This project, funded by a generous grant from the AHRB, examined how the League of Nations shaped international economic and monetary relations in the years between 1927 and 1950. Directed by Dr Patricia Clavin, the project focused on the work of the Economic and Financial Organisation of the League, which, on the one hand comprised a variety of inter- governmental committees made up of delegates from nation states and, on the other, special sections of the Secretariat, staffed by League experts.

The study was based on extensive research in a number of archives in Switzerland, Britain, Germany, France and the United States, much of which was conducted by the post-doctoral research officer employed on the project, Dr Jens Wessels. The study explored the League's intellectual, political and practical contribution to the evolution of economic and monetary relations in the wake of the dramatic upheavals caused by the advent of the Great Depression and the rise of international tensions that culminated in the Second World War. The project has revealed that the Economic and Financial Organisation of the League of Nations played a much more proactive and multi-faceted role in the international political economy of the period than has been recognised. In particular, the Secretariat of the League, so often characterised as the whipping boy of nation states, formulated some innovative policy responses to the pressing issues of the day which, while unsuccessful in the hostile context of the 1930s, made a significant contribution to the recasting of international economic relations during and after the Second World War. The third member of the project team was Helen Johnson (based at Jesus College) who completed a D.Phil. study on the work of Sir Frederick Leith-Ross, the Chief Economic Advisor to the British government and a significant player in the history of the Economic and Financial Organisation of the League.

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