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<b>Book Launch:</b> Gold, Dollars, and Power: The Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958-1971

Date & Time

Monday
Jan. 24, 2005
2:00pm – 3:30pm ET

Overview

A CWIHP Book Launch Seminar with Francis Gavin, Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, and author, "Gold, Dollars, and Power: The Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958-1971."

A commentary will be provided by Kent Hughes, Director, Project on American and the Global Economy, Woodrow Wilson Center, and former Associate Deputy Secretary of Commerce and Chief Economist to Senate Majority Leader, Robert C. Byrd.

The meeting will be chaired by Jim Hershberg, Public Policy Scholar, Woodrow Wilson Center.

A small reception will follow the event.

From the Publisher: How are we to understand the politics of international monetary relations since the end of World War II? Exploiting recently declassified documents from both the United States and Europe and employing economic analysis and international relations theory, Francis Gavin offers a compelling reassessment of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates and dollar-gold convertibility.

Gavin demonstrates that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, Bretton Woods was a highly politicized system that was prone to crisis and required constant intervention and controls to continue functioning. More important, postwar monetary relations were not a salve to political tensions, as is often contended. In fact, the politicization of the global payments system allowed nations to use monetary coercion to achieve political and security ends, causing deep conflicts within the Western Alliance. For the first time, Gavin reveals how these rifts dramatically affected U.S. political and military strategy during a dangerous period of the Cold War.

About the author
Francis J. Gavin is assistant professor in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is editor of The New York Times Twentieth Century in Review: The Cold War and coeditor of The Presidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy: The Great Crises, volumes 1-2.

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Cold War International History Project

The Cold War International History Project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War. Through an award winning Digital Archive, the Project allows scholars, journalists, students, and the interested public to reassess the Cold War and its many contemporary legacies. It is part of the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program.  Read more

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