Benjamin Cohen has produced yet another excellent volume on the political economy of international monetary affairs, this time with a worthy successor to his previous opus, The Geography of Money (1998). Like most of Cohen's scholarship, The Future of Money displays the author's remarkable facility with the vast breadth of issues, theories, puzzles, and esoterica associated with monetary matters, as well as a confident command of monetary policy and history. Future is perhaps less ambitious than Geography, but it is tight, well argued, and not wanting for important claims.

Of the numerous arguments offered in the book, four in particular stand out. First, Cohen attempts effectively, but perhaps with a bit more zeal than is necessary, to disprove the “contraction contention” that “the future [will] see a dramatic reduction in the number of currencies in circulation” (p. xii). Second, he argues neither the euro nor the yen will, in the foreseeable future, challenge the dollar's primacy as an international currency. On the other hand, new currencies—issued by private actors and facilitated by the Internet—will present novel challenges to monetary management. Finally, under pressure from both the proliferation of new monies and powerful market forces, states will need new approaches and techniques to assure the much-needed government of money.

The book's eight chapters are implicitly divided into three parts. The first two set the table, first with an overview of the relevant arguments from Geography—and, in particular, the observation that “money's changing geography is diminishing the power of the state” (p. 33)—and then with a consideration of the four strategies that states can employ in response to this challenge: leadership (obviously available only to a few), preservation (efforts to defend monetary autonomy), followership (greater insulation via selective subordination), and alliance (greater autonomy by pooling influence). The next four chapters consider each of these possibilities in turn. Two final chapters are prospective, considering “new frontiers” and offering recommendations on “governing the new geography.”

Along the way, Cohen participates in a number of related debates, many of which support his case against the contraction contention, an argument summarized in Chapter 2. One controversy that is engaged quite cautiously is over the prospects for capital controls. Future presents the case for both sides of the argument, and in contrast to his relative silence on this issue in Geography, the author is ultimately receptive to the place for limited, responsibly managed controls—but (to this reader, at least) he pulls his punches a bit, perhaps with a judicious eye toward picking those fights where more is at stake for the volume's central arguments.

In other arenas, more characteristically, no holds are barred: Marshaling both logic and evidence, Cohen argues that a marked increase in dollarization is unlikely as it “will lack natural appeal to most governments” (p. 140); nor will currency boards proliferate, and “experience to date has not been kind” to their reputation (p. 146). In Chapter 6, “Hanging Together,” he methodically surveys the globe and concludes that “predictions of many full new monetary unions … appear premature at best” (p. 178). (One weakness in this fine chapter is that the analytical bar had already been set quite high on these issues; see Benjamin Cohen, “Beyond EMU: The Problem of Sustainability,” Economics and Politics 5 [July 1993]: 187–203.)

Finally, given the endurance of national monies and the new challenges they face, Future considers how states can be better equipped to manage their “unavoidable” roles in the governance of money. After discarding a number of options (such as a world central bank), two logical and constructive suggestions are offered as both a counsel for countries and a mediator of coordination between them: the resurrection (and depolitization) of fiscal policy (where governments still enjoy considerable discretion), and a greater role for the International Monetary Fund, though more with regard to its influence than its resources.

Obviously, a book that throws down this many gauntlets will naturally find some of them picked up. For example, in evaluating the prospects for challengers to the dollar, Cohen's argument is to a large extent incrementalist—that is, projecting current trends and prospects, the dollar is likely to retain a dominant position that modestly erodes over time. More likely, however, is that monetary realignment, if it occurs, will take place more suddenly in the wake of a major event, such as a financial crisis involving the dollar. Additionally, sharper competition among the dollar, the euro, and even the yen is likely to be more of a function of the nature of international politics than a play of market forces. If a greater political divide opens up between the United States and Europe, a more overt challenge to the dollar will likely follow.

More generally, many of the critiques of Cohen's vision will follow this political thread. For while Future is often and smartly sensitive to the crucial role of politics, it nevertheless averts its eyes from the more rough and tumble rings of the political circus—harder-edged conflicts that feature the oppositional clash of vested interests at both the domestic and international level. This is most evident with regard to the book's proposed reforms, each of which requires the possibility that domestic and international political conflicts can be bracketed off and managed by an apolitical institution. But to search for the end of politics is to chase the horizon: Even the choices of “apolitical” central banks inevitably privilege some interests at the expense of others—this will be more starkly obvious if applied to the naked pie splitting that is fiscal policy—nor do states seem to be up to the task of calibrating their fiscal policies to fine-tune economic management.

But these are the arguments that an important book stimulates. This one would have demanded reading simply on the basis of the author's reputation. Happily, it more than merits this attention, and will be used with great profit by specialists and generalists and in the classroom.