Currency power

Currency power: understanding monetary rivalry. By Benjamin J. Cohen. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2015. 304pp. £16.55. ISBN 978 0 69116 785 5. Benjamin J. Cohen is a prolific author and a well-known expert on the political economy of international money. He has written extensively about the relationship between state power and international money and the concept of power in international economic relations. In Currency power, he continues to explore these themes; his stated aim is ‘to advance our conceptual and analytical understanding of the political dimension of international money’ (p. 2). To this end, he builds his argument on a rigorous analytical framework that first defines key concepts—such as international money—and then assesses three cases: the dollar, the euro and the yuan. The underlying question is whether the euro and the yuan present a threat to the dollar's dominant position in the international monetary system. The conclusion is that the four elements of state power—economic size, financial development, foreign policy ties and military reach—together with market range and inertia will preserve the dollar's dominant position for the time being

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