Claude and Lore Kelly Professor in European Studies, he is Professor of History and International Affairs. He studies economic and financial history and modern European history. Educated at Cambridge University (Ph.D. in 1982), Dr. Harold James was a Fellow of Peterhouse for eight years before moving to Princeton in 1986. He holds joint appointments at Princeton University; as professor of History and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School. He was a member of the Independent Commission of Experts investigating the political and economic links of Switzerland with Nazi Germany and of commissions to examine the roles of Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank. He was also Chairman of the Editorial Board of World Politics, and is a member of the executive committee of Princeton’s Institute for Regional and International Studies.
His most recent books include Family Capitalism (Harvard University Press, 2006); The Creation and Destruction of Value: The Globalization Cycle (Harvard University Press, 2009); Making the European Monetary Union (Harvard University Press, 2012); The Euro and the Battle of Economic Ideas, with Markus K. Brunnermeier and Jean-Pierre Landau (Princeton University Press, 2016).
He was co-editor of The Thriving Society: On the Social Conditions of Human Flourishing a collection of essays co-sponsored by the Witherspoon Institute and the Social Trends Institute. In this interview following the publication of the book, Professor James encourages readers to strive towards a society that is not merely decent but dynamic.
