Bretton Woods uncovered (a scoop, of sorts)
The headline is a re-write of The Exchange (weblog of the Business History Conference) who gets the HT.Students of economic history are in for a treat. An official studying deep in the bowels of the US Treasury library has recently uncovered a prize of truly startling proportions – an 800-plus-page transcript of the Bretton Woods conference in July 1944, the meeting of nations which established the foundations of today's international monetary system.John Maynard Keynes (right) and Henry Morgenthau, the US Treasury Secretary, at Bretton Woods in 1944
Bizarrely, this extraordiary manuscript has never before come to light. Professor Steve Hanke of John Hopkins University, whose former student it was who discovered the document, is now dashing to publish it in full in conjunction with his friend, Jacque de Larosiere. The first stage of the process, transcribing the type-written document into digital form is now complete, though it is not yet available. It's hoped eventually to produce a hard-copy, book version....MORE
