Jocelyn Pixley is an Honorary Professor at Macquarie University, Sydney, and Professorial Research Fellow with the Global Policy Institute, London. An economic sociologist, her fieldwork involves interviewing top officials in financial centres. She is the author of Emotions in Finance (2nd ed, Cambridge, 2012), and edited a volume on the same theme in 2012. With Geoff Harcourt, she edited the volume Financial Crises and the Nature of Capitalist Money (2013).

• 1. Who wanted central banks?; 2. War finance, private banks, shared monetary sovereignty; 3. Peace finance in bankers' ramps, 1920s–1930s; 4. Central banks, democratic hopes, 1930s–1970s; 5. Vietnam War, dollar float and Nixon; 6. The great inflation scare of Phillips curve myths; 7. Pseudo-independent central banks and inflation target prisons; 8. The state of monetary sovereignty; 9. Searching for the absurd in central banking.

'The on-going failures of government policy makers to promote sustainable prosperity for all their citizens is sharpening public focus on the roles of central banks. Professor Pixley's study is loaded with insights into how the charters and actions of central banks can both contribute to - and frustrate - the pursuit of this ultimate policy goal.' Bernie Fraser, Former Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia