This volume investigates the viability of Michal Kalecki’s alternative proposals to the Keynes and White plans during the formation of the Bretton Woods system and evaluates their long-term implications for global economic policy. Edited by Jerzy Osiatyński, the text compiles scholarly contributions from an OECD conference to re-examine the historical critiques leveled against the Bretton Woods framework. It argues that the overlooked perspectives of economists like Kalecki, Schumacher, Balogh, and Prebisch offer a necessary counter-narrative to the standard history of international monetary institutions.

Experts recognize this collection as a significant contribution to the history of economic thought, particularly for its recovery of marginalized critiques of the post-war financial order. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the specialized nature of the economic arguments presented.