The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition] Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00BSHNLGY | Format: PDF, EPUB
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When turmoil strikes world monetary and financial markets, leaders invariably call for "a new Bretton Woods" to prevent catastrophic economic disorder and defuse political conflict. The name of the remote New Hampshire town where representatives of 44 nations gathered in July 1944, in the midst of the century's second great war, has become shorthand for enlightened globalization. The actual story surrounding the historic Bretton Woods accords, however, is full of startling drama, intrigue, and rivalry, which are vividly brought to life in Benn Steil's epic account.
Upending the conventional wisdom that Bretton Woods was the product of an amiable Anglo-American collaboration, Steil shows that it was in reality part of a much more ambitious geopolitical agenda hatched within President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Treasury and aimed at eliminating Britain as an economic and political rival. At the heart of the drama were the antipodal characters of John Maynard Keynes, the renowned and revolutionary British economist, and Harry Dexter White, the dogged, self-made American technocrat. Bringing to bear new and striking archival evidence, Steil offers the most compelling portrait yet of the complex and controversial figure of White - the architect of the dollar's privileged place in the Bretton Woods monetary system, who also, very privately, admired Soviet economic planning and engaged in clandestine communications with Soviet intelligence officials and agents over many years.
A remarkably deft work of storytelling that reveals how the blueprint for the postwar economic order was actually drawn, The Battle of Bretton Woods is destined to become a classic of economic and political history.
Books with free ebook downloads available The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition] Epub Free
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 15 hours and 58 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Audible Studios
- Audible.com Release Date: April 2, 2013
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00BSHNLGY
"Battle of Bretton Woods" by Benn Steil
Benn Steil is an exceptional scholar hailing from the Council on Foreign Relations. I approached this book with high expectations and was not disappointed. If I had a buck for every blog, article, or interview referring to the Bretton Woods conference, dollar hegemony, the gold standard, and related monetary matters I could stop reading stuff like this because I would be rich. I surmise, however, that not one in 100 understand what really happened. I do not know if this is THE definitive work on the Bretton Woods conference but it certainly is a definitive treatise. Those who love quotes will burn through a few highlighters. (I did.) The intense discussions--snarky attacks and counterattacks by the combatants--are relayed in detail and in living color. Steil successfully takes you back to the events as though you were there. Minor warning: You do not need to be a wonk to love this book, but you must have some appreciation for wonky. It is not dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Currency jocks will love the detailed descriptions of the battles over fixed exchange rates, adjustable exchange rates, free trade, dollar hegemony, and the role of gold in this new era.
Steil's discussion can be crudely described in three parts: (1) the decades leading up to the 1944 Bretton Woods conference; (2) the actual conference in which the next 50 years of currency exhanges and global trading rules would be mapped out; and (3) the consequences to the post-war world. The conference stemmed from a few astute players who realized that the world could fall into chaos if plans were not made in advance to establish a global currency regime and rules of global trade--a New World Order.
There, I said it, and I am an American.
I had heard of the conference but never read about it, and certainly had never heard of Harry Dexter White, but this book goes to great length to explain what happened in this important meeting as World War II was drawing to a close and a plan needed to be developed for a new world order regarding the flows of money to facilitate trade and avoid economic disruptions that the world had seen far too much of.
Steil presents more information on John Maynard Keynes than his American antithesis, Harry Dexter White, and for good reason. Keynes was simply one of the most, if not the most, brilliant intellectuals of the 20th century. His theories of economics were evolving through his life, but he is most remembered for his idea that government stimulus could help alleviate a faltering economy when the private sector failed to do the job, and he was opposed as he said to the "gold cage" that for years had been the standard of international finance. He had a biting wit, coupled with a superior intelligence that far outshone his meager appearance (he was ugly, and knew it) but he was cast in the role of a diplomat to present the case for England as the world entered the post war period.
The problem was that England was broke. She had endured two world wars in the space of 30 years and the empire was begging for funds from Washington, and most of her debt to the US from the Great War was still unpaid. She also had an enemy in FDR, who was determined that the imperial preference of England after the war was to be no more. Her crown jewel, India, was pressing for independence and the empire was in the process of unwinding, as was the strength of the British sterling.
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