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    The Summit: Bretton Woods, 1944: J. M. Keynes and the Reshaping of the Global Economy
    The Summit: Bretton Woods, 1944: J. M. Keynes and the Reshaping of the Global Economy
    The Summit: Bretton Woods, 1944: J. M. Keynes and the Reshaping of the Global Economy
    Audiobook14 hours

    The Summit: Bretton Woods, 1944: J. M. Keynes and the Reshaping of the Global Economy

    Written by Ed Conway

    Narrated by Ralph Lister

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The meeting of world leaders at Bretton Woods in 1944 was the only time countries from around the world agreed to overhaul the structure of the international monetary system. The system they set up presided over the longest, strongest, and most stable period of growth the world economy has ever seen.

    At the very heart of the conference was the love-hate relationship between the Briton John Maynard Keynes, the greatest economist of his day, and his American counterpart Harry Dexter White (later revealed to be passing information secretly to Russian spies). Both were intent on creating an economic settlement that would put right the wrongs of Versailles. Both were working to prevent another world war. But they were also working to defend their countries' national interests.

    Drawing on a wealth of unpublished accounts, diaries, and oral histories, this brilliant book describes the conference in stunning color and clarity. This is an extraordinary debut from a talented historian.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateFeb 17, 2015
    ISBN9781494579463
    The Summit: Bretton Woods, 1944: J. M. Keynes and the Reshaping of the Global Economy

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    Reviews for The Summit

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    • 3/5
      Conway tells the story of this meeting, where the principals—including Russia—agreed on just enough to shape the global order for several decades. It could have used more economic theory, but at its core are the exchange rate, the inflation rate, and the flow of money into and out of a country (capital controls). A country can control only two out of three of these things; it has to pick (or pretend). Bretton Woods was about agreeing on how exchange rates would be managed so that countries could set monetary/inflation policies internally; it lasted until the 1970s and delivered us into the next, neoliberal phase. Though Keynes gets most of the credit, he was actually outmaneuvered by the Americans (because Britain didn’t have any power left—it wasn’t exactly his fault, though his arrogance didn’t help).
    • 4/5
      This 2015 book by a British economics journalist relates, with surprising deftness, the preparation for and carrying out of the conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944. I was very aware of the conference and its results and remember viewing it as a big step in the U.S. being an internationalist rather than an Isolationist country. I suppose this was because Senator Taft, the leading isolationist of the time, opposed the agreement which was worked out at the conference. This book tells vividly the great difficulty which attended the meeting, with items revealed which make the reading consistently interesting as well as informative. The fact that the leading American voice at the meeting was Harry Dexter White, years later revealed as furnishing information to the USSR, is a sobering part of the story although, since the Russians ended up not ratifying the treaty worked out, obviously White's dealings with them did not lead Russia to want to be part of the mechanism devised there. Some no doubt view world finance as an abstruse and difficult subject but the author manages to make the book highly informative and very readable..