In the wake of the Allied victory, the United States dominated the global economy. The Soviet Union may have been a credible military and geopolitical rival in 1945, but only one economic superpower existed. With much of Europe and Asia in physical and financial ruin, the US was the industrial engine and credit provider to a devastated world. In contrast to their predecessors at the end of the Great War, US policymakers grasped this historic power and responsibility. Consciously rejecting the myopic mistakes of Versailles, they resisted and then reversed the instinctive dash to the comfort of isolation. The monetary…

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