Money Beyond Borders

A 2,500-year history of international currencies that reveals new insights about the future of the U.S. dollar as well as crypto and central bank digital currencies.

"A learned and highly readable history of the making and breaking of international currencies. . . . a fine book." ---Brett Christophers, Financial Times

"Accessible to a generalist audience, the book aims to elicit policy lessons from a long sweep of history. The author synthesizes a growing body of literature on classical economic history as well as the considerable research on 18th century financial history, notably that of Amsterdam. The chapters on the 20th century will be familiar to readers of Eichengreen’s other research on this era, but the cycles of history are worth revisiting. US President Richard Nixon’s confrontation with the chair of the Federal Reserve in the 1970s makes for particularly timely reading." ---Catherine Schenk, F&D Magazine

"The international economy relies on the U.S. dollar. . . . As this sweeping history points out, however, the greenback is only the latest in a centuries-long series of global currencies, including the Dutch guilder and the British pound sterling, whose statures have risen and fallen with the fortunes of their issuers. For now, Eichengreen argues, none of the dollar’s would-be challengers, from the renminbi to digital alternatives such as stablecoins, have what it takes to supplant it. But, as America’s debts pile up and its relative wealth and power decline, the dollar’s appeal may fade."

"In this powerful work covering 2,500 years of international currencies, Barry Eichengreen shows the financial and geopolitical factors shaping reserve currency status. . . . Eichengreen’s brilliant and sober assessment is essential reading for those seeking better alternative futures for the 21st century." ---Thomas Reifer, Global Policy

"Is the US dollar doomed to lose its status as the global reserve currency? Barry Eichengreen has set out to answer this question in the latest of his impressive exercises in showing the relevance of economic history to current policy debates. . . . Eichengreen doesn’t predict the imminent displacement of the dollar as the international currency, but he notes the coalescence of a series of long- and short-term factors that are likely to result in its diminished stature in future." ---Michael Taylor, Central Banking

"A profoundly transformative read that changes how we perceive money, banking, and the financial system’s role in society."

"[Eichengreen is] the rare economist who arrives at the question of money with two graduate degrees from Yale, one in economics and one in history. The combination is not biographical color. It is the source of the argument. . . . His new book, Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto , published by Princeton University Press in March, is the synthesis. Twenty-five hundred years of international currencies, from Lydian electrum coinage of the seventh century BCE through Florentine florins and Spanish silver to the British pound, the U.S. dollar, and the digital currencies now arriving on private blockchains. The argument is direct. The same forces that lift a currency to global dominance eventually set the stage for its erosion. The dollar is not exempt. Eichengreen places it on the downside of the cycle."

Barry Eichengreen is the George C. and Helen N. Pardee Chair and Distinguished Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author and coauthor of many books, including Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System ; How Global Currencies Work (Princeton); and Globalizing Capital (Princeton).