Since the end of World War II, groups such as the World Trade Organization, European Union, and G-20 have sprung up to promote trade, ensure financial stability, fight poverty, and perform other economic missions. Included among these goals is an ultimate aim: preventing the kind of global economic instability that so often leads to war. But while such bodies are trying to knit the world together, the voices of nationalism are objecting that national sovereignty is being lost. Furthermore, such organizations have the failings common to all human institutions.

Do they really work? Are we better off without them? What is the best route to prosperity, and do they help smooth the way or obstruct it? International Economic Institutions: Globalism vs. Nationalism uses these influential bodies as a lens to study today’s globalized economy. In 24 half-hour lectures, award-winning teacher and economist Professor Ramon P. DeGennaro of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, conducts you through the dizzying array of international institutions, their backgrounds, goals, and the important roles they play in the economic life of the entire world. In a lively and fascinating presentation, he analyzes the organizations in depth to reveal their strengths and weakness. Among the topics covered are the origins of the Great Depression; the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference; the causes of the Great Recession of 2007–2008; and the background to the UK’s “Brexit” vote in 2016 to leave the European Union.