Money in the German-Speaking Lands

About this book

As the years following the 2008 financial crisis have made clear, Europeanization, in its current form, is largely organized and enacted with German money. But this is not as recent a phenomenon as it might seem: Germany's leading role in EU financial policy is in a sense only the latest step in a long historical trajectory of attempts to forge political unification with the tools of economic integration. This volume follows this trajectory from the late Renaissance until the close of the twentieth century, exploring the connections between economics and politics throughout German history, as well as money's cultural and symbolic dimensions.