Barry Eichengreen is a respected economist best known for his research of the history of international monetary and financial systems. He is also an amazing story teller. In this amazing and short book he not only tells his readers a brief monetary history of the USA but also explains the implications (and benefits to the USA) of the US Dollar's role in international finance. The difference between what it costs the USA to print dollars (i.e. almost nothing) and what foreigners have to pay for it is known as 'seignorage'. "Almost $ 500 billion of US currency circulates outside the United States, for which foreigners have had to provide the United States with $ 500 billion of actual goods an services. ... Even more important is that foreign firms and banks hold not just U.S. currency but bills and bonds that ... have the attraction of bearing interest. Foreign central banks hold close to $ 5 trillion of the bonds of the U.S. treasury and quasi governmental agencies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They add to them year after year. ... the interest that the United States must pay is two to three percentage points less than the rate of return on its foreign investments." The USA can import more than it exports and consume more than it produces year after year without becoming more indebted to the rest of the world. "Or it can scoop up foreign companies in that amount as a result of the [US] dollar's singular status as the world's currency. This has long been a sore point for foreigners, who see themselves as supporting American living standards and subsidizing American multinationals through the operation of this asymmetric financial system." Furthermore when the US Dollar weakens, as it did for example in 2007, the value of US foreign investments rises. This improved the US financial position by almost $ 450 billion offsetting almost the $ 650 billion current account deficit, i.e. the excess of US imports over its exports. There are also other benefits Americans derive from the US Dollar's role as international reserve currency. When Valery Giscard d'Estaing was France's finance minister he referred to this as America's "exorbitant privilege." (pp. 2-5) If you are interested in understanding the turmoil in recent years (and previous episodes) in currency markets this is the book you should read. You do not need a degree in economics to follow Professor Eichengreen's explanations or to understand his thoughts about the role the US Dollar might play in the near future and what might happen in the somewhat more distant future, specifically if the Chinese renminbi (Yuan) might take the role of international reserve currency in the more distant future. He also looks into the role of the Euro and its future. It is a brilliant book dealing with a topic that is on many people's minds because of the events since 2008. Unfortunately it suffers from imperfections which greatly diminish its value because these imperfections slow down the speed with which one can read this book considerably. It is perhaps surprising that the Oxford University Press opted for the ever more common phenomenon of substituting a spell checker for a proof reader. A spell checker cannot detect missing words, or words that are wrongly repeated, or don't make any sense in the context. It can also not correct grammatical mistakes. These four groups of mistakes are numerous throughout the book. (I took note of some of them only when I was almost finished reading the book and it was clear to me that I would mention this here. I didn't take down instances of wrongly repeated words but they occur more than once; so here are but three examples.) Superfluous words: "And here are there are grounds for concern." (p.163) Missing words: "It hard to avoid the conclusion ..." (p.165) Grammatical: "... manufacturing uses more blue-collar labor than does financial services ... ." (p.173)