Silver coinage developed accompanied by locally produced silver. Gold was introduced in the late first century bce. Both were reformed by Nero, and the system eventually collapsed.

After uncovering oil’s role in decolonization, one question immediately emerges: what about other natural resources? Although oil is neither the only fossil fuel on which we depend nor the only resource that produces a substantial amount of wealth, it appears to be the only natural resource that can lead to separate independence. This chapter compares oil and other natural resources to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between natural resources and territorial sovereignty. Through an investigation of coal, precious metals, and natural gas, it argues that natural resources can lead colonial areas to divergent outcomes – namely amalgamation, separate independence, and secessionism – after decolonization depending on (1) their commercial value and (2) the timing of their discovery. While resources with low economic value did not affect the territoriality of states, those with high value resulted in three different outcomes. Resources discovered before or during the process of colonization often resulted in amalgamation into a larger entity. Those discovered between colonization and decolonization often resulted in separate independence. Finally, those discovered after decolonization often led to secessionism.

Like names, the ‘physiognomy’ attributed to the gods by the Greeks helps to differentiate divine entities from one another or, conversely, to link them together, making explicit the nature and the scope of their powers. This chapter addresses the meaning of the adjective khruskomas, ‘with golden hair’, frequently attributed to Apollo: does it mean that the Greeks had in mind a blond god? The analysis of texts and images shows that it is much more complicated. First, onomastic attributes and iconographic attributes do not necessarily coincide. Depending on the media, craftsmen may represent a dark-haired Apollo without this being seen as a contradiction with the images conveyed by the poets. Immortals, unlike humans, take on any appearance they want. Second, the colour of gold is not exactly equivalent to blondness (for example, that of Demeter xanthe): the brilliance of the incorruptible metal expresses the radiance that emanates from the young god, notably through his eternally young hair. Khrusokomas thus expresses one of the manifold facets of Phoibos by summoning the image of his delphic sanctuary, where opulence reigns. The chapter thus shows that the colour of Apollo’s hair deserves to be taken seriously.

The conventional narrative of the 1930s portrays international monetary cooperation as non-existent, disappearing with the collapse of the gold standard during the early years of the decade and reappearing only with World War II and Bretton Woods. I argue, in contrast, that the Western democracies – foremost Britain, France, and the United States – put an end to their monetary war and moved towards peace with the Tripartite Agreement of 1936, through which they agreed to consult on matters of mutual interest and work towards greater stability. To achieve these ends, they created reciprocal gold facilities that brought coherence to the international monetary system and enabled stabilizing exchange intervention. Exploring the operation of these facilities sheds light on the evolution of the international monetary system and the ability of technical cooperation to provide a foundation for broader collaboration.

This chapter provides an overview of Alexander’s wealth by examining the sources of his income and his expenditure. In connection to the expenditure, the chapter provides an overview of Alexander’s coinage. The chapter suggests that while Alexander’s campaigns brought tremendous wealth to the king, much of his useable wealth was absorbed by the army necessary for the campaigns.

The growth of the sugar plantation and gold and diamond mining economies and the growth of the port cities

Australia has a vast range of renewable and non-renewable energy resources. These resources generate energy for domestic and international consumers for a range of different residential and industrial purposes. The acceleration of climate change and the need to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions has opened up new opportunities to generate energy in a less carbon-intensive manner. The shift away from carbon-intensive fossil fuel energy generation has accelerated markets for renewable energy generation from kinetic processes like solar, wind and hydrogen. Historically, the energy framework in Australia has been dominated by non-renewable energy generation. This is largely a consequence of the fact that Australia has extensive coal and gas reserves. Black and brown coal reserves are particularly prevalent in the eastern states of New South Wales and Victoria. Australia’s identified conventional gas resources are extensive and extraction has increased threefold over the past two decades despite the accelerating climate emergency. Most of the recoverable reserves of conventional gas are located off the west and north-west coasts.

Using several examples, I discuss the features of Byzantine icons as a form of representational art. In addition to tensions which can occur within the image itself, I point out tensions between the expression of a glory which surpasses the limitations of the aesthetics alone (through the use of gold, perspective, and the mandorla) as well as an impoverishment which falls well beneath what images are capable of (the submission of the painting to prescribed word, in content, style, and name). This paradoxical inclusion of highs and lows, straining against the limits of representation on both sides, hints that the icon is aiming to express a meaning greater than the image alone.

