In 1879, the French Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interoceanique de Panama embarked on the project of cutting a canal through Panama to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This was a bold project but large canals had been built before and one crossing Egypt at Suez had already transformed the world a few years earlier.…
The most significant political and diplomatic crises often have financial repercussions. In the case of the ‘July Crisis’, the series of events which tragically cascaded into the First World War, the financial effects were overshadowed by the more terrible prospect of war itself. Still, the financial events of the summer of 1914 were historically significant…
This post is a continuation of The Gold Standard Between the Wars (Part I). In that post, the international gold standard was rebuilt as countries fixed their exchange rates, whether at pre-war rates or newer sharply reduced valuations. As was recounted, the speed with which countries restored their currencies’ link to gold masked the difficulty…
Throughout the 19th century, steadily more countries joined the international gold standard led by Britain and the Bank of England. During the First World War, this system was suspended virtually everywhere and currencies were allowed to float freely for the first time. The 20th century would see several changes in the global monetary order, in…
