## More Than America’s Money — THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR: 500 Years of the World’s Most Powerful Money (Brendan Greeley)

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**Canonical URL:** [More Than America’s Money — THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR: 500 Years of the World’s Most Powerful Money (Brendan Greeley)](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2026/09/books-boughton.pdf)

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### Overview
- Brendan Greeley’s study traces a timeline starting in 1518 and argues the dollar’s global role reflects long-established habits rather than solely US policy choices.
- Greeley’s central claim: “The dollar is not America’s currency. It works for the world—for now.”
- The reviewer (James Boughton) notes that Greeley treats the dollar as a “natural being beyond the control of any nation” and contrasts this view with more conventional analyses that tie dollar dominance to US economic policy.

### Historical origins and evolution
- Origin point identified: 1518, when a silver mine in Bohemia began minting silver coins called thalers.
- Linguistic and monetary transmission:
  - The thaler became the dólar in Spain.
  - Spanish silver dollars circulated alongside versions of the pound sterling in parts of British North America.
- Formal US adoption:
  - The dollar became the official currency of the United States through an act of the Continental Congress in July 1785.
  - That date implies an age of the “almighty” dollar of 241 years measured from 1785 to the present framing in the review.

### Mechanisms underpinning global dollar use
- Contracts denominated in dollars create dollar assets outside US borders; example given: a German bank lending to a European customer with repayment denominated in dollars.
- These dollar-denominated contracts (historically called “Eurodollars”) underpin the bulk of international trade and finance.
- Such dollar-denominated assets:
  - “Far exceed the domestic US money stock.”
  - Are beyond the control of the US government and the Federal Reserve.

### Determinants and prospects of dollar dominance
- Conventional view summarized:
  - Dollar dominance depends on US economic policy and financial soundness.
  - Persistent large federal budget deficits and doubts about US financial soundness generally underlie worries about continued dominance.
  - Other recent histories (Paul Blustein’s King Dollar and Barry Eichengreen’s Money Beyond Borders) base projections on the strength of US economic policies.
- Greeley’s alternative perspective:
  - The dollar’s global role owes more to “a series of habits built up over the past fifty years” than to the stature of US institutions.
  - Continuation of those habits is presented as “beyond the control of US institutions.”
- Open question highlighted: whether any currency can credibly challenge the dollar—possibilities mentioned: the euro, the renminbi, the SDR, crypto—though the review notes that so far no currency matches the dollar’s worldwide acceptance.

### Analytical takeaway
- The reviewer suggests the best lesson is that the conventional policy-centered view is not wrong but “not quite complete”: institutional policy strength matters, but durable global practices and contract choices also sustain the dollar.
- The dollar’s enduring appeal may thus owe less to Washington than to decades of worldwide use.

### Key publication facts and metadata preserved exactly
- Title: THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR 500 Years of the World’s Most Powerful Money
- Author: Brendan Greeley
- Publisher: Penguin Random House
- Location and year: New York, NY, 2026
- Length and price: 432 pp., $32
- Reviewer: james boughton (senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and former IMF historian)
- Exact numeric references preserved:
  - 1518
  - July 1785
  - 241 years
  - “past fifty years”

*Source: books-boughton (PDF chapter/section).*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2026/09/books-boughton.pdf_