Recommendations from our site
“My reason for choosing this book is that it is the most meticulous picture of how this great experiment of a single currency was embarked upon. David manages to report in minute detail and yet make it a cracking read. It’s all there: the personalities, the colour, who would talk to whom in public, and then what they said in private. It’s written in such a smooth way that you never feel lost or snowed under by complicated economics and too much detail.” Read more...
“Marsh’s approach, like Judt’s, is historical. Marsh argues that one can’t understand how the euro came about in 1999 – and I think he would argue, similarly, that one can’t anticipate what will happen next – without recalling Europe’s efforts over the course of the sixties, seventies and eighties to restore and maintain monetary stability. We have to understand the response to recent developments in that context. What I like about Marsh’s book is that, in telling this tale, he reminds us of the importance of human agency. He reminds us that actual individuals with actual lives took actual decisions to create the euro. In the absence of those individuals, things might have turned out very differently.” Read more...
Barry Eichengreen, Economist
Our most recommended books
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A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960
by Anna Schwartz & Milton Friedman -
How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth
by Jared Rubin & Mark Koyama -
The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy
by Kenneth Pomeranz -
The Passions and the Interests
by Albert Hirschman -
The Strange Career of Jim Crow
by C. Vann Woodward -
Nationalism
by Elie Kedourie
