ABSTRACT
Written during the early 1920s, at a time when Europe was still recovering from the catastrophe of the First World War, L.V. Birck’s The Scourge of Europe examines the economic issues surrounding the existence of public debt, its history, and possible approaches to problems associated with public debt as they were being pursued by the great powers of the time. Birck’s analysis contains a rigorous theoretical exposition and explanation of public debt as it was understood in the crucial period leading up to the Great Depression. This is then followed by an insightful exploration of the role of public debt in European financial and economic history. Finally, some reflections on the policies of England, the United States, France and Germany in the latter part of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries are included.
This book will appeal to economic and financial historians, as well as to those generally interested in European policies towards debt from the Middle Ages to modern times.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |77 pages
Description
chapter |7 pages
How to Meet a Budget Deficit
chapter |7 pages
Basis of Public C redit
chapter |11 pages
The Lender
chapter |12 pages
Different Kinds of Debt
chapter |4 pages
Conditions
chapter |8 pages
Politico-Economic Conditions
chapter |13 pages
Bankruptcy
chapter |15 pages
From Debased Coin to Paper-Money
part |74 pages
The Explanation
chapter |21 pages
Paper Money and Inflation
chapter |10 pages
Back to Gold!
chapter |15 pages
Taxation or Loans?
chapter |10 pages
Can the Present Generation Transfer her Burdens on to the Future?
chapter |8 pages
Repayment
chapter |10 pages
A Capital Levy
part |109 pages
The Facts
chapter |12 pages
The Middle Ages
chapter |19 pages
The Origin of an International Loan Market
chapter |19 pages
The Era of Absolutism
chapter |8 pages
The Era of Napoleon
chapter |15 pages
The Liberal Régime
chapter |14 pages
The World War
chapter |22 pages
Unsettled Problems
part |42 pages
Appendix England, United States, France, Germany and Denmark in the Last Decades