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a conference convened by Americans to reach the so-called London Debt Agreement [...] Nations and private creditors owed money by the German state and by German corporations were persuaded to write off more than 70per cent of the money they were due.

The Truman Doctrine, announced by President Truman on 12 March 1947, focused on winning Greece for the West but, more importantly, constituted the president's unofficial declaration of the cold war.

Greece's sordid 1946-9 civil war, which left every Greek family I know indelibly marked

In a global system of fixed exchange rates, shock absorbers take the form of strong regional currencies, issued by potent central banks, to act as secondary pillars in support of the system's main currency. There was need for at least one such currency in Europe and another in Asia. Of course stron…

The Bretton Woods system, already set out in 1944, posited the dollar as the sole linchpin holding together the edifice of global trade and finance.