Golden Fetters
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This book is a reassessment of the international monetary crises of the post-World War I period that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s. It also analyses the responses of the world economic powers to the Depression and how new monetary policies set the stage for the watershed post-World War II system established at Bretton Woods. It offers new theories of what effect the Great Depression had on the collapse of the world monetary system, and what effect the collapse had on deepening and prolonging the Depression, by exploring the link between global economic crisis and the the gold standard (the framework for international monetary affairs until 1931). The events described had a profound effect upon twentieth-century history: the Depression abetted the rise of Hitler and the demise of the gold standard is a historical cause of inflation.
Barry Eichengreen is the John L. Simpson Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley, and Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has written a number of books on international monetary issues and economic history, including Elusive Stability: Essays in the History of International Finance (1990).