Here is an introduction to the study of the international economy as a mechanism for diffusing modern economic growth between nations. It is divided into three parts, of which the first examines the workings of the system in the years before 1914. This includes an analysis of the conditions favorable to the growth of international economic relations during the period, examines the changing character of the international flows of labor, capital and trade, and surveys contemporary commercial and international monetary policies. This first part concludes with a chapter analyzing the international economy as a mechanism for diffusing economic growth, and another chapter examining the nature of the economic trends and fluctuations associated with this phase in the growth of the international economic system.

The second part gives an account of the collapse of the international economy during the interwar years, and traces the causes of collapse to changes in the structure and functioning of the system brought about by World War I and the depression of the 1930s.

The final part takes the story beyond World War II. It describes the wartime and post-war efforts to reconstruct the international economic system, and examines the working of the new system in the period after 1945, bringing out both its strengths and its weaknesses.