A Single Currency for the British Empire?: A Warning for the Euro

Debates concerning the future of the Euro and the recent EU fiscal treaty might seem to be without precedent in Irish and European history. This is not so. Proposals for the creation of currency unions and for dealing with the economic challenges that inevitably follow have been debated for over two millennia. Examples include monetary unions between city states of ancient Greece, the attempts to coordinate the currencies of nineteenth century German states and the Latin Monetary Union that existed in continental Europe between 1866 and 1927.