Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-216) and index.
Ch. 1. Introduction -- Ch. 2. The Gold Standard. Prehistory. The Dilemmas of Bimetallism. The Lure of Bimetallism. The Advent of the Gold Standard. Shades of Gold. How the Gold Standard Worked. The Gold Standard as a Historically Specific Institution. International Solidarity. The Gold Standard and the Lender of Last Resort. Instability at the Periphery. The Stability of the System -- Ch. 3. Interwar Instability. Chronology. Experience with Floating: The Controversial Case of the Franc. Reconstructing the Gold Standard. The New Gold Standard. Problems of the New Gold Standard. The Pattern of International Payments. Responses to the Great Depression. Banking Crises and Their Management. Disintegration of the Gold Standard. Sterling's Crisis. The Dollar Follows. Managed Floating. Conclusions -- Ch. 4. The Bretton Woods System. Wartime Planning and Its Consequences. The Sterling Crisis and the Realignment of European Currencies. The European Payments Union.
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Barry Eichengreen presents a brief, lucid book that tells the story of the international financial system over the past 150 years. Globalizing Capital is intended not only for economists but also for a general audience of historians, political scientists, professionals in government and business, and anyone with a broad interest in international economic and political relations. Eichengreen's work demonstrates that insights into the international monetary system and effective principles for governing it can result only if it is seen as a historical phenomenon extending from the gold standard period to the interwar period, then to Bretton Woods, and finally to the post-1973 period of fluctuating currencies.