In July 1944, with war still raging in Europe and the Pacific, 730 delegates from 44 countries gathered at the Mount Washington, a grand hotel built at the turn of the century in New Hampshire. They were on the edge of a little town called Carroll, surrounded by a national forest not far from the Canadian border. But the name that would become famous was that of the area in which they were staying: Bretton Woods.
The conference had been facilitated by the US to agree new rules for the post-war international monetary system. Described as the most important international gathering since the Paris peace conference of 1919, it would “look beyond the carnage of war to establish a new world order founded on commerce and cooperation”. To the indignity of the British, it became the moment when the hosts conclusively replaced them as the world’s dominant power.
Some 80 years later, the international system looks very different to what was agreed during that three-week process, much of it having failed or mutated along the way. All the same, American dominance has continued, with the basic tenets that underpinned the agreement still broadly in place. As we shall see, however, they are now under threat like never before.
