"The book is an interesting account of the international monetary conferences of 1867, 1878, 1881, and 1892, and is recommended to anyone who wishes to become informed of diplomatic efforts to resist the dominant market and political forces reflected in the above data. The first conference, of representatives of twenty leading commercial nations, convened in Paris at the invitation of Emperor Louis Napoleon and agreed to recommend to their governments formal negotiations toward a common gold coinage.

The Conference of 1867 "marked the pinnacle of success for international coinage advocates" (p. 45), but its recommendations received little support at home. Governments were reluctant to be seen to tinker with the contents of their coins, and significant bimetallic sentiment of the silver interests undermined support for a universal gold coinage.

The other three conferences were convened at the invitation of United States government under pressure from domestic silver interests to arrest the decline of silver, primarily by adopting a bimetallic standard with a fixed silver/gold ratio that greatly overvalued the former."