Books Details
Author : Nathan Marcus Pages : 560 pages Publisher : Harvard University Press
Language : eng ISBN-10 : 0674088921 ISBN-13 : 9780674088924
Books Descriptions
In 1921 Austria became the first interwar European country to experience
hyperinflation. The League of Nations, among other actors, stepped in to help
reconstruct the economy, but a decade later Austria's largest bank, Credit-
Anstalt, collapsed. Historians have correlated these events with the banking and
currency crisis that destabilized interwar Europe--a narrative that relies on the
claim that Austria and the global monetary system were the victims of financial
interlopers. In this corrective history, Nathan Marcus deemphasizes the
destructive role of external players in Austria's reconstruction and points to the
greater impact of domestic malfeasance and predatory speculation on the
nation's financial and political decline.Consulting sources ranging from
diplomatic dossiers to bank statements and financial analyses, Marcus shows
how the League of Nations' efforts to curb Austrian hyperinflation in 1922 were
politically constrained. The League left Austria in 1926 but foreign
