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Mary Bridges. Dollars and Dominion: US Bankers and the Making of a Superpower

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Mary Bridges opens her excellent study of American global economic power by depicting the scholarship on this early twentieth-century period in binary terms—divided between people-centered and institutions-centered narratives. Dollars and Dominion: US Bankers and the Making of a Superpower bridges the two sides, illustrating the “connective tissue of global power” and the “infrastructure of empire” built on credit files, manila envelopes, trade acceptances, foreign intermediaries, and social networks (18, 3). In a story of interwoven private and governmental authority, Bridges centers banks, tracing how their interactions with businesses and policymakers helped transform a British-dominated system into the American-led international financial order. As US economic interests muscled their way into China, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Philippines, US businessmen and government officials initially relied on seasoned British banks to finance trade, pay Americans abroad, and hold government deposits. But reliance on British banks came with a price. For example, American firms had to open their books to overseas financiers, who could then leak their trade secrets to competitors. Additionally, British bankers frustrated American authorities by refusing to pay their overseas officials in dollars. And while US policymakers partnered with their Anglo forefathers under the gold standard, they looked to dethrone British sterling as the world’s reserve currency in favor of the dollar.
DOI: 10.1093/ahr/rhaf570
Language: English
Subfield: Finance
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7117362170
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