The Geography of Money. By Benjamin J. Cohen. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1998. 229p. $37.50 cloth, $17.95 paper.

Abstract

This new book by one of the most distinguished senior contributors to scholarship on the international political economy (IPE) of money is a fascinating and ambitious effort to remap our understandings of the geography of money. Cohen argues convincingly that the prevailing mental map based on one nation/one money is outmoded. Monies are primarily differentiated today not by territory but by their function in a hierarchical pyramid-like arrangement; the few currencies at the top are used widely internationally, whereas those at the bottom have been displaced even within their home borders and may now serve only trivial administrative functions. The great number of theoretical and empirical insights into an important process of global restructuring, and the engaging and straightforward style, should make this book of interest well beyond those who specialize in the sometimes dauntingly technical literature on global money and finance.