Caught up in the costly Napoleonic wars, Austria went into sovereign default in 1811. Five years later, the public authorities founded a national bank to be financed and run by private shareholders, the idea being that an independent bank would help rebuild trust in money. During the two hundred years that followed, the Oesterreichische Nationalbank grew from the treasury's banker-of-choice into a central bank, and from a private stock corporation into a public institution. Yet the challenges facing today's Nationalbank are a surprising echo of the past: How can it provide stable money? How...