The global marketplace is thriving; trillions of dollars trade hands each business day. And yet the way money works is shrouded in mystery for the majority of us. Who controls money? What governs the way money is handled?

In the 1950s, the nature of international banking changed through the creation of the Euromarket. The Power of Money tells the story of this development from the Bretton Woods system to the floating rates of the Euromarket.

In his explanation of the rise of the Eurodollar, Armand Van Dormael carefully considers the events of history during the...

Several years ago, Armand Van Dormael decided to buy a computer and found that the European electronics companies had given up production. This prompted him to investigate the cause of their demise. To his surprise, he discovered that the program-controlled electromechanical computer, the commercial computer, the transistor, the transistor radio, the microcomputer and the www originated in Europe. Historians have covered every phase and aspect of semiconductor science and computer technology as it developed in the United States. But the pioneering breakthroughs by German and French scientists...

For much of the postwar era, Heinz Nixdorf epitomized the Wirtschaftswunder, Germany's extraordinary recovery from the devastation of war. During his lifetime, he became a legend as the visionary young entrepreneur who had the nerve to challenge the giants of the computer industry. He started out with a moped, a few hand tools and a project. He set up his workshop in the basement of an electric power plant and built it into a one-man global company employing 20000 people. In 1986, at the age of 60, during a company party held at the Hannover Fair, he was struck by a heart attack. During the...

Rome succeeded Greece as the dominant Mediterranean civilization. Emperor Constantine declared Christianity state religion. The Visigoths invaded Rome, which led to the end of the empire and marked the beginning of the Middle Ages. The Vikings dominated the period from the late 700s to the middle 1000s. They settled in Northern France and expanded through much of Europe. The Crusaders established trade routes that opened the way for the merchant republics of Genoa and Venice. The Renaissance saw the revival of classical learning and of the values of ancient Greece and Rome. Growing...

On March 23-24, 2000, at the Lisbon Summit, the EU heads of states and governments drew up a blueprint intended to make the European Union within ten years "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustained economic growth, with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion." This Summit was to be Europe's great leap forward. They foreshadowed the dawn of a golden age for the European economy. Despite the lack of results to achieve its goals, its proponents reaffirm them time and again, hiding their failure behind a facade of misinformation. The EU...

A highly readable account of the collision between sovereign states and global economic forces for the control of money. Throughout the ages money was a prerogative of national sovereignty and currency management was the responsibility of governments. Bretton Woods provided the post-war framework for intergovernmental monetary cooperation until the banking community, using the Eurodollar as an international medium of exchange, forced governments to adopt a regime of floating rates in the 1970s. The book describes the development of the Eurodollar market and the consequences for world finance...