An inquiry carried out by three economists (Boyer-Xambeu, Ghislain Deleplace, and Lucien Gillard) into the historical origins of modern monetary systems. These

First Published in 1994. Writing as a unified team, the authors, three French economists—they insist they are economists, not economic historians, though they

Coinage and currency—abstract and socially created units of value and power—were basic to early modern society. By controlling money, the people sought to u

The idea that each country should have one currency is so deeply rooted in people’s minds that the possibility of multiple and concurrent currencies seems unt