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THE EURO - Media Comments and Reaction News & Commentary in German |
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Reviews in English When it all finally made cents Roger Morgan learns of the diplomatic deal-making that made the eurozone a reality By Roger Morgan - published on 25/06/2009 in The Times Higher Education The global economic turbulence of 2008-09 has obscured an important anniversary: January 1999 saw the creation of the euro, the European Union's single currency, managed by the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt. David Marsh, whose previous books include an authoritative study of the German Bundesbank, has marked the euro's tenth birthday with a detailed and illuminating account of its origins, its record and its prospects. This is a blow-by-blow account in a fairly literal sense. Marsh's survey of Europe's monetary politics, from the gold standard in the 1920s to the arguments for and against economic and monetary union (EMU) in the 1970s, is full of conflicts. Read full article The story of how the euro gained currency By Mark Hennessey - published on 11/05/2009 in The Irish Times LIKE MUCH else in the EU’s history, opponents of the euro single currency maintained initially that it would never be created and later that it would not work. Ten years after its creation, it has answered many, but not all, of its critics. David Marsh’s The Euro: The Politics of the New Global Currency offers the first recording of the politics, economics and personalities that led to the birth of the euro. Directed by the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt under its French head, Jean-Claude Trichet, the euro is used daily in 16 of the 27 member states and has become the world’s second-largest reserve currency. Read full article Funny Money By Joseph A. Harriss - published in the May issue of American Spectator Imagine, if you can, that the federal government abolishes the dollar. Just does it because our betters have determined, in their wisdom, that it’s what we need. This will boost the economy, they say, create jobs, make us healthy, wealthy, and wise, yada yada yada. But not to worry, it will be replaced by a brand-new currency called the amer. One amer will be worth 6.56 dollars. All you have to do to understand how much you are really earning or spending is multiply by 6.56. No problem! In a scrambled months-long operation, our suddenly obsolete bills and coins are withdrawn from circulation and replaced by the new ones. Obliterated are the iconic likes of Washington and Jefferson, Hamilton and Lincoln, along with old-fashioned national symbols and embarrassing mottos like “In God We Trust.” Read full article And you thought fiscal policy was dull The launch of the euro reactivated age-old continental conflicts, says William Keegan By William Keegan - published on 03/05/09 in The Observer The British are ambivalent towards "Europe" and the euro. They like visiting the Continent and the convenience of the euro but a majority hates "Brussels". In this book, David Marsh, a former Financial Times journalist, now working in the City, has drawn extensively on his contacts with politicians and central bankers to produce an absorbing history of the birth and what the Bundesbank president, Professor Dr Axel Weber, calls the "puberty" of the currency. Much that is written in this field can be irritatingly partial - and boring. Marsh avoids such traps. "The arresting truth about the euro," he writes, "is that extreme judgments on its track record and prospects, both positive and negative, can be defended with equal robustness." Read full article Division, Unity and the Euro By Devin Leonard - published on 02/05/09 in New York Times THE rap mogul Jay-Z caused quite a stir two years ago when he flashed a bunch of 500-euro notes in a video. For a lot of Americans, it was enlightening. Sure, we knew that the euro had been surging in value against the hitherto almighty dollar. But if a star like Jay-Z preferred to display his net worth in euros instead of dollars, the buck must be in worse shape then we had thought. Since the euro’s creation in 1999, its rise has indeed been spectacular — and not just in the eyes of the MTV set. In “The Euro: The Politics of the New Global Currency” (Yale University Press), David Marsh notes that it swept away ancient currencies like the French franc, the Dutch guilder, the Greek drachma and newer but no less symbolically potent ones like the German mark and the Italian lira. Read full article We should join the Euro - but won't By Anthony Hilton - published on 21/04/09 in Evening Standard If the financial crisis through which we are living was indeed born and bred in America — a result of that nation living beyond its means for a generation and using its economic power to suck in the disproportionate share of the world's savings it needed to balance it books — one might expect our politicians to be looking to prevent this country from being similarly traumatised again. They have had ample time to think about it. The history of Europe since the 1960s has been one of its learning to live with the swings in the American economy and seeking ways to minimise the pain these caused. Read full article Of politics, nonchalance and monetary policy By Neil Reynolds - published on 17/04/09 in Globe and Mail (Toronto) On June 23, 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon met with H.R. (Bob) Haldeman, his chief of staff, and ordered the cover-up of the bungled burglary, one week earlier, of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate hotel in Washington. Tape recorders in the Oval Office preserved this conversation, subsequently famous as the “smoking gun” that forced Mr. Nixon to resign two years later. The same tape recorders preserved Mr. Nixon's response a year earlier to a British devaluation of the pound: Haldeman: “Did you get the report that the British have floated the pound?” Nixon: “No, I don't think so.” Read full article A very singular currency This book builds up a thorough, unbiased politico-historical account of the euro, and it will help us to make better decisions in this crisis, says Geoff Mulcahy. By Sir Geoffrey Mulcahy - published on 01/04/09 in Management Today This book is an exciting, interesting and very readable history of the euro, going back, as the author says, 'into hundreds of tributaries and eddying currents that collectively flow into the European single currency'. It takes a historical approach to its evolution in the context of the politics that has shaped the Europe we know today, and its relationship with the US and the rest of the world. It is not just for economists or financiers. It's a must-read for anybody running a business. Political scientist David Marsh has researched his subject extensively, talking with many of the leading players and accessing both official and unofficial records. Read