A technical fix to the euro's original sin? Review of Ashoka Mody's EuroTragedy

A drama in nine acts

Bibliographic Data

ID13006405
AuthorsFerdi De Ville (0000-0003-4415-758X, Ghent University Hospital, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume9
Issue1
Pages269-273
Publication date2019-01-29
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobal Discourse (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2043-7897 • E-ISSN: 2326-9995
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1332/204378919x15470487645448
OpenAlexW2911676493
LanguageEN
References cited7

Twenty years after the introduction of the euro and ten years after the start of the global financial crisis, so many books have been written on the euro crisis by academics, journalists and policy makers that one would think nothing more is to be said.Ashoka Mody proves this assumption wrong in his EuroTragedy: a drama in nine acts.In this tour de force of a book, the author discusses the entire history of European monetary integration from the Schuman Declaration in 1950 until the most recent standoff between Italy and the rest of the eurozone, which he predicts with striking precision.Mody, an economist who spent most of his career with the International Monetary Fund and was in that capacity involved in the bail-out of Ireland, succeeds in combining cool-blooded economic analysis with a passionate critique of the many mistakes that were made throughout the history of the euro; errors that impoverished millions of citizens and estranged them from the ideals of European integration.As the title of the book reveals, Mody has chosen to present his analysis of the euro crisis as a tragedy, discussing its origins, dynamics and responses chronologically while focusing on the role of individual protagonists.Helmut Kohl, the German Chancellor during a long and key period (1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998) of the euro's genesis, plays the central role in this drama.Mody depicts him as the tragic hero, who has been critical in twisting the arms of sceptics of monetary union in Germany and other member states.Mody rightly contradicts the conventional wisdom that Kohl accepted the euro as a quid pro quo for German reunification.Rather, in his quest to make the history books as

Art · Drama · Literature · Political science · Theology · European Monetary and Fiscal Policies · Philosophy

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