Standard sometimes falls into a simplification fallacy when reimagining how history might have unfolded under a different monetary framework. Changing a single event or variable in the past does not produce a future where only that element is altered. Real history is a complex adaptive system, shaped by countless interdependent forces that interact in unpredictable ways.
For example, many major technologies such as nuclear energy, GPS, and the internet emerged directly from military driven incentives. In a world without major conflicts or geopolitical pressures, the motivations and pathways for such innovations would have been very different, and in some cases might not have existed at all. Human psychology adds additional complexity, since we cannot assume that people would behave, innovate, or take risks in the same way within an entirely different economic and historical environment.
Bitcoin provides another useful illustration. It did not arise in a vacuum but emerged specifically because of the flaws, frictions, and limitations of the modern fiat and banking system. Without those imperfections, the cypherpunks and Satoshi would not have been motivated to combine the technologies and ideas that ultimately became Bitcoin. Even after its creation, Bitcoin grew through trial and error and inspired thousands of alternative coins, many of which experienced significant market failures. This messy, adaptive process reflects how innovation typically evolves in the real world rather than through clean, linear change.
So while The Gold Standard is an engaging and imaginative thought experiment, and while the author is transparent about its limitations, the narrative sometimes oversimplifies the complex nature of historical development, technological evolution, and human behavior. It is a compelling story, but the real world is far more intricate than any neatly constructed alternative model.
Despite these critiques, I would still recommend this book. It is thought provoking, enjoyable, and worth reading for anyone interested in monetary history and economic imagination. I look forward to learning from and reading more of Saifedean's work
Disclaimer: This review reflects my own thoughts and opinions, AI assisted for clarity and proofreading.
November 27, 2025
Saifedean has written a real masterpiece. As he describes this is one third history book, one third novel and one third economics textbook. That works brilliantly!
You will learn how and why the Gold Standard came about - also bimetallism and how Isaac Newton ensured that England got onto the Gold Standard early at the expense of the other nations who ended up stuck on Silver. You will learn about the technologies that increased the velocity of money, leading to the Achilles Heel of Gold and how all this led to World War 1 with incredible fraud and treason being perpetrated on the people of Britain (by their politicians and bankers) - while similar treason was being committed on the American (USA) population at about the same time. All of this is supported with official historical documentation.
You will understand the timeline of the Bolshevik revolution and the World Wars as well as the major players and the parts they really played. This is important because in the second part of the book he imagines an alternative 20th Century in which the Gold Standard had prevailed - enabled by some amazing technology that addressed Gold's Achilles heel.
He does a thorough job of explaining how the alternative 20th Century came about and he runs numerous thought experiments about many aspects of government, banking, commerce and society that give many interesting (and often counter-intuitive) results and insights - including a few that will certainly surprise you.
Needless to say - all of this is rather relevant given the upcoming discussions around Ukraine and Israel/Gaza - not to mention the inevitable collapse of the current Fiat Money system. We may well be at a similar historical pivot point, just as he describes in the book and he has worked out all the scenarios.
You will learn how and why the Gold Standard came about - also bimetallism and how Isaac Newton ensured that England got onto the Gold Standard early at the expense of the other nations who ended up stuck on Silver. You will learn about the technologies that increased the velocity of money, leading to the Achilles Heel of Gold and how all this led to World War 1 with incredible fraud and treason being perpetrated on the people of Britain (by their politicians and bankers) - while similar treason was being committed on the American (USA) population at about the same time. All of this is supported with official historical documentation.
You will understand the timeline of the Bolshevik revolution and the World Wars as well as the major players and the parts they really played. This is important because in the second part of the book he imagines an alternative 20th Century in which the Gold Standard had prevailed - enabled by some amazing technology that addressed Gold's Achilles heel.
He does a thorough job of explaining how the alternative 20th Century came about and he runs numerous thought experiments about many aspects of government, banking, commerce and society that give many interesting (and often counter-intuitive) results and insights - including a few that will certainly surprise you.
Needless to say - all of this is rather relevant given the upcoming discussions around Ukraine and Israel/Gaza - not to mention the inevitable collapse of the current Fiat Money system. We may well be at a similar historical pivot point, just as he describes in the book and he has worked out all the scenarios.
December 3, 2025
Another brilliant book from Saifedean. He re-imagines the twentieth century on sound money and the contrast with our fiat reality is devastating.
December 12, 2025
A brilliant book! I’ve read all of Saifedean’s previous works, and I think this might be my favourite so far! The central thought-experiment is clear, clever, and compelling - I found it super interesting to see how he approached this topic. Highly recommended for anyone interested in history or economics.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews