The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond.

• Author: Colombatto, Enrico
• Position: Book review

The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond

By Barry Eichengreen

Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006.

Pp. xvii, 495. $35.00 cloth.

Barry Eichengreen's book The European Economy since 1945 presents a detailed introduction to the economic history of western Europe since World War II, plus a chapter on the history of central planning in eastern Europe and another on the process of transition from the economic environment typical of the Soviet Empire to a free-market environment and the European Union. Those who read it all will not be disappointed. They will find comprehensive information on the postwar situation and the reconstruction, as well as a thorough description of the integration process that led to the Treaty of Rome (1957) and the European Union, with particular emphasis on the monetary aspects. The hurried reader will be satisfied, too, because each of Eichengreen's chapters can also be approached as a self-contained, well-researched, and thought-provoking essay in its own right, dealing clearly yet comprehensively with periods and episodes in recent western European history.

Not surprisingly, the author had to make several choices: whether to insist on quantitative technicalities or to discuss the extent to which political contingencies played a role and affected economic events, whether to make an effort to represent the European phenomenon as one general picture or to emphasize the national peculiarities, and so on. The author seems to have made his decisions by identifying the typical reader for whom he was writing the book: someone curious to know what really happened in Europe during the past sixty years, eager to have a broad representation before diving into more rigorous economic and political investigations or developing his own thoughts.

Of course, the author does not offer simply a list of events and comments. The introduction serves readers who seek a wide-ranging, encompassing theoretical framework. Eichengreen's organization is simple and effective: western Europe's economic history may be divided into three economic stages and two institutional periods.

Stage one covers the first fifteen post-World War II years. The central idea is that during this period western Europe took advantage of its human capital and its prewar institutional traditions to absorb technologies previously developed in the United States. As a result, it transformed its rather antiquated production structure...