The Silver Empire

The story of the largest currency union in world history and its creation at the hands of the Holy Roman Empire. Providing a historical perspective on multilateralism, the book makes early monetary policies widely accessible and draws a vivid picture of economic and political life in a country that abounded with diversity.

After receiving a PhD from Free University, Berlin, in 1995, Oliver Volckart worked as a research officer at the Max Planck Institute for Research into Economic Systems in Jena and as a lecturer at Humboldt University, Berlin. He joined the Economic History Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2007. Volckart has specialised on premodern monetary history since the 1980s and on institutional economics and the history of political economy since the 1990s.

Introduction
1: Diversity Becomes a Problem
2: People and Politics
3: Making Politics in the Empire
4: The Age of Silver
5: The Rhine Gold
6: The New Money
Epilogue