Eichengreen, Barry : University of California-Berkeley
Barry Eichengreen is Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He has written a number
of books on international monetary issues and economic history including Elusive Stability: Essays in the History
of International Finance.
Review
"A brilliant new book."
--Newsweek
"Very highly recommended."
--Choice
"Important and convincingly argued....Even those who are not sympathetic to the arguments and conclusions
of this book will agree that it is destined to be an important work for all future students of the gold standard."
--Journal of Economic Issues
"A brilliant new book."
--Robert J. Samuelson
Oxford University Press Web Site, May, 2000
Summary
Golden Fetters offers a reassessment of the international monetary problems that led to the global economic
crisis of the 1930s. It explores the connections between the gold standard--the framework regulating international
monetary affairs until 1931--and the Great Depression that broke out in 1929. Eichengreen shows how economic policies,
in conjunction with the imbalances created by World War I, gave rise to the global crisis of the 1930s. He demonstrates
that the gold standard fundamentally constrained the economic policies that were pursued and that it was largely
responsible for creating the unstable economic environment on which those policies acted. The book also provides
a valuable perspective on the economic policies of the post-World War II period and their consequences.
