This is a reassessment of the international monetary crises of the post-World War I period, that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s. It also analyzes the responses of the world's economic powers to the Depression and how new monetary policies set the stage for the watershed post-World War II system established at Bretton Woods. It offers new theories of what effect the Great Depression had on the collapse of the world monetary system, and what effect the collapse had on deepening and prolonging the Depression, by exploring the link between global economic crises and the the gold standard (the framework for international monetary affairs until 1931).