List of tables xi
PART I
The economics of currency arrangements: the principles of 1
monetary union
1 General introduction 3
2 The gold standard 8
3 Fixed versus floating exchange rates 12
4 Types of ‘fixed’ monetary arrangement 16
5 Monetary unions 22
6 Exchange control and currency reconstructions 27
7 Some early history 31
PART II
Monetary union in post-Napoleonic Europe: the key issue of
bimetallism 35
8 The Napoleonic Wars and after: bimetallism 37
9 Monetary union in Germany, Italy and Switzerland 46
10 The Austro-Hungarian empire as a monetary union:
history to 1914 51
11 The Latin Monetary Union 57
12 The collapse of bimetallism 64
13 The United States in the nineteenth century 67
PART III
The silver countries, Russia and the sterling area pre-1914 79
14 The collapse of bimetallism in the Eastern silver countries:
a ‘monetary disunion’? 81

15 Japan and Korea 89
16 Latin America in the nineteenth century 93
17 Money in Russia before the Revolution 100
18 The British empire and the sterling area: an accidental
monetary union? 104
PART IV
The early twentieth century and the collapse of the
gold standard: the triumph of fiat currencies 111
19 Introduction to the early twentieth century 113
20 The Great War and its aftermath 115
21 Germany and the great inflation 118
22 The temporary return to gold and the Great Depression 122
PART V
Monetary chaos in the 1930s 125
23 The Russian Revolution and after 127
24 The monetary consequences of the break-up of the
Austro-Hungarian empire 130
25 Austria after the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian
empire 135
26 Other former members of the Austro-Hungarian empire 140
27 Germany and Austria in the 1930s 146
28 Scandinavia and the Baltic states: the Nordic
Monetary Union 152
PART VI
Bretton Woods and its collapse: the postwar monetary order 161
29 Money after the Second World War: general introduction 163
30 Bretton Woods and the IMF 166
31 Postwar monetary reconstructions 170
32 The UK 1945–51 177
33 Europe 1945–58: bilateral to multilateral payments 181
34 The UK 1951–79 186
35 The collapse of Bretton Woods 193
PART VII
The road to European Monetary Union 197
36 Early moves towards European Monetary Union 199
37 The reunification of Germany and the collapse of the EMS 206
38 European Monetary Union: 1988–99 211
39 European Monetary Union: policy issues 219
40 Parallel currency proposals 223
41 Exchange control 231
PART VIII
Money and the collapse of communism: some monetary disunions 239
42 The collapse of the Soviet Union 241
43 The end of the rouble zone 244
44 The twelve CIS countries following monetary disunion 251
45 The Baltic states from 1991: successful monetary reforms 261
46 The break-up of Yugoslavia 266
47 Transitional and other EU applicant countries 271
PART IX
The break-up of the sterling area: the contrasting experience
of the French territories and some recent proposed unions 277
48 The end of the sterling area 279
49 The Irish pound 284
50 The former French colonies: the CFA franc zone 289
51 Monetary unions in former colonies 293
52 Two monetary unions that didn’t happen: US/Canada and
ANZAC 298
PART X
Postwar Latin America and the Far East 307
53 Postwar Latin America 309
54 Hong Kong and the Far East post-1945 316
Notes 322
Index 348