For millennia; across the globe; this gleaming and incorruptible element has beguiled humankind; attracting treasure seekers; artistically adorning the dead and the living; and symbolically representing power; wealth; divinity and eternity. Gold embodies paradoxes: the very softness that made it ill-suited to making tools may have prompted its use as currency; and throughout history it has been used to symbolize the antithesis of true value - in critiques of wealth and idolatry - almost as much as it has compelled admiration. It has also often been a flashpoint for collisions between cultures with very different value systems. Indeed; the questions posed by the human desire for gold are central questions about value itself and about meaning in the broadest sense.Gold offers a lively; critical look at the cultural history of the noblest of metals; examining the history of gold broadly across many cultures and time periods: from controversies surrounding its religious use to its place in the history of colonialism to its modern role in science; gold has played so many roles that it is difficult to fasten the metal itself in ones sights. Together; the book and its many images explore perceptions; myths; stories and facts about gold over the centuries and across the world; providing compelling examples from history; art; literature and film and bringing the story up to the present; a time when the anxieties surrounding gold have changed but the persistent lust for gold continues to produce new moral and physical perils.
#2442564 in eBooks 2017-03-02 2017-03-02File Name: B01MXIXUIC
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