
The Battle of Bretton Woods
John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order
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Narrated by:
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Philip Rose
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By:
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Benn Steil
About this listen
When turmoil strikes world monetary and financial markets, leaders invariably call for "a new Bretton Woods" to prevent catastrophic economic disorder and defuse political conflict. The name of the remote New Hampshire town where representatives of 44 nations gathered in July 1944, in the midst of the century's second great war, has become shorthand for enlightened globalization. The actual story surrounding the historic Bretton Woods accords, however, is full of startling drama, intrigue, and rivalry, which are vividly brought to life in Benn Steil's epic account.
Upending the conventional wisdom that Bretton Woods was the product of an amiable Anglo-American collaboration, Steil shows that it was in reality part of a much more ambitious geopolitical agenda hatched within President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Treasury and aimed at eliminating Britain as an economic and political rival. At the heart of the drama were the antipodal characters of John Maynard Keynes, the renowned and revolutionary British economist, and Harry Dexter White, the dogged, self-made American technocrat. Bringing to bear new and striking archival evidence, Steil offers the most compelling portrait yet of the complex and controversial figure of White - the architect of the dollar's privileged place in the Bretton Woods monetary system, who also, very privately, admired Soviet economic planning and engaged in clandestine communications with Soviet intelligence officials and agents over many years.
A remarkably deft work of storytelling that reveals how the blueprint for the postwar economic order was actually drawn, The Battle of Bretton Woods is destined to become a classic of economic and political history.
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-
Story
It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person's or government's control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.
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interesting insight into interwar period!
- By Toru on 11-27-09
By: Liaquat Ahamed
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The World That Wasn't
- Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century
- By: Benn Steil
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 23 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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From the acclaimed economist-historian and author of The Marshall Plan, a “timely, riveting” (The Washington Post) new perspective on the political career of Henry Wallace—one that will forever change how we view the making of US and Soviet foreign policy at the dawn of the Cold War.
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Should be required reading for all voters
- By Cindy on 03-24-24
By: Benn Steil
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Keynes
- The Return of the Master
- By: Robert Skidelsky
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Keynes's preeminent biographer, Robert Skidelsky, brilliantly synthesizes from Keynes' career and life the aspects of his thinking that apply most directly to the world we currently live in. In so doing, Skidelsky shows that Keynes's mixture of pragmatism and realism, which distinguished his thinking from the neo-classical or Chicago school of economics that has been the dominant influence since the Thatcher-Reagan era and which made possible the raw market capitalism that created the current global financial crisis, is more pertinent and applicable than ever.
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Suprisingly Informative
- By michael on 02-21-12
By: Robert Skidelsky
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A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States, 1961-2021
- By: Alan S. Blinder
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Alan Blinder, one of the world's most influential economists and one of the field's best writers, draws on his deep firsthand experience to provide an authoritative account of sixty years of monetary and fiscal policy in the United States. Spanning twelve presidents, from John F. Kennedy to Joe Biden, and eight Federal Reserve chairs, from William McChesney Martin to Jerome Powell, this is an insider's story of macroeconomic policy that hasn't been told before—one that is a pleasure to listen to, and as interesting as it is important.
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Listen for Nixon's Sake
- By Tricia on 10-26-22
By: Alan S. Blinder
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This Time Is Different
- Eight Centuries of Financial Folly
- By: Carmen Reinhart, Kenneth Rogoff
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout history, rich and poor countries alike have been lending, borrowing, crashing - and recovering -their way through an extraordinary range of financial crises. Each time, the experts have chimed, "this time is different" - claiming that the old rules of valuation no longer apply and that the new situation bears little similarity to past disasters. This book proves that premise wrong.
