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How did the Bank of England manage sterling crises? The book “An Exchange Rate History of the United Kingdom: 1945-1992” (Cambridge University Press, new edition 2023) steps into the shoes of the Bank's foreign exchange dealers to show how foreign exchange intervention worked in practice. The author reviews the history of sterling over half a century, using new archives, data and unseen photographs. This book traces the sterling crises from the end of the War to Black Wednesday in 1992. The resulting analysis shows that a secondary reserve currency such as sterling plays an important role in the stability of the international system. The author goes on to explore the lessons the Bretton Woods system on managed exchange rates has for contemporary policy makers in the context of Brexit. 

Alain Naef is an economist focusing on climate finance, international macroeconomics and economic history. He obtained my PhD from the University of Cambridge followed by a postdoc at UC Berkeley. He has taught at Sciences Po, LSE, Warwick, Berkeley and Cambridge, and at ESSEC his teaching focus is on macroeconomics and environment economics. Previously, he was a Senior Economist at the Banque de France and a member of the G20 sustainable finance working group. He is also the cofounder of sustainable macro. His current research interests revolves around fossil fuel companies and their financing.