Eurotragedy: a drama in nine acts

Despite the title of his book, the story Ashoka Mody tells in Eurotragedy is as much a mystery as a tragedy. He argues that there is nothing surprising about the problems that the European single currency has created. It was always going to produce divergence and increase conflict between its members—as economists like Nicholas Kaldor argued as early as 1971. ‘Rather than bringing Europeans together’, Mody writes, ‘a single currency would divide Europeans’ (p. 8). Thus, one of the questions that the book seeks to answer is why, given the obvious dangers and limited benefits, did Europeans go ahead anyway. Mody's book is one of the most coherent histories of the euro, starting at its origins in the minds of European leaders like Georges Pompidou and ending with the crisis that began in 2010. But perhaps the most important contribution Mody makes is his critique of the ‘pro-European’ ideology that was used to justify the euro's creation. It was this ideology—which Mody calls groupthink—that blinded European leaders to the way that the single currency would actually undermine rather than strengthen the wider European project.