THE ECONOMIC GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD

Martin Daunton is Emeritus Professor of Economic History at the University of Cambridge where he was Master of Trinity Hall and on two occasions head of the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences. He has been President of the Royal Historical Society a Commissioner of Historic England a trustee of the National Maritime Museum and Chair of the Leverhulme Trust Research Awards Committee. He has held visiting professorships in Japan and Australia and is a visiting professor at Gresham College.The Economic Government of the World is a tour de force. It lets us see the evolving architecture of global economic governance over the last hundred years the various architects and the designs they favoured the scaffolding going up (and down) the technicians responsible for fitting out the floors and the cracks emerging in the walls and foundations. Both in terms of chronological scope and thematic range I know of no book like it. It is a hugely ambitious and timely work.Martin Dauntons history of global economic government is rigorous engaging and astonishing in its range. It shows why any arrangement of the international economic system unavoidably involves political compromise and concludes with a wise vision of messy multilateralism as a path out of our current crisis. A brilliant and important book.Dauntons magisterial history is an urgent reminder of the sources and dangers of economic and financial disorder revealing the interconnections between trade money population and development and the hardfought struggles of leading capitalist democracies to embed the lessons of the past in international institutions. With our world at a critical juncture the book is a chilling reminder of the risks we face while offering a positive vision of the way forward.An epic history of money trade and development since 1933In 1933 Keynes reflected on the crisis of the Great Depression that arose from individualistic capitalism: It is not intelligent it is not beautiful it is not just it is not virtuous and it doesnt deliver the goods ... But when we wonder what to put in its place we are extremely perplexed. We are now in a similar state of perplexity wondering how to respond to the economic problems of the world.Martin Daunton examines the changing balance over ninety years between economic nationalism and globalization explaining why one economic order breaks down and how another one is built in a wideranging history of the institutions and individuals who have managed the global economy. In 1933 the World Monetary and Economic Conference brought together the nations of the world: it failed. Trade and currency warfare led to economic nationalism and a turn from globalization that culminated in war. During the Second World War a new economic order emerged the embedded liberalism of Bretton Woods the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the postwar General Agreement