List of figures and tables; Preface; Note on figures and tables; Glossary; 1. Routes to international political economy: accounting for international monetary order; Part I. The International Organization of Credit in Historical Perspective: 2. The power of cities and their limits: principal financial centres and international monetary order; 3. Between change and continuity: reconstructing 'Bretton Woods'; Part II. The Contemporary International Organization of Credit: 4. The era of decentralized globalization; 5. Decentralized globalization and the exercise of public authority; 6. Finance, power and the world-economy approach: towards an historical-institutional international political economy; Appendix: top merchant/investment banks, by city and era; References; Index.