(FORTUNE Magazine) – The world has been riding a monetary tiger for the past 20 years. For the first time in history, money has been cut loose from its traditional anchors of gold and silver, and the exchange values of currencies left free to float. The result has been a wild and sometimes scary ride as we careened from the inflation of the 1970s to the collapse of the European monetary system last year to today's shrinking dollar. In Money Meltdown: Restoring Order to the Global Currency System (The Free Press, $24.95), Hoover Institution senior research fellow Judy Shelton warns that the disorder can't go on indefinitely. Shelton commands attention, particularly when predicting the collapse of large systems. Her last book, The Coming Soviet Crash, hit bookstores in 1989, just before the Berlin Wall crumbled. In Money Meltdown she has written another forceful and accessible work, unencumbered by economic arcana. There's nary a chart or graph in its 399 pages. Shelton contrasts the monetary turmoil of the past two decades with the stability that prevailed from World War II to 1973, when the Bretton Woods agreement (named after the New Hampshire resort where it was designed) governed the Free World's monetary system. At that time the dollar was backed by gold, and other currencies were convertible into the dollar at fixed rates. The period was golden in more ways than one: It was a time of growth and fiscal rectitude, especially in the U.S. Eventually, however, the system fell apart under the stresses of the Vietnam war era, and in 1971 President Nixon unlinked the dollar and gold. Shelton contends that the floating global currency system that succeeded Bretton Woods harms the world's economic performance. Her solution: to re- create something very like Bretton Woods -- fixed exchange rates and an international gold standard. It's a seductive solution. By restraining monetary growth, such a system would make Seventies-style chronic inflation impossible and prevent governments from robbing future generations to spend today. And nations could trade with far less complexity than now. But there are compelling arguments against the idea. One, which gets short shrift in Money Meltdown, is that the world has already adapted to the world of floating exchange rates and fiat money. Businesses and bankers have created markets for currency futures, swaps, and other financial instruments so that they can hedge against many of the new risks. And the world's central banks have made an impressive comeback over the past decade from the days of soaring inflation. The inflation rate in the U.S. today -- roughly 3% -- is about what it was in the mid-1960s, the heyday of Bretton Woods. Shelton is a conservative, but she seems to have little faith in markets. One of her big problems with the status quo is that she believes that in today's system "finance ministers and central bankers operating out of hotel rooms" can pretty much rig exchange rates. By contrast, most economists think that governments can influence exchange rates over time only by making real changes in tax, spending, or monetary policies. But the root argument against a return to a gold-based system is political. ) Shelton asks, "Are nations ready to work together to achieve international monetary stability if it means placing a higher priority on global currency relationships than on domestic financial and economic problems?" You can almost hear William Jennings Bryan thundering, "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." The answer to Shelton's question is and always will be: No.