full article A Euro bridge too far for Labour left By Denis MacShane - published on 20/03/09 in Tribune WHY does the euro cause such convulsions in British politics? In this important and highly readable book about the European single currency, David Marsh brings to life the historical genesis, birth pangs and now remarkable achievements of a currency that no one would have thought possible only a generation ago. On the way to speak at a union conference in 1996 Robin Cook assured me with all the magisterial authority that only Robin could command that there was no chance of the euro coming into existence. “It’s impossible for Italy and Spain to meet the criteria. It’s just a good idea but it’s not gonna happen, Denis,” he pronounced. Read full article Past, present and future of the euro A review of a book on the euro that deals with everything from the history of the monetary union to the challenges that lie ahead By Stewart Fleming - published on 19/03/09 in European Voice David Marsh was a journalist at the Financial Times who made his name in the 1980s by gently poking fun at the Bundesbank (then a new experience for that august institution), so it is no surprise that his book, The euro, is entirely readable. Uncovering hitherto untapped archival material, he adds to our understanding of the events that led up to the launch of the single currency, particularly the relationship between France and Germany and the roles played by some of the participants. Read full article Chirac, Kohl Almost Come to Blows Over the Euro in ‘Thriller’ By Simon Kennedy - published on 17/03/09 in Bloomberg News As the euro celebrates passing the 10-year mark amid the worst recession since World War II, recall what monetary muckety-mucks predicted about its birth. Alan Greenspan said he “didn’t think it was going to happen.” Milton Friedman questioned the single currency’s ability to withstand external shocks. Martin Feldstein warned that internal differences among the countries using the euro would generate serious conflicts. Read full article David Marsh, The Euro: the Politics of the New Global Currency
Ten years on from its introduction, the euro “has neither healed nor destroyed the continent”. But as Europe prepares to weather the global financial storm, the currency seems set for a much tougher second decade. The City of London’s supremacy over Frankfurt and Paris has perhaps been the crucial factor in keeping the UK outside the Eurozone. Despite the crisis, however, Marsh speaks of “a palpable sense that the UK is drifting further away”. In his eyes, the pound will endure until at least 2025. Download article Euro truths By David Lascelles - published in the March 2009 edition of Financial World The first quarter of this year has seen a sudden emption of speculation about the future of the euro. Will the stresses of the credit crunch prove too much for it, or is this the moment when the single currency will finally demolish the sceptics? David Marsh addresses this question, but not until the very end of this very entertaining book. So I will keep you waiting too. The literature on the euro is growing: recently we had Otmar Issing's insider view as chief economist of the European Central Bank, authoritative but not boatrocking. Marsh is a different proposition. A Financial Times journalist who turned investment banker, and author of several books on European finance, he is free to be much more forthright. Read full article The Euro: The Politics of the New Global Currency by David Marsh By David Smith - published on 15/02/09 in The Sunday Times Sorting through some stuff I came across my press badge for the Brussels summit in 1998 that launched the euro project in a fanfare. The meeting, recalled by David Marsh in his excellent new book, The Euro: The Politics of the New Global Currency (Yale University Press), was marred by a Franco-German row over who should be the European Central Bank's first president. Tony Blair, chairing the meeting, was ill-prepared for the disagreement and the euro got off to a poor start, though its second five years were better. Things are now very tough, though, hence Friday's sharp 1.5% drop in euroland GDP, which included a 2.1% plunge in Germany. Read full article The Euro: The Politics of the New Global Currency by David Marsh By Philip Collins - published on 12/02/09 in The Times Every book on economics that has been in preparation for more than a year will require a rapidly written coda, even if the body of the text remains intact. This history of the euro will be no exception. The research for the book was conducted in a world before the worst of the credit crunch. The book is now released in the midst of a financial crisis and appears against a backdrop of claims that the euro is hampering the economies of its members and that, most fancifully, the euro itself might be a casualty of the crunch. Read full article Currency Affairs Published on 06/02/09 in The Economist EUROPE’S single currency is now a sprightly ten-year-old. Sceptics had not expected it to live so long, so its rude health is something of a triumph. In different ways these two books, one by a former journalist for the Financial Times and the other by a former director of the European Central Bank (ECB) who was also its first chief economist, celebrate this success. David Marsh’s forthcoming book is more gripping, especially on the run-up to the euro’s birth. He has a detached, even sceptical tone, whereas Otmar Issing, whose book came out last October, is more of a fervent believer. Read full article Orthodoxy at the service of high ideals This political history of European monetary union is packed with details of bruising encounters and blunt speaking backstage By Ralph Atkins - published on 01/02/09 in Financial Times The euro – the currency of Europe’s 10-year-old monetary union – has always been a matter of more than economics. Victor Hugo, the 19th-century French poet and dramatist, dreamt of a currency that would replace “all the absurd varieties of money that exist today, with their effigies of princes, those symbols of misery”. In the end it was French and German anxieties in the decades after the second world war who spurred the project to completion. French leaders saw monetary union as a way to counter German economic power, as exercised through the fiercely independent Bundesbank, while strengthening Europe’s world role. Read full article For further details including book purchases, bulk copies and news on book launch events, please contact: Wiebke Räber, London and Oxford Group, + 44 (0)20 7796 9911, wiebke.raeber@londonandoxford.com For all other questions about the book, including reviews, please contact: For English edition: Katie Harris, Yale University Press, + 44 (0)20 7079 4900, katie.harris@yaleup.co.uk For German edition: Dagmar Landgrebe, Murmann Verlag, +49 (0)40 3980 8313, landgrebe@murmann-verlag.de
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