A remarkably deft work of storytelling that reveals how the blueprint for the postwar economic order was actually drawn.

A fascinating intellectual history of monetary nationalism from the ancient world to the present exploring why, in its modern incarnation, it represents the single greatest threat to globalization.

Over the past two decades, another form of economic exchange besides imports and exports has risen to a level of vastly greater significance and political concern: the purchase and sale of financial assets across borders.

Global financial instability has sparked a surge in "monetary nationalism" -- the idea that countries must make and control their own currencies. But globalization and monetary nationalism are a dangerous combination, a cause of financial crises and geopolitical tension. The world needs to abandon unwanted currencies, replacing them with dollars, euros, and multinational currencies as yet unborn.

CFR's Benn Steil argues that other factors besides Sarbanes-Oxley contributed to financial flows away from the U.S.

Over the past two decades, another form of economic exchange besides imports and exports has risen to a level of vastly greater significance and political concern: the purchase and sale of financial assets across borders.

As trade flows expanded and trade agreements proliferated after World War II, governments—most notably the United States—increasingly came to use their power over imports and exports to influence the behavior of other countries.  But trade is not the only way in which nations interact economically. Over the past two decades, another form of economic exchange has risen to a level of vastly greater significance and political concern: the purchase and sale of financial assets across borders.