How the euro came into being and was seen as a solution for the European Union is the topic of a talk by Princeton University historian Harold James on Wednesday, May 13, at 10:30 a.m. in the Boynton Auditorium of the Goizueta Business School.

James, Claude and Lore Kelly Professor in European Studies at Princeton, will discuss "The Rise of the Troubled Euro." This Hightower Lecture is part of an Emory University–Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta workshop on monetary and financial history.

The event is free and open to the public, but guests should register online by Tuesday, May 12, to attend.

James will discuss the important and very difficult choices that democratically elected governments face when dealing with the tradeoffs among policy goals in an open economy. He will also address the need to develop new forms of cross-border cooperation to reduce the possibility of sudden, potentially destabilizing reversals and shocks. A question-and-answer session will follow.

The talk is sponsored by Emory's Department of Economics, the Halle Institute for Global Learning, the Hightower Fund, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.