Although Blaazer's title suggests a history of currency or coinage, this book defines money much more expansively as a “unit of account” with recognized political, social, and cultural value beyond the purely economic (4). Blaazer examines the creation of a “unified (although not entirely uniform) monetary order” concomitant with the construction of the United Kingdom itself (13). This is no Whiggish modernization story, however. Forging Nations begins with James VI/I's short-lived gold coin, the “unite,” designed to replace separate English and Scottish currencies, and struck with the provocative political slogan faciam eos in gentem unam (“I will make them one nation”). It ends with a chapter entitled “Things Fall Apart,” detailing the Irish Free State's departure from the UK in 1922, and the UK's departure from the gold standard in 1931. An epilogue details financial and political crises of the very recent past, including English and Irish responses to the euro, and the place of currency in the Scottish independence movement.

Blaazer thus argues for an episodic understanding of the monetary order. Political power alone was never enough to enforce monetary systems—or at least not for long, as evidenced by Oliver Cromwell's abortive monetary union or James II's 1689 Irish scrap metal money. Blaazer demonstrates that the institutional trust necessary for monetary stability required very particular social contexts. In the eighteenth century, for example, the Bank of England, as an engine of the expanding fiscal-military state, buttressed imperial and commercial patriotism. By the early nineteenth century, however, the Bank had been cast as the enemy of the people, enabling elite politicians to wage war and increase taxes. Meanwhile, in Ireland, landowning MPs rejected establishment of a public bank in 1721, fearing it would compromise their own economic power and reinforce dependence on England. But in 1783, the same political class embraced an English-style bank as a symbol of national independence.

Chapters 6 and 7, which cover the long nineteenth century, are particularly important to Blaazer's emphasis on cyclical crisis. (And as he notes, much of the recent scholarship on money has focused on the early modern period.) In 1797, the Bank of England suspended payments in specie, concerned about their low reserves and a run on country banks in the wake of the French landing in Ireland. Their subsequent issue of small notes in £1 and £2 denominations made “the pound” synonymous with British currency by the end of the Napoleonic Wars—but drew criticism from bullionists suspicious of paper money. The 1696 recoinage debate was re-animated: was currency valued by its status as legal tender or by its specie content? The latter position won, as in 1696, when John Locke's argument for intrinsic value prevailed. The Coinage Act of 1816 and the resumption of Bank payments made the de facto gold standard official. The gold standard would become culturally and politically entrenched over the course of the century, despite periodic financial crises. London's powerful role in global finance made the gold standard a source of patriotism, and even the emerging labour movement did not question it. The gold standard, Blaazer argues, even more than “free trade,” was Britain's national ideology in the nineteenth century.

These two chapters also highlight Blaazer's consistent inclusion of the Scottish and Irish contexts. In 1825, a cascading set of country bank failures renewed debates about paper money and small notes. Yet Scottish banks successfully retained their right to circulate small notes—one of several instances where Blaazer demonstrates there was rarely consensus about paper money. A year later, the assimilation of Irish coinage (replacing Irish copper coin with the heavier British) was complicated by supply delays, and by price manipulation during the transition. When the government attempted to resolve these issues by simply declaring the parity of existing Irish coins, there was further confusion and protest by workers who felt this amounted to a wage cut. Although the second half of the century would be marked by stable currency supply and valuation throughout the UK, these moments underscore Blaazer's argument that English monetary hegemony was a complicated process.

These events will be familiar to many readers, as Blaazer readily admits. He states in his introduction that the book is a synthesis, not intended to introduce new sources or methodologies. It is a dense book, sometimes dry, and Blaazer does lean heavily on the work of other scholars, notably Christine Desan (Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism [2014]). But there is clear value in his long chronology, which undermines traditional periodization. He should also be commended for his genuine commitment to a three kingdoms approach—oft-cited, but rarely put comprehensively into practice. I can imagine Forging Nations as a useful reference for undergraduate teaching. The final chapter could be assigned as standalone course reading; it does not rely on the previous chapters, and it offers a thorough and accessible account of the “relentless monetary crisis” between 1914 and 1931 (236).