Exchanging Turkish lira for dollars at an exchange office in Turkey
The U.S. dollar, which has enjoyed the 'exorbitant privilege' of being the world's default currency
A sign shows currency exchange rates at an office in Turkey
China's currency, the renminbi
The U.S. dollar, which has enjoyed the 'exorbitant privilege' of being the world's default currency
The Euro
Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega, who claimed that an 'international currency war' had broken out
Currency from Virginia, issued during the American Revolutionary War
An American gold certificate from the 1920s
An 1896 cartoon depicting William Jennings Bryan's declaration that mankind would not be 'crucified on a cross of gold'
The book cover of Ron Paul's book advocating an end to the U.S. Federal Reserve
World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who recently sparked controversy by seeming to call for a modified gold standard
The Mount Washington Hotel, where the Bretton Woods agreement establishing a “new international monetary order” based on the U.S. dollar was signed in 1944
Leaders at the G20 Summit in Seoul, where the United States unsuccessfully sought to pressure China on the the value of its currency (November 2010)
Leaders at the G20 Summit in Seoul, where the United States unsuccessfully sought to pressure China on the the value of its currency (November 2010)
A poster for the 1896 Bryan-Sewall U.S. presidential campaign advocating silver and gold for the country's currency
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (left) and U.S. Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner at a 2009 G7 meeting
The Federal Reserve, Washington, D.C.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
The symbol for Europe's shared currency, the Euro, in front of the European Central Bank, Frankfurt, Germany
A 2010 violent protest against austerity measures in Greece, which has been unable re-inflate its economy by devaluing its currency as a member of the euro zone
German hyperinflation after World War I
William McKinley's 1900 presidential campaign advocating the gold standard