The Emergence of Modern Central Banking from 1918 to the Present. Edited by C.-L. Holtfrerich, J. Reis, and G. Toniolo. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999. Pp. 398. $99.95.

Extract

This book consists primarily of the proceedings of a conference held at Evora in Portugal in May 1996 to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the Bank of Portugal. The conference comprised two parts, the first involving (central) bank archivists and the second monetary historians. This book covers only the contributions of the monetary historians, though there were a sizeable number of these: 11 papers treat the history of central banks in 17 countries—the United Kingdom; France, Spain; Germany, Japan; Sweden, Finland; Portugal; Italy; Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia; the United States, Canada; Argentina, Brazil and Mexico—plus the IMF and the BIS. In addition there is an introduction by two of the three editors, and a concluding comment by Barry Eichengreen, which latter reads more like an earlier introduction, since it refers both to a paper (by Marc Flandreau) presented at Evora but published elsewhere in the meantime, and to another paper (by Michael Collins), which clearly was totally rewritten (and with a new joint author) between the conference and publication; overall perhaps an indication of problems in the publication process?