Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part one. Responding to the Great Depression. 'The establishment of a sound national economy' : the politics of the Great Depression ; 'Barren harvest' : the World Monetary and Economic Conference, 1933 ; 'Beggar my neighbour': the failures of the world economy, 1933-1939 ; 'Escaping from backwardness' : strategies of economic development
Part two. The Bretton Woods era. 'Handling the English' : lend lease, commercial policy and sterling balances
'A firm foundation' : reforming the monetary system
'An integrated program' : food, employment and commodities
'The threshold of the future' : the Bretton Woods Agreement
'A financial Dunkirk' : the United States, Britain and Germany
'Happier relations between all countries' : the failure of the International Trade Organization
'Convertible currencies in the free world' : sterling and Europe
'Damn it, we're a bank' : contesting development
'A common detestation of colonialism' : development, nationalism and the Cold War
'Competitive cooperation' : the Kennedy round, the United States and the Common Market
'Progress towards self-sustaining growth' : the development decade
Part three. Washington consensus. 'Trying to live with an anomaly' : the limits of Bretton Woods ; 'Benign neglect' : closing the gold window ; 'Music without any middle C' : the floating world ; 'A trade union of the poor' : the new international economic order and the limits to growth ; 'Expansion of economic freedom' : the rise of market liberalism ; 'Market fundamentalism' : the Washington consensus and financial liberalization ; 'Rules-based system' : creating the World Trade Organization ; 'Setting the bird free' : economies in transition ; 'Eurofantasies' : from economic and monetary union to the euro
Part four. Beyond neo-liberalism. 'Behaving badly' : the global financial crisis ; 'Messy multilateralism' : nationalism versus globalism ; Fair capitalism and globalization : the way ahead

"An epic history of the people and institutions that have built the global economy since the Great Depression"-- Provided by publisher.