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.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!