Chapter 2, Figures of Extraction: Representations of Mining in Ghana and Zambia, examines how postcolonial masculinity is reconfigured according to Africa–China relations. I home in on what I call “figures of extraction” by examining representations of mining – literal mineral alluvium – in two pieces of genre fiction. One main stake is to unpack the sensationalist discourse surrounding Africa–China relations that depicts the dynamic as a Manichean struggle between an African hero and Chinese villain. Another is to show how Chinese investment triggers the colonial trauma of European colonialism, even as the Chinese presence is configured in critically different ways. I demonstrate that when the dynamic is oversimplified, jingoistic nationalisms easily instrumentalize it to incite an “anti-Chinese populism” (Hess and Aidoo). This simplification often ignores the complicit role that corrupt African elites play in facilitating resource exploitation.

This chapter presents a new estimate of the value of coinage in circulation in the mid-second century CE Roman empire. More than 25 years ago, Richard Duncan-Jones revolutionized ancient economic history by offering a first projection through numismatic and statistical methods. At more than 20 bn sesterces, his estimate implied an anomalously high monetization ratio given past and current estimates of Roman GDP, an issue that economic historians have had to deal with ever since. In the first half, a review of the numismatic evidence points to a much smaller role for gold than posited by Duncan-Jones. The second half presents a new model of the money supply. It uses Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the value of centrally-minted precious metal coins produced annually under Hadrian, and then the total coinage in circulation ca 160 CE. Allowance for various uncertainties and other, minor components of the coinage suggests a money supply of around 16 bn sesterces, with less gold and more silver than expected. However, this is not quite low enough to explain away the monetization ratio, implying a higher GDP and more trade-oriented economy than currently thought. Two appendices contain lengthy but essential technical discussions of the assumptions in the estimate.

This chapter surveys the major developments in the economic history of the Greek world in the classical period (479–323 BCE). While agricultural practices and productive capacities did not change dramatically, this was a period characterized by a massive increase in the demand for certain commodities, especially timber for the ship-building and monumental-construction efforts of the period and grain to meet the dietary needs of a growing human population. It also considers the major developments in the supply and circulation of coinage in the classical period and the emergence of private banking and the expansion of credit, all of which facilitated both local and long-distance trade. As trade intensified throughout the Aegean and poleis developed more sophisticated institutions for local governance, they developed strategies to derive revenue from trade and imposed regulations on both the production and trade of commodities in which they had a special interest.

People already living in impoverished conditions are the most exposed and vulnerable to human-caused EV. Trapped in this dynamic are the riparian communities along the Pampana River, Sierra Leone. People there are struggling to emerge from the aftershocks of a bloody, 11-year civil war and a deadly Ebola outbreak that killed 4,000 people. Intersecting with and upending this already-daunting recovery process are the daily effects of EV. The riparian communities live with and downstream of gold mining operations, which are actively poisoning the Pampana River watershed, a resource that many people depend on for their everyday life needs. In this chapter I use the EV framework to investigate local accounts of growing EV in the Pampana River watershed in Tonkolili District and Koinadugu District, Northern Province, Sierra Leone. I track EV in action in this local setting and connect it to its global drivers and its contributions to change in broader Earth System processes. By plugging EV in a local case into its global implications and connections, both of cause and of effect, we can more fully see the value of EV as an analytical tool and a functional concept.

Metallic coinage, markets, and private merchants appeared in China during the Spring and Autumn era (771–453 bce), and they expanded rapidly during the Warring States era (453–221 bce). These periods were marked not only by rapid economic progress, but also by new conceptualizations of money, markets, and merchants. Both in times of political stability such as the Qin, Han, Sui, and Tang dynasties, and in times of political disunion such as the Warring States, the Three Kingdoms, the Jin, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties eras, money, markets, and merchants performed important economic and social roles. Which kinds of goods, then, served a monetary function from the Warring States to the Tang period? How did people use money, and how and where did they buy and sell commodities? What was the relationship between private merchants and governments? In this chapter, these issues will be examined using transmitted documentary records, archaeological materials, numismatic findings, and recently excavated texts.