Gold, Hard Money and Finance

Gold, Hard Money and Finance contains a few dramatized accounts of investing history. The first part focuses on the rise of the investment newsletter. There are a ton of newsletters that purport to help people to do the research that they do not have time to do themselves. Some have shown great success. However, much of that is retrospective. (If everyone did invest in the recommendations early on, it may not have had the same peak.) There is plenty of good advice out there, but there is also dumb luck masquerading as good.
The Gold Bug story has more drama. I didn't realize that FDR had outlawed holding of personal gold supplies (with the exception of coins.) It wasn't until the Nixon presidency that this restriction was removed. (And this was after the dollar was removed from the cold standard.) There are plenty of hard core Gold Bugs that feel gold is the only viable investment that will maintain its wealth. (Alas, the markets have not been too kind to gold in recent history.)