Money and Empire
Charles P. Kindleberger and the Dollar System

A history of international finance as seen through the eyes of Charles P. Kindleberger, one of its keenest observers.

Perry Mehrling (Author)

9781009158572, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 August 2022

310 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.9 cm, 0.63 kg

'Perry Mehrling's elegantly written biography of the MIT economist Charles Poor Kindleberger illuminates the relationship between money and the global structure of economic and political power.' Herman Mark Schwartz, phenomenalworld.org

Charles Kindleberger ranks as one of the twentieth century's best known and most influential international economists. This book traces the evolution of his thinking in the context of a 'key-currency' approach to the rise of the dollar system, here revealed as the indispensable framework for global economic development since World War II. Unlike most of his colleagues, Kindleberger was deeply interested in history, and his economics brimmed with real people and institutional details. His research at the New York Fed and BIS during the Great Depression, his wartime intelligence work, and his role in administering the Marshall Plan gave him deep insight into how the international financial system really operated. A biography of both the dollar and a man, this book is also the story of the development of ideas about how money works. It throws revealing light on the underlying economic forces and political obstacles shaping our globalized world.

Preface
Introduction
Part I. Intellectual Formation, 1910–1948
1. Golden boy
2. Columbia
3. Hot money
4. A good war
Part II. International Economist, 1948–1976
5. Tech
6. The dollar system
7. Among economists
Part III. Historical Economist, 1976–2003
8. Independence
9. Chef d'oeuvre
10. Leadership.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Macroeconomics [KCB]