## Overshadowed Founder

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [Overshadowed Founder](https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/book-review-overshadowed-founder-ghosh)

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- [Markdown version](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/book-review-overshadowed-founder-ghosh/index.md)
- [Structured JSON version](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/book-review-overshadowed-founder-ghosh/index.json)
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## Bibliographic details
- Authors: Atish Ghosh
- Published: March 1, 2022

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### Overview
- Title reviewed: Harry White and the American Creed: How a Federal Bureaucrat Created the Modern Global Economy (and Failed to Get the Credit)
- Publication: F&D Magazine
- Author of review: ATISH REX GHOSH is historian at the IMF.
- Reading indicator on page: Less than a minute(0 words) Read

### Key findings about Harry Dexter White and the book by James Boughton
- White’s signature achievement: contribution to shaping the postwar international monetary order decided at the Bretton Woods Conference.
- Boughton credits White with four main insights:
  - the postwar system needed to be designed while war was still being waged;
  - it would need to be designed by all the allied nations, and not just presented as a fait accompli negotiated between Britain and the United States;
  - it should promote multilateral trade and payments;
  - it should be based on the US dollar, rather than some new, artificial international currency.
- Boughton documents White’s early years and career trajectory:
  - White started his higher education only in his late 20s, after serving in World War I.
  - He attended Columbia, Stanford, and Harvard, where he was awarded the prize for the best PhD dissertation in 1932.
  - During the Great Depression jobs were hard to come by; White taught at a small college in Wisconsin.
  - He interned at the US Treasury for three months in the summer of 1934 after being invited by Jacob Viner.
  - During that internship he produced a 400-page report on what monetary system the United States should have.
- On espionage charges:
  - Boughton meticulously documents every charge and insinuation that White was a Soviet agent and finds them flimsy and often ridiculous.
  - Boughton’s concluding judgment (quoted): “if White was a spy, he was very bad at it…for a man who was so good at everything he applied himself to doing, to accuse him of such an agency would be the unkindest charge of all.”

### Assessment and implications
- Boughton’s biography redresses the imbalance of attention between John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White, arguing for White’s place alongside Keynes.
- The review highlights a tension in the postwar design choice: basing the international monetary system on the US dollar rather than creating a new international currency, with Boughton (via White) arguing practicality given US Congressional ratification concerns.

### Tone and style
- Boughton’s book is described as a fine piece of scholarship that reads like a thriller.
- The review emphasizes Boughton’s careful documentation and defense of White’s legacy.

*F&D Magazine — review by ATISH REX GHOSH, historian at the IMF.*

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## Content in this bundle

- **استعراض الكتب**
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  - [استعراض الكتب (PDF)](/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/ar/book-gosh-p67.pdf){rel="external" type="application/pdf"}
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  - [Un fondateur dans l’ombre de Keynes (PDF)](/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/fr/book3.pdf){rel="external" type="application/pdf"}
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  - [Книжное обозрение – Финансы и развитие – Переосмысление бюджетных основ – март 2022 года (PDF)](/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/ru/book-3.pdf){rel="external" type="application/pdf"}
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  - [黯然失色的创始人 (PDF)](/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/zh/book3.pdf){rel="external" type="application/pdf"}

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/book-review-overshadowed-founder-ghosh_