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necessary piece to understand the current crisis
- By D. Littman on 12-04-09
By: Carmen Reinhart, and others
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Crashed
- How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World
- By: Adam Tooze
- Narrated by: Simon Vance, Adam Tooze
- Length: 25 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Current events have deep roots, and the key to navigating today’s roiling policies lies in the events that started it all — the 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath. Despite initial attempts to downplay the crisis as a local incident, what happened on Wall Street beginning in 2008 was, in fact, a dramatic caesura of global significance that spiraled around the world, from the financial markets of the UK and Europe to the factories and dockyards of Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
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A vaccine against substance free deceivers
- By Gary on 08-19-18
By: Adam Tooze
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The Ascent of Money
- A Financial History of the World
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Niall Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls Planet Finance. Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot, lucre, moolah, readies, the wherewithal: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, it's the sinews of war. To revolutionaries, it's the chains of labor. Niall Ferguson shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress.
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A mostly successful and interesting history
- By A reader on 02-24-09
By: Niall Ferguson
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Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
- By: Jack Weatherford
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Jack Weatherford
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.
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Golden Horde/Platinum Listen
- By Cynthia on 12-11-13
By: Jack Weatherford
As a lay person with an interest in international finance and macroeconomics I found this book to be extremely enlightening and easy to listen to. It is a very thorough account of how International commerce was set up after World War II. The subject matter can be complicated so it is important to give it to your full concentration. But I feel it was well worth the time and I would even like to revisit it again at some point in the future.
Have an interest in history or macroeconomics?
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Economic rigor with a dash of thriller
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Great documented case of Bretton Woods
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Is there anything you would change about this book?
The story line did not have content to keep you interestedWhat could Benn Steil have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Creating a better storyline or plot. It seamed the booked was a massive essay that was converted to an audio bookIf this book were a movie would you go see it?
not with the current plot.I kept daydreaming during the listen
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If you could sum up The Battle of Bretton Woods in three words, what would they be?
Personality, talent, and guile clearly come to mind for me. These were two extraordinary men faced with the difficult challenges of their time.What other book might you compare The Battle of Bretton Woods to and why?
I find this book unique in that Ben Steil does such a wonderful job of analyzing the two men and their impacts. Then he takes it a significant step further as he measures that impact through the years. Analysis of history and personalities is one thing, but the application of that thorough and detailed analysis through the succeeding years is a remarkable and extraordinary. I have seen the technique used before, but in this case I found it rich and rewarding!Which character – as performed by Philip Rose – was your favorite?
I would have to focus on John Maynard Keynes as my favorite. I have always viewed him as a significant but somewhat obscure economic genius. To see this extraordinary talent presented and explained in such rich detail raises the man much higher on my pedestal, and I now can clearly see why his name remains a focus, even today. While I was very impressed with Harry White and his own remarkable talents as an economist, I got the feeling that he lapsed into the role of the government technocrat which reduced the shine of his own brilliance.Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
At times I laughed at the comments and actions of the two central characters. Harry White's involvement with subversive Communists did leave me blue, and Keynes death at 62 was a major and sad tragedy in my eyes. Even White's death at an early age due to heart attack was a tragedy as I feel it was at least in part brought on by the huge pressure of his mistakes and associations.Any additional comments?
This is a wonderful, insightful, and well presented documentary of an event and the people involved which finally recognizes the major impact of that event. Bretton Woods was a historic watershed event of its time. The prime characters were at times giants among other men. This is a must read book!Fascinating!
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Would you try another book from Benn Steil and/or Philip Rose?
This book was OK but the narrator was staccato and hard to listen to. The book could have focused more on Bretton Woods and not skip around chronologically.Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Philip Rose?
AnybodyIf this book were a movie would you go see it?
NoDry history
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Worried about the New World Order?
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A magnificent retelling of monetary revolution
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very insightful
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What made the experience of listening to The Battle of Bretton Woods the most enjoyable?
I liked all three books in one. If you want to know what the gold bugs, Federal Reserve, economists and the currency warriors are thinking read this book. Reality is stranger than life. The American seeking financial discipline at Bretton was a Russian spy. The Englishman seeking a phony money currency to bail out indebted nations was John Maynard Keynes. The same scenario plays out today: austerity or. funny money or a mix. Inflation or deflation, that's part of the mystery we all all living with. But to really get it, you have to know a little history. Terrific narration too.Is this a mystery, a history or an economics book?
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