International Financial History in the Twentieth Century examines the history of the international financial system in terms of the current debate about globalization and its limits. In the nineteenth century, international markets existed without international institutions. A response to the problems of capital flows came in the form of attempts to regulate national capital markets (for instance through the establishment of central banks). In the interwar years, there were (largely unsuccessful) attempts at designing a genuine international trade and monetary system; and at the same time (coincidentally) the system collapsed. In the post-1945 era, the intended design effort was infinitely more successful. The development of large international capital markets since the 1960s, however, increasingly frustrated attempts at international control. The emphasis has shifted in consequence to debates about increasing the transparency and effectiveness of markets; but these are exactly the issues that already dominated the nineteenth century discussions.

Table of Contents

Preface; Introduction Marc Flandreau and Harold James; 1. Audits, accounts, and assessments: coping with sovereign risk under the international gold standard, 1871-1913 Marc Flandreau; 2. Conduits for long-term foreign investment in the gold standard era Mira Wilkins; 3. The great depression revisited Stephen A. Schuker; 4. The bank of France and the gold standard, 1914-1928 Kenneth Moure; 5. Keynes's road to Bretton Woods Robert Skidelsky; 6. Bretton Woods and the neutral countries Jakob Tanner; 7. The 1948 monetary reform in western Germany Charles P. Kindleberger and F. Taylor Ostrander; 8. The burden of power: military aspects of international financial relations during the long 1950s Werner Abelshauser; 9. European monetary integration since the 1970s: from the 'snake' to EMU Rolf Caesar; 10. Denationalizing money? Economic liberalism and the 'national question' in currency affairs Eric Helleiner; 11. International financial institutions and national economic governance: aspects of the new adjustment agenda in historical perspective Louis W. Pauly; Index.