Monetary Crises-Many Books on Money
Books on money have, Then, appeared in the greatest numbers
at those times when money itself has seemed to be the main cause of economic
difficulties. The monetary chaos that followed upon the first World War made
many people aware for the first time that monetary stability was not something
that could be taken for granted. In the words, a pound sterling, a German mark,
an Austrian crown, an Italian Lira, a French or Belgian French, were not
necessarily the same things at different periods in Germany or Austria could not happen in this country, such happenings, though they were taking place abroad, stimulated the desire to know why money could play souch tricks.
In the monetary history of Britian between the wars two events stand out-the return to the Gold standard in 1925 and the departure from it in 1931. Why did statesmen gloomily shake their heads, pucker their brows and rub their chins in dismay in the autumn of 1931 at the mere possibility of Britain being forced off the Gold standard ? were all their dark forebodings borne out by later events ? To try to answer these questions more books on money were written.
The early 1930s Found the world suffering from the worst trade depression in its history, and there were some writers who thought-and possibly may still think-that is main cause was an insufficient amount of money in the hands of consumers. This was the period when economists as writers on the subject of money were joined by all kinds of other people-from civil engineers to professors of science who be lieved, just because economics deals with things like money that all familiar to everybody, that they were competent to pull to pieces orthodox monetary economics. Though these "money cranks" as they were called because they favoured the large scale creation of money were often very impolite to the orthodox school of writers, there were usually inspired by the best of motives the belief that, in the words of the seventeenth century proverb, "if money be not thy servant it will be the masters". this controversy produced another batch of books on money.
In the monetary history of Britian between the wars two events stand out-the return to the Gold standard in 1925 and the departure from it in 1931. Why did statesmen gloomily shake their heads, pucker their brows and rub their chins in dismay in the autumn of 1931 at the mere possibility of Britain being forced off the Gold standard ? were all their dark forebodings borne out by later events ? To try to answer these questions more books on money were written.
The early 1930s Found the world suffering from the worst trade depression in its history, and there were some writers who thought-and possibly may still think-that is main cause was an insufficient amount of money in the hands of consumers. This was the period when economists as writers on the subject of money were joined by all kinds of other people-from civil engineers to professors of science who be lieved, just because economics deals with things like money that all familiar to everybody, that they were competent to pull to pieces orthodox monetary economics. Though these "money cranks" as they were called because they favoured the large scale creation of money were often very impolite to the orthodox school of writers, there were usually inspired by the best of motives the belief that, in the words of the seventeenth century proverb, "if money be not thy servant it will be the masters". this controversy produced another batch of books on money.
The problem of money today
since 1945 money has again attracted attention. Our present difficulty is not an insufficient quantity of money, but axacly the reverse "too much money chasing to few goods", as one post war Chancellor of the Echequer described the situation. Few words in the English language have been used so frequantly during the past six or seven years as the word "inflation", Which was



