"One of the most comprehensive histories of modern capitalism yet written." —Michael Hirsh, New York Times An authoritative, insightful, and highly readable history of the twentieth-century global economy, updated with a new chapter on the early decades of the new century. Global Capitalism guides the reader from the globalization of the early twentieth century and its swift collapse in the crises of 1914–45, to the return to global integration at the end of the century, and the subsequent retreat in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008.

A major history of economic regimes and economic performance throughout the twentieth century. Ivan T. Berend looks at the historic development of the twentieth-century European economy, examining both its failures and its successes in responding to the challenges of this crisis-ridden and troubled but highly successful age. The book surveys the European economy's chronological development, the main factors of economic growth, and the various economic regimes that were invented and introduced in Europe during the twentieth century. Professor Berend shows how the vast disparity between the European regions that had characterized earlier periods gradually began to disappear during the course of the twentieth century as more and more countries reached a more or less similar level of economic development. This accessible book will be required reading for students in European economic history, economics, and modern European history.

"The last decade has witnessed widespread deregulation in major international financial centres and an increased globalization of financial activities. This phenomenon, which raises the question of the relationship between finance and the real economy, has been widely discussed by financial analysts, but has not yet been placed in its historical perspective. This is one of the first books to address this important problem." "The editors and contributors take as their point of departure the current state of various financial institutions and the ways in which their distinctive features and contemporary tendencies developed. They go on to assess the relationship between the evolution of financial markets and institutions and overall economic development. A wide range of institutions and markets is covered, including central, commercial, savings and investment banks, stock markets and other capital markets. Although most of the chapters concentrate on institutions, several of them apply recent theories and empirical methods such as asset pricing theories, tests for market efficiency, event studies and market integration." "The chapters employ a variety of approaches, representative of the best current research practices in financial history, and deal with nine different countries. However, they converge on three interrelated questions: the stability, efficiency and discipline of the financial sector. Hence the book will appeal to economic historians as well as to economists and financial analysts."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

In this volume, a distinguished group of scholars examine the national experiences of six major twentieth-century powers-- the United States, Japan, Turkey, China, India and Germany—to discern the centuries’ legacies for today and the lessons for tomorrow. They explore core themes including anticolonialism, democracy, socialism, nationalism, industrialization, nuclear weapons, and globalization and provide their own personal interpretations of the century, as well as their respective nation’s experiences and historical memory of the era. Together, they provide a broad historical context of the forces that shaped the twentieth century that will be of interest to scholars and students of history as well as policymakers.

During the twentieth century, foreign-exchange intervention was sometimes used in an attempt to solve the fundamental trilemma of international finance, which holds that countries cannot simultaneously pursue independent monetary policies, stabilize their exchange rates, and benefit from free cross-border financial flows. Drawing on a trove of previously confidential data, Strained Relations reveals the evolution of US policy regarding currency market intervention, and its interaction with monetary policy. The authors consider how foreign-exchange intervention was affected by changing economic and institutional circumstances—most notably the abandonment of the international gold standard—and how political and bureaucratic factors affected this aspect of public policy.

One striking weaknesses of our financial architecture, which helped bring on and perhaps deepen the Panic of 2008, is an inadequate appreciation of the past. Information about how the system functioned and the reliability of organizations and institutional controls were drawn from a relatively narrow group of recent examples. History and Financial Crisis: Lessons from the 20th Century is an attempt to broaden the range of historical sources used by policy makers to understand and treat financial crises. Many recent discussions of the 2008 panic and the economic turmoil have found the situation to either be unprecedented or greatly similar to that of 1931. However, the book's wide range of contributors suggest that the economic crisis of 2008 cannot be categorised in this way. This book was originally published as a special issue of Business History.

Winner of the American Sociological Association PEWS Award (1995) for Distinguished Scholarship The Long Twentieth Century traces the epochal shifts in the relationship between capital accumulation and state formation over a 700-year period. Giovanni Arrighi masterfully synthesizes social theory, comparative history and historical narrative in this account of the structures and agencies which have shaped the course of world history over the millennium. Borrowing from Braudel, Arrighi argues that the history of capitalism has unfolded as a succession of "long centuries"—ages during which a hegemonic power deploying a novel combination of economic and political networks secured control over an expanding world-economic space. The modest beginnings, rise and violent unravel-ing of the links forged between capital, state power, and geopolitics by hegemonic classes and states are explored with dramatic intensity. From this perspective, Arrighi explains the changing fortunes of Florentine, Venetian, Genoese, Dutch, English, and finally American capitalism. The book concludes with an examination of the forces which have shaped and are now poised to undermine America's world power.