This books explains, on the basis of archival evidence and a simple economic model, why and how the gold standard collapsed in the interwar period. It also reveals how bilateralism and dirigisme in international financial relations emerged from the collapse of the universal gold standard, and how this poisoned international relations.

Alessandro Roselli is Visiting Fellow at Cass Business School, City University, London, and at the University of Buckingham, UK. He has spent most of his career at the central Bank of Italy and has been A.C. Jemolo fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. He has written extensively on banking, finance and economic history. His most recent book is Financial Structures and Regulation: A Comparison of Crises in the UK, USA and Italy.