Bücher von Richard T. Griffiths

This book traces the emergence of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) from 1955 to 1963 amid the broader reshaping of the institutional architecture of post-war Europe. It considers the ill-fated Free Trade Area (FTA) proposal, the subsequent creation of EFTA, and the resulting division of Western Europe into two distinct trading blocs. At its core, the book provides an international history of a formative moment of post-war and European integration history, and explores the intense technical discussions among European states as they grappled with the prospect of deeper economic and political unity. It thus provides the first detailed analysis combining the FTA and EFTA negotiations, considering both state and non-state actors. Drawing on archives from Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the US, as well as the records of the OEEC and EFTA, it examines the decision-making processes of those intimately involved as well as the institutional settings within which they were forced to reconcile their positions. At a key moment of contemporary European friction, the book offers a dialogue between the past and those trying to make sense of events that continue to shape Europe today.

Ports play an integral part in the global supply chain. They form the backbone of global economy as well as gateway to international trade. The Indian Ocean is of immense strategic importance as it carries half of the world's container traffic, one third of its cargo and eighty per cent of its maritime oil shipments. About forty per cent of global trade transits the Indian Ocean. In 2004 a US Defense Department report described China's investment in ports in South Asia as a 'string of pearls', the implication being that these were prized assets in extending China's naval reach in the Indian Ocean. Twenty years on and none of the three sites usually signalled for attention are functioning as fully developed ports and none have adequate road and rail connections with their hinterlands. Foreign interest in the region's ports, however, is not limited to China. This volume examines all the major ports in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and explores their countries' experience in encouraging, or resisting, foreign or private investment in developing their maritime potential. Success or failure in this endeavour will determine their ability to expand the overseas trade upon which their fast-growing economies will ultimately depend. (45 illustrations, 15 tables)

On 26 September 1936, deep in the night, the Dutch cabinet took the decision to cut the guilder's link with gold and to devalue its currency.