Never Published Historic Bretton Woods Conference Transcripts Now Available

The Bretton Woods Transcripts, edited by Kurt Schuler and Andrew Rosenberg

NEW YORK, Oct. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the Center for Financial Stability (CFS) releases a new e-book, The Bretton Woods Transcripts.  The discussion and debate among negotiators, who forged the post World War II international financial system, has never been published until now.  The Bretton Woods Transcripts show the vision of luminaries such as John Maynard Keynes, future presidents, prime ministers, and other world leaders – offering the reader a front row seat at the conference that shaped the international monetary system for nearly 70 years. 

"The 1944 Bretton Woods Conference changed the way that governments cooperate on economic matters, establishing institutions and procedures that continue to guide their actions today," according to Kurt Schuler, Senior Fellow for Financial History at the CFS.

Dr. Schuler and his coeditor, Andrew Rosenberg, spent more than a year carefully and skillfully editing the transcripts as well as creating summaries of meetings and participants.

Jacques de Larosiere, Managing Director of the IMF from 1978-1987, and Steve H. Hanke, Professor of Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins University, note in their preface that "Even though there have been thousands and thousands of pages written about the Bretton Woods Conference, nothing beats the transcripts for a first hand feel of what transpired."

The Transcripts along with carefully crafted summaries reveal an untold story from World War II.  Despite a war still waging in 1944, delegates of great vision from 44 nations worked tirelessly in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to construct a financial system that would promote growth, minimize global imbalances, and foster stability.

The Bretton Woods Project at the CFS

The Transcripts serve as the cornerstone of a new Bretton Woods Project at the CFS. The Project offers a platform for study and exploration of the agreement.  The project Web offering contains over 3,000 pages of historic documents, to which will be added photographs, memorabilia and recollections. It is a resource for historians, finance professionals, public officials, the media, students, and other interested observers.

"Lessons from the Bretton Woods Conference are relevant to economic and financial challenges today as well as the role of multilateral institutions such as the IMF and World Bank into the future," according to CFS President Lawrence Goodman.

CONTACT: 
Kurt Schuler
212-626-2660
[email protected]
Website: www.CenterforFinancialStability.org

SOURCE Center for Financial Stability