Wood, J. H., A History of Central Banking

Wood, J. H., A History of Central Banking in Great Britain and the United States, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
ISBN-10: 0521850134

The book contains a lot of interesting/useful material. However, it is written by the gold standard zealot, and clever insights rarely come from fanatics. Furthermore, there are many quotations in archaic language, which the author obviously enjoys but which obfuscate rather than clarify the subject.
Sometimes, Wood’s economics is really bizarre, e.g. the author sympathizes with a view of 19th Century English Central banker that the demand of funds does not depend on the interest rate. Very interesting, where the market equilibrium in author’s view would come from?
Another case of bizarre involves his assertion that the post-war credit enhancement in Britain was mainly a result of appreciation of gold against the pound. One has only to substitute “gold” in his equation for “oil,” “whiskey,” or “crackers” to see the absurdity of his proposition. One can measure the size of national economy, supply and demand of funds, and bank deposits in units of gold bullion, or in barrels of whiskey, or in boxes of crackers. If one measures correctly, results would not change, but this explains nothing.
In many instances Wood simply ignores the existence of real (production) economy, and attributes the dynamics of the interest rates and inflation entirely to the interaction between the Treasury and the Central Bank. He spends dozens of pages to explain post-war gyrations of the British pound by the intricacies of the relationships between the Exchequer and the Central Banker. The fact, that post-war Britain lost its Empire and industrial pre-eminence, experienced stagnation and then recovery of productivity and came through rounds of nationalization and de-nationalization just never makes it to the picture.
Where it suits his convenience, he reinserts real economy back into the frame. In conclusion, this book is so tarnished by the ideology of its author, that many important facts, mentioned in the book remain unclear, if not mystical.