ABSTRACT
Until recently it has been 'axiomatic' that money is the right and responsibility of the nation-state and that state intervention in this realm is both 'constant and constitutive' (Rotstein and Duncan 1991: 416; Leyshon and Thrift 1997: 56). While the role ofeconomic factors in the formation ofnation-states has long been alluded to (e.g. Hobsbawm, 1990; Smith, 1986; Gellner, 1983), it is ironically only now that national currencies appear to be threatened by contemporary monetary transformations that attention has begun to turn more specifically to the interrelationship between money and nation-states. That the role of national currencies appears to be fading means that an historical analysis of their development is more, not less, important, for understanding the contingency of their evolution means that we will be better able to assess the contemporary challenges to them and the emergence of alternative forms of exchange that are appearing on the horizon.
