Gold

Gold remains a highly prized and impactful resource within the global economy. From the insatiable demand for gold in the electronics that permeate our day-to-day lives to the environmental desolation driven by gold mining in the Amazon, the gold trade continues to touch the lives and livelihoods of people across the world.

Bloomfield and Maconachie tell the intriguing story of the yellow metal, tracing the seismic shifts in the industry over the past few decades. They show how huge purchases of gold reserves by BRICS countries mark the shifting balance of power away from the West, and how rising affluence in India and China has led to a surging demand for gold jewellery, calling into question current approaches to make supply chains more responsible. Explaining why gold is so difficult to regulate and why it is only becoming more so, the authors suggest ways we could, collectively, make practices work better for the countless workers and communities who suffer at the producer end of the supply chain. Linking local to global, producer to consumer, and gold’s extraction from the Earth to the financial centres that fuel it, this book offers a probing analysis that reveals who wins and who loses and what this means for the future of gold.

Michael Bloomfield is Assistant Professor in International Development at the University of Bath.
Roy Maconachie is Associate Professor in International Development at the University of Bath.