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By Bruno COLMANT, Member of the Royal Academy of Belgium
The historical transition from the British pound sterling to the U.S. dollar as the world’s reference currency stands as one of the major turning points in 20th-century international economics. While the supremacy of the pound had symbolized the peak of the British Empire and the Industrial Revolution throughout the 19th century, the shift toward the dollar occurred gradually between the two world wars and was formally institutionalized in 1944. This was not merely a monetary substitution but a profound geopolitical, economic, and energy-driven upheaval whose effects are still felt today.
By the end of World War I (1914–1918), the structural weaknesses of the British economy were...
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