A Europe Made of Money - (Cornell Studies in Money) by Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol (Hardcover)

About the Book

Drawing on an extensive archival research from eighteen archives in six countries, this book makes a significant contribution to the understanding of European integration and the evolution of the world monetary system.

Book Synopsis

A Europe Made of Money is a new history of the making of the European Monetary System (EMS), based on extensive archive research. Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol highlights two long-term processes in the monetary and economic negotiations in the decade leading up to the founding of the EMS in 1979. The first is a transnational learning process involving a powerful, networked European monetary elite that shaped a habit of cooperation among technocrats. The second stresses the importance of the European Council, which held regular meetings between heads of government beginning in 1974, giving EEC legitimacy to monetary initiatives that had previously involved semisecret and bilateral negotiations. The interaction of these two features changed the EMS from a fairly trivial piece of administrative business to a tremendously important political agreement.

The inception of the EMS was greeted as one of the landmark achievements of regional cooperation, a major leap forward in the creation of a unified Europe. Yet Mourlon-Druol's account stresses that the EMS is much more than a success story of financial cooperation. The technical suggestions made by its architects reveal how state elites conceptualized the larger project of integration. And their monetary policy became a marker for the conception of European identity. The unveiling of the EMS, Mourlon-Druol concludes, represented the convergence of material interests and symbolic, identity-based concerns.

Review Quotes

[A Europe Made of Money]is recommended for readers with a sound knowledge of 1970s European political, economic and monetary history and will be rewarding for economic historians, politicalscientists and political economists interested in the political and technocratic processesof European monetary co-operation in the 1970s, since these processes are at the heartof Mourlon-Druol's well-researched analysis.

--Anne-Caroline Huser "Journal of Common Market Studies"

Adds pieces to what is likely to be an important historiographical puzzle for some years to come.

--Andrew Moravcsik "Foreign Affairs"

At a time when the problems in the euro zone are frequently in the news, it is wise to consider the nature and origins of its immediate predecessor. Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol, of the University of Glasgow and the London School of Economics, has written a thorough description and analysis of the political and economic developments that led to the establishment, in 1979, of the European Monetary System [EMS].

--Jerry Mushin "EH.NET"

Highly informative, thoughtful and based on an impressive range of sources...Above all his thesis about the role of the European Council and the predominantly political meaning of the European Monetary System is well substantiated. The debate that has been going on for a few years about the relationship between civil society's transnational networks and political decisions should continue for the coming years.

--Guido Thiemeyer "Francia"

Mourlon-Druol describes the process leading to the birth of the European Monetary System (EMS) in 1979.... This work makes extensive use of a number of archives across Europe and will be valuable for anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the emergence of the EMS.

-- "Choice"

The book is an excellent contribution to European economic history. It illustrates the critical role of political elites and European institutions, particularly the EU Council, in shaping the multi-level governance framework of EMU. It is crucial reading for those wanting to understand the problems afflicting the Eurozone today.

--Aidan Regan "LSE Review of Books"

The book is well researched and clearly written. It relies on an impressive amount of archival material. The author does an excellent job in explaining with Cartesian clarity, who did what, when, how and most importantly why.

--Lucia Quaglia "Journal of European Integration History"

This book, based on extensive archival research, delves into the making of the European Monetary System, focusing on the period from May 1974 to March 1979. This book is well written and well structured... On the whole, the strength of this book lies in the author's archival research.... it contributes to our understanding of the process of European monetary integration in the second half of the 1970s.

--Ivo Maes "Fianacial History Review"

While deeply complex and technical subjects like monetary integration do not usually make for light reading, the strength of Mourlon-Druol's book lies precisely in the way in which it manages to regularly transcend such technicalities by highlighting the bigger implications of the EMS for how we understand the larger processes of European integration today. Thus, A Europe Made of Money is not only an authoritative and well-researched history of the creation of the European Monetary System, but it also forces us to reconsider how we approach the study of European integration more generally.

--Mathias Haeussler "Reviews in History"

About the Author

Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol is Research Associate in the Department of Economic and Social History, University of Glasgow, and Associate in the Transatlantic Programme of the IDEAS Centre, London School of Economics.