Sterling-Dollar Diplomacy in Current Perspective

If you can get past the title, this book is a model for how to write about international economic diplomacy.

Gardner connects technical matters like tariffs, exchange rates, quantitative restrictions, and loans to ideology, the status of nations, and relations between states. Set in the 1940s, it follows American and British efforts to set up the IMF, World Bank, and GATT.

Although officials believed that the highest political stakes were connected to trade – the peace and security of the world were at issue – they fought constantly about trade.