The past and future of the EU: an interview with EurActiv
I talked to EurActiv Slovakia’s Chief Editor, Zuzana Gabrizova, on Monday 7 April.
An exercise in text mining and distant reading: Helmut Schmidt’s visit to the Bundesbank in 1978
A visit of a German chancellor to the Bundesbank was unusual enough to be carefully recorded. The transcription of the discussion has now been declassified, which gave me the opportunity to try a detailed text analysis of the record.
Online digital sources in international economic history: a frustrated view
The post that follows is only a snapshot of some reflections I presented at the last conference Digital Humanities Luxembourg (DHLU) on 5 December 2013. I picked up a couple of examples to illustrate my personal research experience and hopefully convey my strand of thought on the use of digital sources in international economic history – a frustrated experience, but clearly not depressed!
Trade surpluses and the single currency
German trade surpluses are making once again the headlines. The European Commission decided yesterday to launch an investigation into Berlin’s “excessive” trade surplus. This surplus is so large, the Commission argues, that it saps the strength of the Eurozone economic balance (or, put differently, nurtures its imbalances). But is this concern really new?
The Euro Crisis: a Historical Perspective
This paper sheds light on the current euro crisis by looking at the debates preceding the conception of the euro. How can the early days of EU monetary cooperation help us understand today’s predicament? And what lessons can we draw from them for the euro?
Les banquiers centraux de l’échec du plan Werner à la création du Système monétaire européen
This article focuses on the role of central bankers in European monetary cooperation, from the failure of the Werner Plan to the creation of the European Monetary System (EMS).
Integrating an International Political Economy Dimension into European Integration History: the Challenges of the 1970s
This article sets out the state of the field, outlines some of the problems/methodological challenges to historical research on the 1970s and finally sketches some potential research directions.
Digital Humanities Luxembourg (DHLU) 2013
I will be giving a paper at the next symposium of the research programme “Digital Humanities Luxembourg” (DHLU 2013), “Reading historical sources in …
A Europe Made of Money: the Emergence of the European Monetary System
A Europe Made of Money is a new history of the making of the European Monetary System (EMS). This account stresses that the EMS is much more than a success story of financial cooperation. The technical suggestions made by its architects reveal how state elites conceptualized the larger project of integration. And their monetary policy became a marker for the conception of European identity.