Book excerpt: International Finance and Open-Economy Macroeconomics provides a complete theoretical, historical, and policy-focused account of the international financial system that covers all of the standard topics, such as foreign exchange markets, balance of payments accounting, macroeconomic policy in an open economy, exchange rate crises, multinational enterprises, and international financial markets. The book uses the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference as a unifying theme to relate the many controversial issue. It is written in a lively manner to bring real world events into the discussion of all of the concepts, topics, and policy issues. There is also emphasis on the history of economic thought in order to explain how economists in different time periods dealt with international financial issues.