All That Glittered

A praiseworthy feat, as much for Alborn's methods as for his results….The extensive inventory of digitized sources…is remarkable and may facilitate a new way of seeing the past….By design…Alborn's book reflects the interest of those Britons who wrote, read, and were written about when it came to gold….Alborn is skilled at navigating the cultural contradictions swirling about gold; he is also artful in choosing the term coinages…as 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 charts—there is one "word cloud"—Alborn 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 materialAlborn 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 idlenessor 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. 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 *