This brief but effective book covers the principal international financial developments since 1980: the dollar's rise and fall in the 1980s; Latin America's and Eastern Europe's debt crises during the same period; the long road to European monetary union; the struggle that former communist countries faced during their integration into the world economy; the dramatic growth in cross-border capital movements; and the financial crises of the late 1990s. A final chapter offers a fine discussion of the most recent international monetary developments and assesses reform proposals that attempt to redress the most troublesome episodes of the last two decades. A worthy sequel to the author's widely used The International Monetary System, 1945-1981.
