The Post-War Economic Order

By mid 1943 the tide of war had turned against the Germans. The Russians had started their counterattack and soon were near Kiev in Ukraine. By the fall of that year Mussolini was deposed and American troops landed in Italy. Perhaps a sane person would have surrendered. The Allies now could look forward to the end of the war and the kind of world that would emerge although planning for the post-war economic environment had started as early as 1942 in the United States and England. In both countries the planners—Harry Dexter White in the United States and John Maynard Keynes in England—were at work to come up with arrangements and innovations that would prevent a repeat of the 1930s. Their efforts culminated in the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944, and both can be considered as architects of the post-War international economic order.