This chapter starts with the standard economic classification of the functions of money, then broadens the analysis to consider other related functions. In economics textbooks, money is said to serve three purposes: as a means of payment, unit of account, and store of value. After briefly explaining these functions, we revisit five monetary reforms enacted in Europe in the last century, showing how the monetary functions have been affected by those reforms: Reichsmark stabilization of 1923; Deutschmark introduction in 1948; German monetary reunification of 1990; and the introduction of the euro in 1999 and euro banknotes in 2002. These examples show that when the continuity of these functions is severed, monetary instability may result. Next we consider the requirements necessary to a successful money. Among them are portability; indestructibility; homogeneity; divisibility; stability in value, and cognizability. After considering the relationship between money and the state, we discuss supranational monies and the extreme ideal proposed by early philosophers and some modern economists: a single money for the world. We conclude that disconnecting money from the state (or from polity in a broader sense) is technically possible but difficult in practice. Money without states and monies with a less-than-complete political entities attached are more likely to be fragile and subject to confidence crises.

In chapter 11, To act now if we are to act at all (June 16 - Jun 27) the relative calm in Austria is followed by increasing concern about Germany which looses foreign exchange. The Bank of England, the New York Fed, the Banque de France and the Bank for International Settlements arranges a $100 million credit to the Reichsbank. Meanwhile,on June 20, US President Herbert Hoover announces his plan for a one year moratorium, which is received positively in most of Europe, but not in France. George Harrison assumes a more active role in trying to defuse the concern about a breakdown in Europe, and he enters into dialogue with the Banque de France, which is more open to a solution than the French government. The chapter ends with some optimism that the Hoover proposal may have changed the situation in Europe.

Chapter 10, A world political problem (June 11 - June 16). This chapter recounts the endgame of the Austrian crisis, while instability spreads to Germany. Norman comes to realize that in reality there is not much the central banks can do, since the real issue is "a world political problem" going all the way back to the Versaille Peace Agreement of 1919, the German war reparations and the allied’s war debts. The International Creditors Committee negotiate in Vienna with the Credit Anstalt and the Austrian government and at the very last minute they succeed in getting guarantee for their deposits, while promising to leave them for at least two years. At the same time, on June 16, negotiations with French bankers over the Austrian bond loans fails, and the Bank of England singlehandedly steps in with a bridge credit to the government. Together, the loan and the standstill agreement stops the Austrian crisis, at least for a while.

The chapter examines the evolution of the Reichsbank, from its establishment in 1876 until the departure of key figures of the directorate in 1939. It devotes particular attention to the record of central bank independence during the inter-war era, and the careers of those Reichsbankers who went on to lead the post-war central bank. The chapter argues that the origins of monetary mythology can be traced back to the Nuremberg trials, where a form of it was first applied in defence of Schacht amid efforts to sanitise both his record and the conduct of the Reichsbank under his tenure.