Adam Tooze

If Europe preferred not to highlight its role in the “American” financial crisis of 2008, covering its tracks was made easier by the fact that from 2010 Europe was consumed by its own “authentically” European crisis.

It would pit Greeks against Germans and reawaken memories of World War II. Both crisis narratives play to type: mercenary Americans, squabbling European nationalisms. But was it merely bad luck that the two crises followed so closely upon each other? Was it merely bad luck that the same banks were involved in both?

After a series of messy devaluations between 1981 and 1983, Paris abandoned its effort at social democracy in one country and adopted instead a hard-currency policy of “franc fort.”