The Making of National Money

Territorial Currencies in Historical Perspective

Eric Helleiner

278 pages, parution le 05/02/2003

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Résumé

Why should each country have its own exclusive currency? Eric Helleiner offers a fascinating and unique perspective on this question in his accessible history of the origins of national money.
Our contemporary understandings of national currency are, Helleiner shows, surprisingly recent. Based on standardized technologies of production and extraction, territorially exclusive national currencies emerged for the first time only during the nineteenth century. This major change involved a narrow definition of legal tender and the exclusion of tokens of value issued outside the national territory. "Territorial currencies" rapidly became bound up with the rise of national markets, and money reflected basic questions of national identity and self-presentation: In what way should money be managed to serve national goals? Whose pictures should go on the banknotes?
Helleiner draws out the potent implications of this largely unknown history for today's context. Territorial currencies face challenges from many monetary innovations-the creation of the euro, dollarization, the spread of local currencies, and the prospect of privately issued electronic currencies. While these challenges are dramatic, the author argues that their significance should not be overstated. Even in their short historical life, territorial currencies have never been as dominant as conventional wisdom suggests. The future of this kind of currency, Helleiner contends, depends on political struggles across the globe, struggles that echo those at the birth of national money.

Contents

Part 1: The Birth of Territorial Currencies in the Nineteenth Century
1. The Initial Transformation: From Monetary Heterogeneity to Territorial Currencies
2. Two Structural Preconditions; Nation-States and Industrial Technology
3. Making Markets: Transaction Costs and Monetary Reform
4. Multiple Macroeconomic and Fiscal Motivations
5. National Identities and Territorial Currencies
Part 2: The Contestation and Spread of Territorial Currencies
6. Two Nineteenth-Century Challenges: Currency Unions and Free Banking
7. The Coming of Age of Territorial Currencies in the Interwar Years
8. The Monetary Dimensions of Imperialism: Colonial Currency Reforms
9. The Final Wave: Post-1945 Macroeconomic Activism and Southern Reforms
10. The Current Challenge to Territorial Currencies References Index

Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	Cornell University Press
Auteur(s)	Eric Helleiner
Parution	05/02/2003
Nb. de pages	278
Format	16 x 23,5
Couverture	Relié
Poids	610g
Intérieur	Noir et Blanc
EAN13	9780801440496
ISBN13	978-0-8014-4049-6